ABSTRACT
The Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies is a timely volume that provides an overview of this interdisciplinary field that emerged in the 1990s in the context of deindustrialization, the rise of the service economy, and economic and cultural globalization. The Handbook brings together scholars, teachers, activists, and organizers from across three continents to focus on the study of working-class peoples, cultures, and politics in all their complexity and diversity.
The Handbook maps the current state of the field and presents a visionary agenda for future research by mingling the voices and perspectives of founding and emerging scholars. In addition to a framing Introduction and Conclusion written by the co-editors, the volume is divided into six sections: Methods and principles of research in working-class studies; Class and education; Work and community; Working-class cultures; Representations; and Activism and collective action. Each of the six sections opens with an overview that synthesizes research in the area and briefly summarizes each of the chapters in the section. Throughout the volume, contributors from various disciplines explore the ways in which experiences and understandings of class have shifted rapidly as a result of economic and cultural globalization, social and political changes, and global financial crises of the past two decades.
Written in a clear and accessible style, the Handbook is a comprehensive interdisciplinary anthology for this young but maturing field, foregrounding transnational and intersectional perspectives on working-class people and issues and focusing on teaching and activism in addition to scholarly research. It is a valuable resource for activists, as well as working-class studies researchers and teachers across the social sciences, arts, and humanities, and it can also be used as a textbook for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|68 pages
Methods and principles of research in working-class studies
chapter 1|12 pages
Class analysis from the inside
chapter 3|14 pages
Mediating stories of class borders
part II|84 pages
Class and education
chapter 5|16 pages
Class Beyond the Classroom
chapter 6|11 pages
Working-class student experiences
part III|64 pages
Work and community
chapter 15|12 pages
Feeling, re-imagined in common1
part IV|60 pages
Working-class cultures
part V|118 pages
Representations
chapter 23|18 pages
The ‘body of labor’ in U.S. postwar documentary photography
part VI|106 pages
Activism and collective action