ABSTRACT
In the original chapter, Hoggart immerses himself and the reader in the details of a working-class life that is in the process of transformation. Here is the epitome of what became (British) Cultural Studies, the study of culture as a way of life prompted by an interdisciplinary approach that in Hoggart’s case was at its leading edge ‘literary’. This interpretative study of meanings, this ethnography, this ‘thick description’ is motivated by its sense of context(s): historical, social, cultural, political. Like Hardy, Hoggart writes essentially about ‘time past’ as both participant, adherent and refugee/émigré/ apostate.
This response offers a critique of Hoggart’s methodology, which is dismissed by David Buckingham as ‘casual observation’ and constitutes at best a kind of painterly concern for human life as natural history. It then offers a more active and politically conscious alternative with reference to the work of Ken Loach, Jacques Ranciere, the rhizomatic curriculum and The Likely Lads.
