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https://theconversation.com/the-concept-of-class-is-often-avoided-in-public-debate-but-its-essential-for-understanding-inequality-187777>
"In Australian news, opinion and popular culture, the figures of the hipster
and the bogan are everywhere. These figures are proxies for cultural,
commercial and moral aspects of class, signalling differences in fashion,
accents and tastes. Perhaps one of the most recognisable examples is the
popular television series, Upper Middle Bogan.
So potent and provocative are these figures in Australian popular culture, that
in our experience of talking about class in the media earlier this year,
following the release of our book Class in Australia, interviewers most often
wanted to talk about hipsters and bogans.
These figures are important for understanding class in Australia, including how
moralised classed judgements about “good” versus “trashy” culture are made. But
to talk about class in Australia involves talking about material inequality,
work conditions, and the social, economic and political relations that produce
wealth and poverty.
In a settler colony like Australia, it also involves addressing how class
relations have been built on the foundations of colonialism and the exclusion
and exploitation of Indigenous people, as Eualeyai/Kamilaroi academic, lawyer,
filmmaker and advocate Larissa Behrendt noted in her contribution to our book.
The ongoing crisis of COVID-19 has highlighted the need to acknowledge the
drastically different experiences of the global pandemic, depending on the kind
of work you do. Front-line “essential” workers, often precariously employed,
many of whom are in working-class jobs, have fundamentally different
experiences of risk and exposure than white-collar workers able to work from
home.
COVID-19 has also exposed the complex and fragile global flows of migrant
agricultural workers, whose labour Australians rely upon to put food on the
table, and whose lives were put in limbo."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
