Project Description
An increased awareness of poverty around the globe has lead to a call for interdisciplinary 'poverty studies' (Gandal 2009 ), in which literature, cinema and the arts have been ascribed a special capacity to complement sociological and economic studies with a perspective of individually ‘experienced’ poverty (Martha Nussbaum recently weighed in, too.). While poverty and its representation have long been discussed with a focus on the Global South, economic developments in the twenty-first century have lent new visibility to poverty and social inequality in the Global North and given rise to increased debate in which the media and cultural production take an active role.
Our project has focused on the situation in the United Kingdom and the multiple ways in which the field of contemporary British literature and notably the British book market have reacted to the increased attention to (and protest against) poverty, economic inequality and class difference – including the alleged emergence of a new ‘underclass’ since the rise of New Labour in the mid-1990s. As of mid-2013, Britain still has one of the highest Gini coefficients in the EU, i.e. an indicator for social inequality, and one that has significantly increased since Thatcher’s time. (The Gini coefficient's change over time can be traced in a spreadsheet made available by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (2013). Child poverty was a central theme of the election campaign in 2010, which was also the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. The debate about new poverty and pauperism, new class difference, ‘fiscal austerity’ and ‘Broken Britain’ has been central in the British media for years.
This interest is mirrored by the topic’s presence on the (British) book market: indicative is a search on Google Ngrams, which will display an upward curve for the occurence of the words "poverty" and "poor" in fiction published in English since 2000, indicating a beginning reversal of a long-term downward trend. Readers’ attention to books with a poverty, inequality or class theme is also documented, for instance, on Goodreads, where readers can shelve books under the label poverty, create thematic lists (including, for example, 'Awesome Orphans' or 'Underclass') or collect quotes on poverty. Not only are there numerous relevant ‘nonfiction’ titles but also a broad range of auto/biographical and fictional narratives broaching the issue of poverty, some of which have even become bestsellers. None of these have yet been the subject of scrutiny from a perspective of literary and cultural studies, and it is this gap which the project made a first step to fill, with a specific focus on narrative texts.
The major publication derived from the project investigates this literature through an approach that looks at figurations of poverty in different segments of the British book market: life writing (including so-called 'misery memoirs'), popular genre fiction, literary fiction, books for children and young adults as well as nonfiction. Books and writers discussed include:
Lifewriting: Jennifer Worth (Call the Midwife), Constance Briscoe (Ugly: The True Story of a Loveless Childhood), Peter Roche (Unloved: The True Story of a Stolen Childhood), Jeff Randall (Love Hurts: The True Story of a Life Destroyed)
Popular Genre Fiction: Catherine Cookson and Penny Vincenzi, Ian Rankin and Elizabeth George (What Came Before He Shot Her), Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Jonathan Trigell (Genus), Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere), Terry Pratchett (The Dodger)
'Literary' Fiction: Kerry Hudson (Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma), J.K. Rowling (A Casual Vacancy), Patrick Gale (A Perfectly Good Man), John Berger (King), Jon McGregor (Even the Dogs)
Fiction for Children and Young Adults: Livi Michael (The Whispering Road), Berlie Doherty: Street Child, Melvin Burgess (The Hit)
Non-Fiction: Danny Dorling, Owen Jones (Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class), John Lanchester, Katherine Boo
A supplementary chapter sketches parallel developments in other fields of cultural production: photography (Spencer Murphy, Chris Killip), cinema (Lynne Ramsay: Ratcatcher, Andrea Arnold: Fish Tank, Ken Loach: The Angels' Share), television, theatre (Simon Stephens: Port, Christine Bacon and iceandfire: Voices from the Edge)