By the middle of the twentieth century, a radical critique of both traditional sociological research and society emerged, centring on the work of Stuart Hall (1932-2014) and others at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (or CCCS). Hall and his colleagues were increasingly drawn to issues of racial inequality and structural racism as well as to youth culture and its place within networks of radicalism and consumption.

Reading

Chas Critcher, 'Actions not words: neighbourhood activism and cultural studies', in Kieran Connell and Matthew Hilton (eds), Cultural Studies 50 Years On: history, practice and politics(London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), pp. 247-256 [e-book]

Kieran Connell and Matthew Hilton, 'The working practices of Birmingham's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies', Social History, 40:3 (2015), pp. 287-311 [link]

Kieran Connell, 'Policing the Crisis 35 years on', Contemporary British History, 29:2 (2015), pp. 273-283 [link]

Jessica White, 'Child-centred matriarch or mother among other things? Race and the construction of working-class motherhood in late twentieth-century Britain', Twentieth Century British History, 33:4 (2022), pp. 498-521 [link]

Seminar questions

• What made the research undertaken by Stuart Hall and others a departure from earlier social-scientific endeavours in Britain? How should we fit it within the context of other approaches and ideas explored on this module?
• What is the place of the media in these analyses?
• How did race and youth intersect in this work? Do you think that the connections made by the researchers are necessarily the right ones?
• How does the focus on race and youth interact with analyses of class? Do they highlight the weaknesses of class as a category of analysis?
• How far was this research negotiating a boundary between research and activism, and how successful were its practitioners at doing so?
• Activity: Choose one of the CCCS publications above and come prepared to offer a summary and analysis of it. (Hebdige’s Subcultures focuses more on youth culture, the other two book-length studies examine race and racism.)

Further reading and resources

Sundari Anitha, Ruth Pearson and Linda McDowell, 'Striking lives: multiple narratives of South Asian women's employment, identity and protest in the UK', Ethnicities, 12:6 (2012), pp. 754-775

Rosalind Brunt, '"Reading for tone": searching for method and meaning', in Kieran Connell and Matthew Hilton (eds), Cultural Studies 50 Years On: history, practice and politics (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), pp. 91-100 [e-book]

Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie and Suzanne Scafe, The Heart of the Race: black women's lives in Britain (London: Virago, 1985) [2018 second edition also available in the Library]

Elizabeth Buettner, '"Going for an Indian": South Asian restaurants and the limits of multiculturalism in Britain', The Journal of Modern History, 80:4 (2008), pp. 865-901

Kieran Connell, 'Photographing Handsworth: photography, meaning and identity in a British inner city', Patterns of Prejudice, 46:2 (2012), pp. 129-153

Jon Garland, Keith Gildart, Anna Gough-Yates, Paul Hodkinson, Bill Osgerby, Lucy Robinson, John Street, Pete Webb and Matthew Worley, 'Youth culture, popular music and end of "consensus" in post-war Britain', Contemporary British History, 26:3 (2012), pp. 265-271 [introduction to a wider edited collection on this theme]

Paul Gilroy, There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack: the cultural politics of race and nation (1987 - 2002 Routledge Classic edition available as an e-book from Warwick Library)

Matthew Worley, ‘Shot by Both Sides: Punk, Politics and the End of “Consensus”’, Contemporary British History, 26, 3 (2012), pp. 333-354

Top: Cover of Stuart Hall et al's Policing the Crisis: mugging, the state and law and order (1978)

Bottom: Stuart Hall addresses a demonstration.