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. 

Following on from my last post about boundaries and the Big Society, both Mil and Tracey have got some questions which make the whole thing curiouser and curiouser.  (I'm talking about this here at about the same time as the cogs in me 'ead are ticking over, so I hope that I am not about to hideously misrepresent either of them!)

Mil has a great post up about the possibility that the Big Society is designed for exclusion.  It's well worth a read, and not only because he mentions my post in it (thanks chap!).  He rightly asks that, if the Big Society is exclusionary, what are the reasons behind who is in or out?  It's a question Tracey, in her comment to my post, reorients slightly:

"It's not just the 'who', but what aspects of human life/ action can be included." (my emphasis)

In an earlier post, Mil had brought up the spectre of the classic Tory old boys' network, arguing that we can see this in the re-(financial)elitisation (my ridiculous made-up word, not his) of the universities. 

I think this pursuit of Tory vested interests is very much a part of the picture.  That tells us a bit about inclusion.  Not everything, but a bit.  

In her comment, Tracey points out that:

"The 'dangerous' classes result in a lot of work and movement of money to keep people like me in a job"

Maybe this tells us another little bit about why some people/aspects have to be 'out'.  (And I'm hoping that Tracey will come along and put the reference to Bauman on the 'dangerous classes' in the comments.)  We know (thanks, Karl) that the structure of a capitalist economy requires that some people lose (although, of course, when I say "we know", we make a good fist of carrying on as though we don't).  But, Tracey is I think suggesting that something similar has to happen to maintain (what I'm going to call right now) an economy of benevolence like the Big Society. 

Which, to come back to Mil's point, seems to suggest that designing for exclusion must be integral to it. 

I'm conscious that I haven't done Tracey's "what" as well as "who" point justice, but it probably sits very well with Mil's question about the evidence for exclusion.  I've suggested in my comment to his post that if we accept the design for exclusion thesis, then a good place to be evidence hunting might be in the moments where we're being reassured/reminded of the Coalition's "best intentions".  The fragments to be pulled out here will likely help with those "what" and "who" questions. 

I'm sure I will be batting some of these ideas around more later on, but, in the meantime, what do you reckon? 

I went yesterday to Tracey's PhD confirmation seminar.  She's working in Port Melbourne (a Melbourne suburb) and her big question is "should we call it a community?"

It's a really good question and the 'should', as she discussed, opens up all sorts of questions like: who has the ability to call it a community? 

This got me thinking a lot about the Big Society.  It often seems to me that what Big Society advocates use as examples are things that I would consider small-scale community action.  Should we call it a community, then?  And, what if we call it community? 

Tracey, in her response to a question, mentioned Anthony Cohen's The Symbolic Construction of Community.  Cohen is an absolutely vital anthropologist of Britain and his community theorising is deeply linked to analysis from British fieldwork.  

(Bear with me, this is the bit when it gets more interesting!)

Cohen says, it should be obvious from the book title, that communities are symbolically constructed and, also, bounded.  Symbols are used to unite.  Symbols are also used to exclude. 

So if we call the Big Society community, this raises a very big question about symbolic boundaries.  Who is excluded from the Big Society and how does this happen? 

I don't know about you, but the first thought that jumps out at me is about the IDS welfare reforms.  'Big Society' might be the OED word of the year but I'm increasingly convinced that we cannot understand the Conservative articulation of it unless we read it together with 'workshy'.  So it might be missing the point to press for more examples of what the Big Society is, or isn't.  It might be more worthwhile to ask who it is, or isn't. 

The Big Society is a funny old thing.  An absolute cornerstone of the Conservative rebranding, it is also something that, by definition, belongs to everyone (in a very different way to the "we're all in this together ... just some of us are richer than yeouwww" sloganeering). 

This week, the CofE General Synod will be debating the Big Society.  I haven't yet read their discussion paper, though I will be following the debate with interest because I suspect that this will be one of the Big Society's big tests.  As one of the largest volunteer-mobilisers in the country, the CofE could in some sense be seen as a model for the Big Society (and we've seen suggestions of this in the Tory courting of Church favour, e.g. Baroness Warsi's address to the bishops).  So, how will what emerges as the Church's understanding compare to what we know so far of the Tory articulation?  Whose Big Society is it anyway?

We have, of course, other rumblings of Big Society discontent over with the Labour party.  It turned out to be Tessa Jowell getting stuck into a bit of constituency gardening that got a few pairs of red knickers all a-twisted.  In response, Jessica Asato asked "is social action 'unLabour?'", but I couldn't help but wonder whether the question also has to do with who can occupy the Big Society agenda.  Is Tessa Jowell gardening just a bit too Big Society?  Should the Labour response be to articulate their own version or would this be allowing the Tories to frame the debate?  As Nick Pearce puts it, "Will Labour embrace small 'c' conservatism or left communitarianism?"  When Paul Richards suggests that Labour be "seen to be changing things in your neighbourhood, from painting the walls to fixing your bike", might this be a clearer description of the Big Society than the Tories have so far offered?  Whose Big Society is it anyway?

It's been twenty years since the demise of Margaret Thatcher, after a 'harrying of the North' that in many ways illustrated the capacity of marginalised communities to band together; a very different community to the idyllic rurality of the 'new squirearchy' that might undergird David Cameron's Big Society experience.  Whose Big Society is it anyway? 

Britain Today today is brought to you by English Beat's 'Save it For Later', and a sad kitten who has eaten too many biscuits. 

From the nation that brought you colonialism comes more immigration hypocrisy, this time with the hysteria preventing artistic exchange.  Daft as a paintbrush.  On a somewhat similar topic, Anton Vowl writes intelligently on 'white' Britishness (and rumours of demise). 

Under daft as a brush, see also: Lord Young, who has resigned after suggesting that during the 'so-called recession' we've 'never had it so good'.  The most interesting comment, of course, has been over whether what he's gone and said might be true: tosh, says the Spectator, though, wait a second, says Stumbling and Mumbling.  Meanwhile, Dave Osler at Labour Uncut notes that Lord Young (and his well-off ilk) have always had it better. 

More big news came last week of course in the looming spectre of the royal wedding.  My thoughts about Prince William don't get much far beyond wondering whether he is actually the most boring man in Britain, or whether an accountant from Milton Keynes might just pip him to the title.  For sheer entertainment value I'd rather see Fergie and Andrew try it all over again (after re-uniting on I'm a Celebrity, of course).  Anyway, here's Paul Richards on the wedding, the monarchy, and the Labour party's relationship to it all. 

The Indy reviews Jesse Norman's The Big Society and suggests it might be the clearest explanation yet (but that isn't necessarily saying much!). More book reviews over at Open Kingdom, where two books about why the Tories didn't gain a majority at the election are put head-to-head. 

Since the Coalition took power, Britain has become one of the 'most data-friendly countries', according to Datablog which wonders whether government spending data can really change the world?

Here's the full text of Nick Clegg's recent political reform speech.  Worth reading, I think.  In more Clegg coverage, William Davies asks 'who is the fairest of them all?'. 

Quick and without much explanation today, I'm afraid, since I've just eaten too many eccles cakes to be able to move much! 

Datablog asks: what's the real number of jobless people in Britain?

The Heritage Crafts Association spring conference will be held on the 19th of March 2011 at the V&A.  It looks a steal at £25/30. 

Simon Barrow (Ekklesia) on why he has no faith in the Big Society. 

A couple of posts about an interesting new book on Britain, Towards Re-Enchantment: Place and Its Meanings.  Ken Worpole comments as does Nick Pearce. 

I was rather struck by a piece from the Big Society Network which asked how people might find time for the Big Society.  What grabbed me was, if the implications are thought through, how much this idea flies in the face of current socio-economic thinking.  Business, is, after all, the state of being busy. 

Being busy is celebrated.  If you are busy, the thinking tends to go, you are working hard.  And, great inheritors of the Protestant work ethic that we are, hard work is next to godliness.  Indeed, just the other day IDS was announcing it was a sin not to work, and, of course 'Workshy' was the word (complete with a good whiff of Victorianism) peddled out to get fists waved at benefit claimants. 

Whole industries compete to tell us how busy we are and how much, therefore, we need their services.  Food is a great example of this: fast food for when we're on the go; ready meals for when we're so busy we only have time to bang on the microwave; all manner of pre-prepared things to save us time; and pretty much every bookshop will have a hefty stack of cookbooks with titles like "Quick-fixes in 30 minutes or less". 

Amidst this, part of the Big Society rhetoric has focussed on assuring us that it will not be a drain on our time.  At the RSA's Big Society event, Jonty Olliff-Cooper was keen to point out that a great 'quick-fix' example was a smartphone app for sending pictures of graffiti to the council.  But, as I see it, that's not the Big Society, that's snitches with fancy phones. 

The thing is, making a meaningful contribution to a local community (or a big society) does take time, and that does not sit well in a cultural moment in which being 'time-poor' is often taken as a visible sign of success. 

I'm not being a naysayer here.  I do have a soft spot for the Big Society because it speaks to the voluntary, community-focussed sphere in which I am involved and which I would consider 'good work' rather than work for work's (or profit's) sake.  But in that incarnation it doesn't play nicely alongside other tenets of Conservative policy ... and it often doesn't play nicely alongside commercial values.  Thought through in this way, it threatens either to be the radical elephant in the room, or to be perpetually hobbled.

There's some interesting comment over at 21stCenturyFix that might put a few more pieces in the puzzle.  Maybe, it asks, rather than demonising being workshy, we might consider that it actually has great power.  Maybe it isn't being workshy that's the problem; maybe the problem is the relentless pressure to be time-poor. 

Seatbelts on, please.  This is going to be a biggie. 

There has been quite a lot of comment about the student protest.  I tend to agree with this suggestion from The Spectator that the violence is likely to help rather than hinder the Coalition's cause. 

There has also been a lot of political moaning about the European Court's judgment that British prisoners must have the right to vote.  I'm with Kate Green: so they should. 

Off course the other big news has been IDS and his work-for-the-dole scheme.  Well, it isn't quite.  The idea, apparently, is to pack long-term (12 months+) unemployed off on a month's community service.  Excellent comment from Jackie Ashley (who took a Guardian comments bashing for it).  More discussion on the carrot and the stick from ToryDiary.  (Though must we have the spurious 'supporting families' bits ... says this daughter-of-multiply-reconstituted-families.)

Ross McKibbin in the LRB has a must-read on the current political/economic situation.  Add this to a very interesting perspective over on the Inequalities blog on 'why the welfare state doesn't matter any more'. Elsewhere, Sunny Hundal writes on why the left shouldn't oppose all cuts and Jonathan Todd argues that Labour must consider (and articulate) multiple futures, not just certain post-cut doom.  

Oldham post-Woolas (you done good, Harriet) is shaping up to be one to watch.  ToryDiary look at whether it should be given to the Lib Dems ... or if the Tories should put up a good fight.  Regardless, we might see here the North's first real political comment on how the Coalition is going. 

Amidst all of this political talk, Kerim Friedman's look at Bourdieu and the role of the public intellectual hits the spot nicely. 

Over at the CofE, the final reccommendations from the Faith and the Future of the Countryside conference have been released.  It has been a bit of a speaking out week for the Church with ++Rowan expressing grave concerns about welfare reforms.  (Although that Telegraph link dramatically hypes up 'church in crisis' over the flying bishops!)

Michael Young (author of 1957's Family and Kinship in East London) remembered.  His life and work calls, Paul Richards argues, for a Good, not a Big, society. 

I reckon the 70s are fast becoming the new 60s as the darling decade of scholarly research.  Andrew O'Hagan writes on the 70s style. 

Whew!  Can I have the weekend now?