Big Society: Broken or Olympian? (Cornwall campus)

Almost exactly 12 months to the day after the centres of major British/English cities exploded in intense and unexpected violence, leading the Prime Minister to claim that British/English society was broken and needed fixing, the Olympic games were seen as a success in reinforcing a national identity that emphasised inclusion, multi-culturalism and a triumph of the volunteering spirit. How are these two visions of British/English society compatible? Are we a nation of atomised individuals desperately needing to be able to display the commodified signs of material success, or is this a society comfortable with itself and capable of calling on an impressive voluntary commitment to make work an event as complex and symbolically important as the Olympic games?

This dilemma has a strong political core, and it will address the politics of identity and community dynamics, as well as changing perceptions of the role of the state. How far was Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ simply recycling ideas of social inclusion and exclusion from New Labour? Historians will also be interested in historical examples of the creation of sustainable communities, at earlier expressions of the role of charity and voluntary effort in coping with social need and about the problems of making policy in situations of socio-economic complexity and interrelatedness.

Lead academic: Professor Alan Booth

Anchor academic: Dr Joanie Willett

Taster session

Date: 2 November

Time: 10:00-11:00

Location: Chapel Lecture Theatre

Description: In July 2010, David Cameron (re) launched the ‘Big Society’ idea which was designed to take power away from politicians and give it to the people in their communities. Almost exactly 12 months later, the centres of major British (English?) cities exploded in intense and unexpected violence, leading the Prime Minister to claim that British (English?) society was broken and needed fixing, not least by exemplary punishments to those who had trashed their local communities. Twelve months on again, and British society was lauded for the selfless volunteering for the London Olympics.

We can easily see that the Big Society programme raises some very complex issues that merit detailed study. We can begin with state/society relations, and running parallel would be the difficulties of understanding the notion of community and the (differential) ability of communities to identify and tackle issues. Finally, but by no means least, there is the massively complex question of how identities are formed and sustained. One of the functions of this taster session is to explore these problems in the company of the academics involved. But it is also to take the discussion into the Big Society of Cornwall to explore the practical supports for and impediments to community action to tackle problems in the poorest part of England. We aim to bring two speakers from or working with the voluntary sector in Cornwall to bring the issues very much to your attention.

The final element of the session is to introduce to the range of different outputs that we plan for this Challenge. We are looking for academic rigour and practical awareness and hope to get you enthused by the range of different exercises that we have in mind and the challenge of bringing these themes back together in a final plenary session.

Sign up: If you miss this session you can view it on ELE.

If you wish to pick this dilemma sign up through My Career Zone from 5^th November.

Professor Alan Booth

Alan Booth is a professor of history at the Cornwall campus. His research interests involve British economic and social policy in the postwar period, and he is currently working on a project on the Thatcher governments. He also has an interest in promoting links between the University in Cornwall and enterprise in the heritage and other sectors and has been involved in promoting social enterprise on the campus.

Professor Phillip Payton

As Professor of Cornish and Australian Studies, Philip Payton is acknowledged as a leading specialist on Cornish emigration history. He has worked extensively on the Cornish diaspora, and especially on the creation of ‘Cornish’ ‘identities’ overseas. His most recent book Regional Australia and the Great War: ‘The Boys from Old Kio’ (University of Exeter Press: 2012) is an in depth examination of the wartime experiences of one Cornish emigrant community, and complements his Making Moonta: The Invention of ‘Australia’s Little Cornwall’ (University of Exeter Press: 2007). In respect to this project, his interests extend to the complex issues surrounding identities away from the heartland of southern England.

Professor Nick Groom

Professor Nick Groom investigates questions of authenticity and the emergence of national and regional identities, particularly in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. After a number of extremely well-received studies on both the ballad tradition and literary forgery, Nick’s work became more emphatically interdisciplinary. Most recently, a cultural history of The Union Jack (London: Atlantic, 2006; paperbacked 2007), has examined expressions of British identities and was extremely well-received by both academic and wider audiences. This work on national identity and culture has inspired further research into the relationship of culture variously with the past, with noise, and with the landscape, and he is currently working on a history of representations of the British environment and the problems of sustainability.

Dr Joanie Willett

Joanie’s PhD, which was completed in 2010, explored the linkages between Cornish identity and economic development. It considers in depth how the politics of identity, power and representation impacts on socio-economic processes from both theoretical and practical angles and is deeply interdisciplinary, involving collaboration across politics, geography, economics and sociology. Leading from this landmark, she is looking at theories of complexity, evolutionary development, perception, representation, emergence and sustainability in relation to eco-town development in the UK, the relationship between ‘core’ and ‘peripheral’ areas, and comparative work between Cornwall, Wales and Brittany. This latter work forms the basis of a forthcoming research monograph.

Martin Eddy

Martin Eddy is Cornwall Council’s community network manager for the China Clay, St Blazey, Fowey and Lostwithiel areas. Community networks are the focal point for bringing communities together and driving improvements. Cornwall Council establish and support 19 community networks across Cornwall based on the main towns and the rural areas which relate to them. They are the main way the council connects with local communities. The community network managers are the visible face of the council in each area, working with councillors, partners, officers and the local community to make the localism approach work.

Inquiry Groups

If you sign up for this dilemma you will have the opportunity to work in an inquiry group focusing on one of these areas:

How should local government react to the Big Society agenda?
Is the university/are universities able to contribute to the Big Society agenda?
Did Thatcherism countenance a Big Society?
What constitutes a sustainable community?
How are community identities creates and sustained?
What have the 2011 rioters said about their cultural identities?
What is the role of the media in community identity?
In this context, how does a Celtic identity differ from an English identity?
Volunteering: an altruistic gesture or working for free?
Social enterprise: the new face of business?

The types of outputs that you will produce will include:

Appraisal for Cornwall Council on its communities policy
Audit of the Cornwall Campus’s existing and potential relationship with its ‘community’
Narratives of community (interview programme) identity in a local town/village
Manifesto for the Labour Party around the Big Society programme
Draft bid to the HLF for a community support programme
Newspaper article for The Guardian on the community reaction to the 2011 riots
Comment piece for the Observer on identity and the Olympics