The Big Society is quickly becoming one of the key themes of this blog, which I didn't quite expect when I started it.  I have commented before that I have a general sympathy for the concept, but, as recent posts should have made clear, that doesn't mean I have any qualms about critiquing it. 

Since I've been following the Big Society, I've been excited to see a couple of emerging trends.  The first is the Labour response, for which we should be watching Jon Cruddas and Hazel Blears.  The second is the CofE response, and, following the general synod debate, there has been comment from Bishop Nick Baines and from theologian John Milbank which I'm hoping to address in a future post.  I think it's through these responses, which are simultaneously embracing and critical, that we're going to start seeing the Big Society terrain being really mapped out. 

Anyway, what I want to do in this post is talk a bit more about why, as an anthropologist of Britain, I'm interested in the Big Society. 

In a recent-ish post over at Savage Minds, Chris Kelty gave as his 2nd rule for anthropology bloggers:

Blog about anthropology.  Most of our anthropology brethren break this rule, and blog primarily about what’s in the news.  But who needs an anthropology blog to do that?  If it’s about what’s in the news, but also about what anthropology has to say: much better.

Well, the Big Society is in the news ... and I think anthropology has a lot to say about it. 

My research is around issues of tradition, heritage, nostalgia and rural communities.  I'm chasing the suspicion that the past is back as a viable political narrative.  I think that the Big Society is part of that.  I might be wrong (and proving yourself wrong is a big part of research), but that's where I'm coming from at the moment. 

More generally, there are a lot of questions that "we" (e.g. social scientists, theologians, lefties, progressives, radicals, thinkers and dreamers) should be, and are, asking.  Questions like:

• Who and/or what does the Big Society exclude?
• Will the Big Society replace public sector employment?
• How might the Big Society shape the future? 

I see value in asking these, and many other, questions for two reasons.  Firstly, it's by asking these questions that the Big Society agenda will be wrested from the badlands of Tory re-branding.  Secondly, it's by asking these questions that we can understand a lot more about Britain today ... and where it might be heading in the next decade. 

I've lived a bit of a charmed research life the past few weeks with plenty of political goings-on playing nicely into the hands of all my pet theories about tradition and the past and that sort of thing.

So I can see why plenty of folks have told me, since the big announcement, how neat it must be to be doing anthropological research on Britain with a royal wedding coming up. 

Meh.  I've thought. 

Now, I'm the same age as Prince William (but I don't have to deal with male pattern baldness), and I've been civilly united for just over a year, so I suppose I can pass on some tips like: don't invite your celebrant to the reception (sorry ++Rowan, best you go off home for your tea that day). 

But, as I commented in an earlier post, I find Prince William really dull.  I mean, really dull.  Now, I thought the Queen Mum was ace.  You knew she probably had mouldy old mint imperials in her handbag and a hipflask in her garter.  Even Prince Charles I have a bit of a soft spot for.  He's managed to combine his father's noted knack for going off about things with an ability to actually go off about things that aren't to do with racism, xenophobia, or hunting.  But William is kind of like a tin of own brand beans; you know it's there, but really, if you want beans you're going to pay the extra for Heinz.  (Not to be confused with Harry as a Nazi.) 

I'm not an anti-monarchist by any means.  Unlike the regular outbreaks of republicanism over here in Australia, we NZers are generally pretty content to have the old girl as our figurehead.  (I've heard it said that this Antipodean point of difference is due to the fact the NZers love Coronation Street and Australians don't.)  And, I tend to think that elected representatives are usually so good at making a mess of things that non-elected ones couldn't do any worse. 

But, it's the dullness, you see.  It makes it hard for me to muster any care.  Maybe I'll be a rubbish anthropologist if I fail to take much notice of public royal wedding parties and devotions next year ... but it strikes me that it's so predictable.  There'll be the same crowds and carry-on with William and Kate as there would be if Harry was marrying a horse. 

So for the moment I'm sticking to my nuptial nonchalance.  Though I'm going to issue a challenge for people to change my mind on this: how do you think the royal wedding might be significant for the anthropology of Britain? 

[Forwarded on to me via the Anthropology of Britain network] RESEARCHING EVERYDAY LIFE - CALL FOR PAPERS 13 January 2011, The University of Sheffield The Interdisciplinary Centre of the Social Sciences (ICOSS) and the Anthropology of Britain Network (AOB) are pleased to announce that they will be holding a joint workshop on the theme of "Researching Everyday Life". The workshop seeks to open up interdisciplinary conversations between scholars in the social sciences and the humanities on this common point of interest, explore the wide range of perspectives currently at work in our respective disciplines, and develop opportunities to network across disciplinary lines with a view to future research collaborations. Time will be reserved in the second half of the day explicitly for this purpose. Papers are invited that explore the theme of "Researching Everyday Life" in all of its various guises. The event will be open to all, with a registration fee of £10. Deadline for submission of abstracts: Friday November 12th 2010 Please send your abstract to: Jayne Parkin (j.e.parkin@sheffield.ac.uk)

Apparently there's been some news over the weekend.  Something about two brothers and a fight for a red rosette, and it wasn't even on Emmerdale.  So, Ed Miliband ... new leader of the Labour party.  Jackie Ashley assesses the situation, and noted political commentator Archdruid Eileen (welcome back from Wessex) has more up-to-the-minute analysis. 

The other big news of the weekend was that he of the beard, Rowan Williams, gave an interview in the Times.  It's behind a paywall (and not the sort that involves signing up to a set of 52 weekly envelopes) so I've not seen it, therefore I don't know how the Times render into type the sound of parishioners being merrily thrown under a bus.  The Church Mouse suggests +Rowan can't hack the interview game, and Charlie Peer reckons a bit of being true to oneself wouldn't go amiss either.   

I'm not sure whether three lines for the new Labour leader and four lines for the AB of C is a sign of my judgment.

On a completely different note, guest Savage Mind Simone Abram looks at whether ownership is transformative, asking: 'Does owning more than one home make you an even more respectable citizen?'.  My answer is a definite yes, but I mean yes socially, rather than yes ethically. 

There was no Britain today yesterday.  There is a Britain today today, but it's short because I've been pulling Fosters cans out of the garden all morning (not mine, tossers who prefer gardens to bins).  There will be a Britain today tomorrow.  Hope you're confused.

Faisel Rahman asks 'how can we encourage poor people to save?'. 

Jenny Diski is discouraged about politics.

Simone Abram on the other financial crisis.  My heart thrilled to the mention of Leeds.     

Now, I must go, as I'm off to finish writing a seminar paper. 

The Carbuncle award is annually bestowed for the most dismal town in Scotland.  Not being a Scottish romanticist (though neither am I the ghost of Trevor-Roper), and having formerly lived outside beautiful Dundee (which works a Soviet Russia look), I imagine the nominees list to be rather long.  This year's winner was John O'Groats.  I have been.  It ain't no Cape Reinga, that's for sure.  But!  Award drama!  Groats refuse to accept it, and the residents of Denny (Stirlingshire) are desperate to have it given to them instead.  The Denny logic is that winning the award will help them clean up their derelict town centre. 

On the derelict centres and social unease front: Notting Hill.  Channel 4 have decided to fill the big gaping hole left by the end of Big Brother (here I play the world's smallest violin in lamentation) with a fly-on-the-wall series about the suburb.  Skip the first paragraph or two about reality telly promises and this Indy article has a great Notting Hill potted history. 

Also in London, the St Marylebone Society have released some amazing colour film from the Blitz.  You can watch it on the West End at War site. 

Oranges and Sunshine, is a new film about Margaret Humphreys, the social worker who blew the whistle on the 'home children' scheme.  It's directed by Ken Loach's son, Jim Loach, and is apparently set for release in the next northern hemisphere spring, which should mean I'll be in the UK to see it. 

Nick Clegg has given his speech to the Lib Dem conference, and every Guardian political writer has an opinion on it. 

Finally, in exciting anthropology of Britain news, Simone Abram is guesting at Savage Minds.  In her first post, she discusses Iain Duncan Smith's housing proposals, suggesting he views them as being and having 'magical properties'.  This might give her the distinction of being the first anthropologist to put the magic in the Conservative party.  P-p-power of voodoo.  (All of her posts will be listed here as they are published, which helps with my anthro of new media allergies.)

Now, I'm off to read 'Enacting Rural Sociology: Or what are the Creativity Claims of the Engaged Sciences?'.  Answers on a postcard.  

My research is very loosely about the revival of tradition.  Not that, when I'm in full high-falutin' academic mode, I call it that ... anthropologists have to beware of dipping a toe into tradition, where crocodiles bite and eels are slippery.  Dorothy Noyes at the Cultural Property blog is made of sterner stuff than I am, and she's in fine form with this 1.0 go at explaining how traditional culture works. (h/t Savage Minds.) 

Though as an anthropologist of Britain I do wince a little at the notion of 'traditonal culture'.  Partly because we're not that far away from the not-so-good old days when we donned pith helmets, downed quinine, and definitely did not study the British (about 1995); but also because I wonder under what circumstances old blighty gets a look in as a traditional culture itself.  (Not that post-devolution, post-Writing Culture and post-modern I would write about Britain as culturally singular.  I can stick brackets and plurals on things with all the enthusiasm of a conference call for papers.)

There's a stubborn old Antipodean narrative about Britain as an 'old country'.  It usually refers to castles and grand houses and changing the guard at Buckingham Palace (Christopher Robin went down with Alice).  But I wonder just how far we'd be willing to take it ... or rather, just how far British people themselves could go.  The reason that I wonder this is that the past has great potential political utility.  In fact, (this is my schtick, so, get used to it, dear reader.  Definitely singular.  Hi Tracey.) there is an almost-pin-pointable moment around the turn of the last century when the future gets the jump on the past in terms of being mobilised politically.  And yet the past never quite went away for this purpose, and my inkling is that it's on the up again.  So Britain might not be a traditional culture, but the idea of traditional culture in Britain is something to be run with politically, I reckon. 

With that some links:

Phil Daoust on how to pick wild mushrooms in Britain

The Indy on 'forgotten foods' ... the National Trust have got in on the 'nostalgic nosh' game. 

Robin Wood with a fantastic article on woodlands and woodworking.  And barn photos.  

Also, the HCA put up a stunning video on rake making on their facebook feed today.  The woodworking set up caused me ridiculous amounts of delight.  

When I worked on a market garden in the East Riding, my boss was part of a small network of local organic producers.  They'd get together to go over planting, so that rather than everyone growing say, beans, and then fighting each other to sell them, they'd all grow different things.  This co-op of sorts gave everyone a market for their produce. 

But they also had to agree to buy from each other.  When my boss needed corn to sell to her customers, she would call her friend the corn grower.  It would have made economic sense to contact a wholesaler and get corn for the cheapest price, but it made better sense for her to work within the network.

In 'Contacts and Contracts', in the latest Ethnography, sociologist Darren Thiel spots these sort of non-economic networks on a central London construction site.  The construction firm (managed by white, I assume middle-class, people from Kent) employ a bunch of subcontractors to get the work done, and these subcontractors employ their own workers who tend to be from the same ethnic group and locality.  So we have the Irish labourers, the Seychelles plasterers, and the North London painters, amongst others.

Thiel has some lovely ethnography here looking at why these 'birds of a feather flock together' and why they keep on flocking (in the free world).  They tend to recruit from within relationship networks ("I've got a mate who can paint"), and there are network-specific codes of care which work to maintain loyalty.  The boss who "sorts out" a worker in hard times can count on loyalty; the worker caught stealing from others will be drummed out of the network.  And all these networks are kept attached to the building firm by plenty of boozy perks.

That these networks are not economically rational is partly a reminder of just how much our supposedly rational political-economic system really isn't.  One of Thiel's case studies, a capable worker who repeatedly declines higher-paying higher-status employment from the firm itself in order to stay within his network, might also point to an over-use of the concept of networking as a means of getting to the top, whereas they might just be means of being human in an economic system which wants to be resolutely not. 

There is another great example of people exploiting a structure in order to make their lives easier within it in the same volume.  Charles Kirke, an anthropologist with 30 years experience in the British Army, draws on his background to take a look at squaddie rule-breaking in 'Orders is orders ... aren't they?'.  The supplies which disappear ... the officer symbolically punished ... rules bent or played within.  Kirke draws on Goffman to analyse different types of rule-breaking, which is nice, despite the oddness of fitting rule-breaking into theoretical rules. 

One particular ethnographic vignette concerns 'buckshees' ('backsheesh' - there's a fascinating wee colonial throwback appearing in army slang), or unrecorded equipment.  The equipment is hoarded and used in an informal swapping network which bypasses labyrinthine official processes to get squads everything they need.  It's a fascinating study in how the most rule-oriented institutions are as much driven by organic interaction as they are by bureaucracy. 

There's nowt queer as folk ... or as crafty. 

And of course, 'tis A Beautiful Thing to see two British fieldsites in Ethnography.