Novara FM: What Does Class Mean Now?
Novara Media
Novara Media
4.8 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2023
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We’re going back to basics on Novara FM this autumn with a series about the big one: class. What does it mean to look at the world through the lens of class in the 2020s, an era of precarious work, rising inequality and elusive social mobility?
Three classy thinkers join FM to investigate: political researcher Nihal ElAasar, cultural critic Juliet Jacques and writer and Verso editor John Merrick. They begin the series with an introspective session on the meaning of class today, drawing on their very different upbringings in Egypt, the home counties and the north of England.
The series continues in two weeks with writer Kenan Malik exploring the clash between class and identity politics.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Class. You've heard of it, and you can often hear it, in the way I pronounce the word |
| 0:06.4 | itself, with a slightly longer and darkened r sound. You can start to make some judgments |
| 0:12.5 | about where I'm from, where I went to school, and what perhaps, my parents did. You might |
| 0:18.1 | also be able to guess something about my class background, from my name, Richard Hames, |
| 0:24.0 | and the fact that I'm here introducing a new series on class, on the VAR FM. That's a good |
| 0:30.0 | indicator of upbringing itself, because although only 7% of the UK population went to a fee-paying |
| 0:37.2 | school, just over half of our journalistic. But these kinds of markers are only one account of what |
| 0:43.6 | classes. Another tradition of thinking, the Marxist one, considers class quite differently. |
| 0:50.8 | There, the simplest version, goes that the proletariat, or sometimes working class, are those |
| 0:57.2 | who are required to work to survive, and the bourgeoisie are those who own the means of production. |
| 1:03.7 | These two different concepts of class are of course to some extent correlated. Although it's a shame, |
| 1:09.3 | they are so often really conflated. Such is the model over class in British society, |
| 1:16.0 | that we thought it was time to get back to basics, from the VAR FM. I think about this essential |
| 1:20.8 | category of leftist thought. And to do so, we're bringing you a short series of special episodes |
| 1:26.8 | presented by three thinkers, writers and broadcasters, who have pledged to say on the subject, |
| 1:32.0 | John Merrick, Judith Jakes, and Nihaal El Asa. John is an editor-adversive books, |
| 1:38.4 | and is written essays on his upbringing in the north of England. Juliet is a cultural critic, |
| 1:43.8 | and Navara media contributor, known for her book, Trans, a memoir. Her podcast, |
| 1:49.6 | One Arts and Culture, called Sweet 212, and her writing on football. And Nihaal is a political |
| 1:56.4 | analyst and writer from Egypt, now living in London, where she has written for Navara on the topic |
| 2:02.2 | of Palestine. Across the next few episodes, they get to the bottom of the dynamics of class |
| 2:07.8 | in the contemporary world. In episode one, they ask if our recent model over class |
... |
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