Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable

by Beverly Skeggs

Overview

Explanations of how identities are constructed are fundamental to contemporary debates in feminism and in cultural and social theory. Formations of Class & Gender demonstrates why class should be featured more prominently in theoretical accounts of gender, identity and power. Beverley Skeggs identifies the neglect of class, and shows how class and gender must be fused together to produce an accurate representation of power relations in modern society.

The book questions how theoretical frameworks are generated for understanding how women live and produce themselves through social and cultural relations. It uses detailed ethnographic research to explain how 'real' women inhabit and occupy the social and cultural posit

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761955115
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	07/21/1997
Series:	Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society Series , #51
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.37(w) x 9.19(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

I worked at the Worcester College of Higher Education and the Universities of Keele, York, Lancaster and Manchester before joining the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths. I’ve worked in the areas of Women’s Studies and Cultural Studies as well as Sociology.

My research interests consolidate around the issue of value: what is it? How do we recognize it? What does it do? I only realized this recently when I was asked to summarise my work. Hence value has led me through issues of class and gender formation, an exploration of symbolic value through media and cultural formations, into feminist and poststructuralist theory, Pierre Bourdieu and to the economic abstractions of Marx, to help me understand. I’m still working on it, currently attempting to understand how value moves on, through and with people as they live the imperatives of exchange in capitalism.

In July 2011 I become the joint managing editor of the journal Sociological Review, a major journal which has just celebrated 100 years of shaping the field. I’m incredibly proud to make a small intervention into its illustrious history.

Table of Contents

Introduction Processes, Frameworks and Motivations Respectable Knowledge Experience and Interpretation Historical Legacies Respectability and Responsibility Developing and Monitoring a Caring Self
(Dis)Identifications of Class On Not Being Working Class Ambivalent Femininities Becoming Respectably Heterosexual Refusing Recognition Feminisms Conclusions