Muslim Origins and Destinations

Author(s):  
Tahir Abbas

Patterns of racism in the Global North are correlated with the changing nature of globalization and its impact on individual economies, especially over the last four decades. The ‘left behind’ are groups in society who have faced considerable downward social mobility, with some becoming targeted by the mainstream and fringe right-wing groups who do this to release their pent up frustration towards the center of political and economic power. How this form of racism has evolved over time to focus on race, ethnicity, culture and now religion is explored in relation to the UK case, discussing the rise of Trump and the issue of Brexit as symptoms of a wider malaise affecting societies of the Global North. These forms of tribalism act to galvanize the right, combining racism with white supremacy, xenophobia and isolationism.

Sociology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 883-903
Author(s):  
Saffron Karlsen ◽  
James Yzet Nazroo ◽  
Neil R Smith

This study uses data from consecutive England and Wales censuses to examine the intragenerational economic mobility of individuals with different ethnicities, religions and genders between 1971 and 2011, over time and across cohorts. The findings suggest more downward and less upward mobility among Black Caribbean, Indian Sikh and Muslim people with Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani ethnicities, relative to white British groups, and more positive relative progress among Indian Hindu people, but also some variation in the experiences of social mobility between individuals even in the same ethnic groups. For some groups, those becoming adults or migrating to the UK since 1971 occupy an improved position compared with older or longer resident people, but this is not universal. Findings suggest that these persistent inequalities will only be effectively addressed with attention to the structural factors which disadvantage particular ethnic and religious groups, and the specific ways in which these affect women.


2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-282
Author(s):  
Manabu Noda

Many theatre pieces in Japan now focus on a certain type of physicality which results from the sense of unease present in Japanese society. Manabu Noda argues that the senses of estrangement, distrust, apathy, helplessness, and incongruity in this supposedly democratic country come partly from the macho pressures under the right-wing Koizumi administration of 2001–06, and examines some current Japanese performances in the context of Japanese post-war society and of the continuing conflict in Iraq. He explores how these performances stage the body ill at ease – perceived as something irrevocably ‘left behind’ physically rather than textually. Manabu Noda is former general secretary of the Japan Centre of the International Association of Theatre Critics, and presently holds the position of Professor in the School of Arts and Letters at Meiji University in Tokyo. A theatre critic, he has also published books and essays on British and Japanese acting and theatre history. The present paper is based on a presentation in October 2006 at the conference ‘Foundation and Horizon of Hong Kong Performing Arts Criticism’, organized by the International Association of Theatre Critics in Hong Kong, and on a shortened version presented at the IATC 2006 Extraordinary Congress in Seoul.


First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darren Linvill ◽  
Matthew Chambers ◽  
Jennifer Duck ◽  
Steven Sheffield

We analyzed message board content originating with the online persona “Q,” leader of the right-wing conspiracy community known as QAnon. We qualitatively placed all of Q’s messages into one of five qualitatively derived categories: allusion to hidden knowledge, undermining institutions and individuals, inspirational, administration and security, and call to action. Further analysis of how these categories are used by Q over time illustrates how the messaging evolved. Specifically, later Q messaging focused less on hidden knowledge and conspiratorial thinking and more on politics relative to earlier messaging. We also note what Q does not include in messages: very few direct calls to action are made to the QAnon community and no specific, direct calls for violent action. Implications and future directions of research are discussed.


Societies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Ken Roberts

This paper sets changes in Britain’s class structure since 1945 alongside the parallel sociological controversies about class. Since the 1970s, the class scheme developed by John Goldthorpe and colleagues for initial use in their study of social mobility in Britain has become sociology’s standard template for thinking about and researching class. Versions have been adopted by the UK government and the European Union as their official socio-economic classifications. This paper does not dispute that the Goldthorpe scheme is still the best available for classifying by occupation, or that occupation remains our best single indicator of class, or that a constant class scheme must be used if the purpose is to measure trends over time in rates of relative inter-generational mobility. Despite these merits, it is argued that the sociological gaze has been weakened by failing to represent changes over time in the class structure itself and, therefore, how class is experienced in lay people’s lives. There has been a relative neglect of absolute social mobility flows (which have changed over time), and a pre-occupation with the inter-generational and a relative neglect of intra-career mobilities and immobilities.


1983 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Stern

AbstractThe discussion of health inequalities in Britain (e.g. in the Black Report) has been conducted largely on the basis of social class mortality differentials measured by achieved social class and not by social class of origin. It is shown in this paper that social class mortality differentials by achieved social class are not invariant to the rate of social mobility and that the use of them is likely to result in a biased measure of trends in health inequalities when the absolute rate of social mobility varies over time. It is further shown that if, as is likely, health status is a factor systematically affecting the probability for an individual of upward or downward social mobility, then an increase in the rate of social mobility may well result in constant or widening social class mortality differentials by achieved social class even if the differentials are narrowing when measured by social class of origin. It is claimed that this process may well explain why the observed social class mortality differentials, which are measured by achieved social class, have not fallen in Britain during the post-1945 period.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Pilkington

The murder of George Floyd by police officers in the US in 2020 reignited the Black live matter movement and reverberated across the world. In the UK many young people demonstrated their determination to resist structural racism and a number of organizations subsequently acknowledged the need to take action to promote race equality and reflect upon their historical role in colonialism and slavery. At the same time, resistance to these challenges has mounted, with right-wing news media and the UK government drawing upon an anti-woke or anti-PC discourse to disparage attempts to combat structural racism and decolonise the curriculum. This chapter argues that the campaign to discredit anti-racism culminated in 2021 in the production of the Sewell report commissioned by the government. This chapter critically examines this report and the discourse which underpins the report. The discourse is consonant with that of the anti-woke campaign propagated by the right-wing news media and the UK government, and entails the reproductoion of rather than opposition to structural racism.


2019 ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Paul D. Scott

Abstract The title of this paper is a play on words re-working the word democracy into demos-crazy. This re-working however is not a joke as the election of authoritarian illiberal candidates in the United States, the Philippines, Hungary, Turkey and Brazil (to name but a few) has called into question the future shape of politics. Electoral politics is under siege by new parties as well as spontaneous movements. There are fundamental questions which need to be addressed. What are the reasons for the rise of right-wing populism? Is populism undemocratic? What has been the role of social media and ICTs in helping to create a new political spectrum? Politically and socially what does it mean if we have entered a post-truth age? The demos has not become crazy but democracy is certainly in retreat. This paper argues that liberalism needs to construct an honest counter-narrative in contrast to the fear-mongering and false nostalgia of the right. The rhetoric of the right is opportunistic, but it would be a fatal mistaketo dismiss its appeals. After all, it has won elections. The demos is not crazy, but has been ignored and in many cases left behind. Positive populism is grounded in human dignity and fairness. This is the essence of democracy.


2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard English ◽  
Richard Hayton ◽  
Michael Kenny

AbstractThis article analyses the importance of arguments developed since 1997 by influential right-wing commentators concerning Englishness and the United Kingdom. Drawing on historical, cultural and political themes, public intellectuals and commentators of the right have variously addressed the constitutional structure of the UK, the politics of devolved government in Wales and Scotland, and the emergence of a more salient contemporary English sensibility. This article offers case studies of the arguments of Simon Heffer, Peter Hitchens and Roger Scruton, all of whom have made controversial high-profile interventions on questions of national identity, culture and history. Drawing on original interviews with these as well as other key figures, the article addresses three central questions. First, what are the detailed arguments offered by Heffer, Hitchens and Scruton in relation to Englishness and the UK? Second, what does detailed consideration of these arguments reveal about the evolution of the politics of contemporary conservatism in relation to the Union? And, third, what kinds of opportunity currently exist for intellectuals and commentators on the fringes of mainstream politics to influence the terms of debate on these issues?


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 120-129
Author(s):  
A. Mitrofanova ◽  
O. Mikhailenok

The article aims at identifying the characteristics shared by the right-wing populist civil movements of Western Europe and the USA and evaluating the possibility to use them for researching right-wing nationalist organizations in Russia. The movements selected for the comparison range from party-like electoral actors to unorganized protesters. They include as follows: The Five-star Movement (Italy), PEGIDA and the like (Germany), the English Defence League (the UK), the Tea Party Movement (the US). The authors identified several interrelated characteristics shared by these movements: (1) dealing with local, usually social, issues, (2) network-like structure of autonomous local groups building the agenda from below, (3) ideological ambivalence leading to replacing ideology with subculture, (4) digitalization of activism. Although in Russia there are no civic movements structurally or functionally identical to Western right-wing populists, the authors demonstrate that local social issues and civic responsibility have become important topics for some Russian nationalists (right-wing radicals) since the mid 2000s. The trends of deideologization and dealing with non-political local issues are researched mainly on the example of the “Frontier of the North” (Komi Republic). The authors conclude that some of the radical Russian nationalists are gradually declining their own independent agenda, following local protests instead. This opens up the possibility for right-wing organizations to become local civil society institutions and to participate successfully in local elections, similar to the “electoral break-through” of right-wing populists in the West. Although it is too early to speak about the deideologization of Russian nationalism, the article suggests that some nationalists are ready to mitigate ideological tensions to secure expanded social support. At the moment, nationalist organizations in Russia remain frozen between right-wing radicalism and emulating Western right-wing populism.


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