Programme full

Thursday 16 April 2015 11:00 - 12:30
PAPER SESSION 4
give-away) of a NAVER community ‘Joonggonara.’ motivation and reason of give-aways were collected to determine
the exchanged shared value for a gift. In result, there were 2 big major values requested for give-away, economical
and social. Each value required showed different effect including social network of agents, click rates and number of
replies. With this case of generalised exchange enabled by internet - open to everyone, watched by everyone, but not
knowing the others - we can examine how the generalised exchange itself can make and maintain a economic society
by controlling shared value.
Social Divisions/Social Identities
M228, GEORGE MOORE BUILDING
Social Identity Construction among Benefit Recipients in Scotland
Graham, H., Egdell, V, McQuaid, R.
(Edinburgh Napier University)
Over the last four years, the UK Coalition government has been engaged in a project of welfare reform, which aims to
reduce expenditure and achieve greater 'fairness'. In this endeavour, the UK Government discourse has often focused
on the need to reduce expenditure on those who receive government support but do not 'deserve' it, and this is
accompanied by the implication that there are a large number of people who fall into this category. At the same time,
there has been a trend of hardening public attitudes and increasing stigma towards welfare recipients, informed in part
by negative media reporting that portrays extreme cases as typical.
This paper explores social identity construction among benefit recipients, in a context of changes to the welfare
regime, and the government, media and public discourses around these changes. Drawing upon data collected during
a qualitative longitudinal research project on the impacts of welfare reform on working-age adults in Scotland, it
explores the construction of individual and collective identities in relation to the respondents' status as benefit
recipients. It examines respondents' perceptions of deservingness, and the way in which they identify, and distinguish
themselves from, those whom they designate as 'undeserving'. It is suggested that recipients may create these
distinctions as a coping mechanism against a discourse that they find hurtful and stigmatising, and to resolve the
internal conflict created by their membership of a group they feel antipathy towards.
Single Mothers and Stereotyped Others in 21st Century Britain
Carroll, N.
(University of Huddersfield)
One in four children in the UK are now brought up in single parent households and 92% of single parents are female.
Yet, despite the increasing diversity of family forms and prevalence of lone motherhood, evidence shows the
heterosexual two parent model remains privileged economically and socially.
Tracing the relationship between normative family and citizenship models, state policies and attitudes to lone mothers
from the Poor Laws, through 'underclass' debates and New Labour's 'workfare' agenda, this paper will unpick the
dynamics of current public discourse and private experience. It is based on qualitative research exploring lone
mothers' experiences against the backdrop of fiscal austerity, benefit conditionality and reality television programming,
which includes 'single mothers' among those vilified for benefit dependency.
Theoretically, the doctoral research draws upon critical realist philosophy, feminist principles and Bourdieu's concepts
of 'symbolic violence' and 'symbolic capital' to consider the interplay between structural and agential factors.
While previous research has tended to focus on mothers in deprived areas, this study aims to reflect wider diversity by
also involving women in more affluent areas. The comparative approach features in-depth interviews in two
neighbouring locations with contrasting socio-economic profiles.
Women in both locations reported incidences of stigma and anger that negative stereotypes do not reflect the reality of
their struggles to balance breadwinner and carer roles. Examples of 'othering' emerged frequently as a response to
stereotyping. This paper suggests that classed and gendered neo-liberal policy and discourse is having a retrograde
effect on lone mothers harking back centuries.
Living in Wongaland: The Moralization of Payday Lending
Marron, D.
(Abertay University)
161 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University