Introduction

In 2013, the Working-Class Studies Association, in conjunction with the Labor and Working Class Studies Project, met in Madison, Wisconsin—the site of the 2011 Wisconsin Uprising—to present a joint conference and summit, Fighting Forward, in part to recognize the ongoing protests and activism against the state’s plan to erode collective bargaining rights for public employees. As a field, working-class studies began to coalesce during the 1990s, in part as a reaction to the kind of ‘new world’ globalization rhetoric espoused by neoliberals, but crucially as a reaction to the collapse of basic traditional industries in the Western economies such as the US, Canada, the UK and Western Europe. The field of working-class studies also emerged out of a concern with those negatively impacted by these changes and with a sense of mission to find value in working-class culture more broadly. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.