The un/methodology of ‘theoretical intuitions’: resources of generations gone before, thinking and feeling class

ABSTRACT

Class Matters, by Mahony and Zmroczek (1997), was an important collection marking working-class women’s contribution to the academy and society. In taking up the question of class, this paper considers the ways in which a partial and particular discourse reflected its author’s material circumstances, including her preferred conceptual interests as well as her un(self)conscious knowledge. In revisiting the way class ‘mattered’, and continues to matter – we devised and enacted an exploratory dialogical methodology to open up the original text to new meanings and interpretations influenced by generationally and geographically specific intellectual/theoretical vocabularies. The paper enacts this multivocality with reflections from each author, connected by a co-authored exploration of affect and the power and problematic of the ‘autobiography of the question’.

KEYWORDS:

• Class
• affect
• multivocality
• generation
• identification

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Sarah graduated with a doctorate in 2016 and Daniel in 2019. Sarah was co-supervised with Mairead Dunne and Daniel with Louise Morley.

2 The advertisement is available on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/25134969) and youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjuZc-qKAfQ)

3 Accents bridge the symbolic and the material. Marking distinctions of geography (Cavanaugh, 2005), class (Addison & Mountford, 2015) and race (Errihani, 2016). As such, accents are a practice of inclusion and exclusion.

4 Mithering is a Northern dialect word for pestering – usually used by the mother of a nagging child or as the affect of unease in the mind of the person – a sort of irritating bother.

5 The expression ‘well good’ became the focus of class mockery in the comedy sketch series ‘Lee Nelson’s well good show’ which ran for two series in 2010–2011 and ‘Lee Nelson’s well funny people’, which aired for one series in 2013 on BBC Three.