Owen Jones: Chavs: the demonization of the working class

Owen Jones will be talking about his work, and answering questions at this free event – all welcome.

In his first book, Jones lays out the ways in which swathes of the working class population of the UK, now referred to simply as “Chavs” are treated as unpeople, “people who are marginalised or entirely absent from media coverage” (Jones, Guardian, 20/3/11). Whether they are defined in terms of the clothes they wear (Burberry and bling), their leisure pursuits (racing tricked up cars, drinking and indiscriminate sex leading to ...babies) or by their language (“whatever”, “innit”, “yeah but, no but...”), the characterisation of the Chav is immediately recognisable. Jones pinpoints some of the causes of this – the closed middle class shop of politics and media who reiterate a particular and damaging view of a class they have never experienced and the role of social and financial capital in silencing any other voices, not least those of the working class themselves. As Jones puts it, “the working class has become an object of fear and ridicule.....the working class has gone from “salt of the earth” to “scum of the earth”” (Book Back Cover) and is blamed for social ills ranging from racism (despite leaders of BNP and EDL being staunchly middle class) to the national debt. As Jones says, “the chav stereotype is used by governments as a convenient figleaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems, and to justify widening inequality” (Book Back Cover)

Date: 22 June, 11

Time: 19:30 - 22:30

Venue: Ruskin College, Walton Street, Oxford, OX1 2HE

Contact:

For further information please email llivesey@ruskin.ac.uk and please feel free to distribute this notice to other interested groups and people.