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Against Meritocracy
Culture, power and myths of mobility
Taschenbuch von Jo Littler
Sprache: Englisch

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Beschreibung
Meritocracy today involves the idea that whatever your social position at birth, society ought to offer enough opportunity and mobility for 'talent' to combine with 'effort' in order to 'rise to the top'. This idea is one of the most prevalent social and cultural tropes of our time, as palpable in the speeches of politicians as in popular culture. In this book Jo Littler argues that meritocracy is the key cultural means of legitimation for contemporary neoliberal culture - and that whilst it promises opportunity, it in fact creates new forms of social division.

Against Meritocracy is split into two parts. Part I explores the genealogies of meritocracy within social theory, political discourse and working cultures. It traces the dramatic U-turn in meritocracy's meaning, from socialist slur to a contemporary ideal of how a society should be organised. Part II uses a series of case studies to analyse the cultural pull of popular 'parables of progress', from reality TV to the super-rich and celebrity CEOs, from social media controversies to the rise of the 'mumpreneur'. Paying special attention to the role of gender, 'race' and class, this book provides new conceptualisations of the meaning of meritocracy in contemporary culture and society.
Meritocracy today involves the idea that whatever your social position at birth, society ought to offer enough opportunity and mobility for 'talent' to combine with 'effort' in order to 'rise to the top'. This idea is one of the most prevalent social and cultural tropes of our time, as palpable in the speeches of politicians as in popular culture. In this book Jo Littler argues that meritocracy is the key cultural means of legitimation for contemporary neoliberal culture - and that whilst it promises opportunity, it in fact creates new forms of social division.

Against Meritocracy is split into two parts. Part I explores the genealogies of meritocracy within social theory, political discourse and working cultures. It traces the dramatic U-turn in meritocracy's meaning, from socialist slur to a contemporary ideal of how a society should be organised. Part II uses a series of case studies to analyse the cultural pull of popular 'parables of progress', from reality TV to the super-rich and celebrity CEOs, from social media controversies to the rise of the 'mumpreneur'. Paying special attention to the role of gender, 'race' and class, this book provides new conceptualisations of the meaning of meritocracy in contemporary culture and society.
Über den Autor

Jo Littler is a Reader in the Centre for Culture and Creative Industries in the Department of Sociology at City, University of London. She is the author of Radical Consumption: Shopping for change in contemporary culture (2009) and co-editor, with Roshi Naidoo, of The Politics of Heritage: The Legacies of `Race¿ (2005).

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of illustrations

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Ladders and Snakes

Meritocracy as plutocracy

What¿s wrong with meritocracy? Five problems

Meritocracy as social system and as ideological discourse

How this book is organised

Part one: Genealogies

Chapter one: Meritocracy¿s genealogies in social theory

Never start with the dictionary

Early genealogies, histories and geographies

Ladders and level playing field

Socialist roots and critique

Social democratic meritocracy

The critique of educational essentialism

`Just¿ meritocracy? The beginnings of neoliberal meritocracy

Meritocracy in the neoliberal meritocracy

Chapter two: `Rising up¿: gender, ethnicity, class and the meritocratic deficit

See where your talent takes you

Partial progression and painful ladders: mid century welfare

Pulling rank: problems with welfarist `rising up¿

Selling 1968

Parables of progress: luminous media fables

Not so cool: unequal employment

Selling inequality: post-feminism, [...]-class?

Neoliberal justice narratives

The egalitarian and the meritocratic deficit

Chapter three: The movement of meritocracy in political rhetoric

Meritocratic feeling

Thatcherism in Britain

Major meritocracy

Blairism and beyond

Aspiration Nation

Tragi-comedy: Bojös `hard work¿

Blue-collar billionaires: Farage, Trump and the destabilisation of merit

Theresa May and the Middle England meritocrats

Aspiration for all?

Meritocracy vs. mutuality

Part two: Popular parables

Chapter four: Just like us? Normcore plutocrats and the popularisation of elitism

Meritocracy and the extension of privilege

The 1%, the new rentiers and transnational asset-stripping

Normcore plutocrats

Normcore aristocrats

The kind parent

Luxury-flaunters

The new rich are different

Chapter five: #Damonsplaining and the unbearable whiteness of `merit¿

#Damonsplaining and externalised white male privilege

Post-racial meritocracy

The racialization of merit: people

The racialization of merit: products

The racialization of merit: production

Trying to shut women up

Calling out the myth of postracial meritocracy

Externalised and internalised neoliberal meritocracy

Chapter six: Desperate success: Managing the mumpreneur

Doing it all

Child labour

Desperate success

Entrepreneurial Man

Magical femininity

The mumpreneur and the branded self

Disaggregation and alternatives

Conclusion: Beyond neoliberal meritocracy

Failing to convince

The journeys of meritocracy

What¿s the alternative?

Changing the cultural pull of meritocratic hope

Alternatives to the ladder

Index

Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2017
Fachbereich: Allgemeines
Genre: Importe, Medienwissenschaften
Rubrik: Wissenschaften
Thema: Lexika
Medium: Taschenbuch
ISBN-13: 9781138889552
ISBN-10: 1138889555
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Kartoniert / Broschiert
Autor: Littler, Jo
Hersteller: Routledge
Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Books on Demand GmbH, In de Tarpen 42, D-22848 Norderstedt, info@bod.de
Maße: 210 x 148 x 14 mm
Von/Mit: Jo Littler
Erscheinungsdatum: 15.08.2017
Gewicht: 0,331 kg
Artikel-ID: 127834514
Über den Autor

Jo Littler is a Reader in the Centre for Culture and Creative Industries in the Department of Sociology at City, University of London. She is the author of Radical Consumption: Shopping for change in contemporary culture (2009) and co-editor, with Roshi Naidoo, of The Politics of Heritage: The Legacies of `Race¿ (2005).

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of illustrations

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Ladders and Snakes

Meritocracy as plutocracy

What¿s wrong with meritocracy? Five problems

Meritocracy as social system and as ideological discourse

How this book is organised

Part one: Genealogies

Chapter one: Meritocracy¿s genealogies in social theory

Never start with the dictionary

Early genealogies, histories and geographies

Ladders and level playing field

Socialist roots and critique

Social democratic meritocracy

The critique of educational essentialism

`Just¿ meritocracy? The beginnings of neoliberal meritocracy

Meritocracy in the neoliberal meritocracy

Chapter two: `Rising up¿: gender, ethnicity, class and the meritocratic deficit

See where your talent takes you

Partial progression and painful ladders: mid century welfare

Pulling rank: problems with welfarist `rising up¿

Selling 1968

Parables of progress: luminous media fables

Not so cool: unequal employment

Selling inequality: post-feminism, [...]-class?

Neoliberal justice narratives

The egalitarian and the meritocratic deficit

Chapter three: The movement of meritocracy in political rhetoric

Meritocratic feeling

Thatcherism in Britain

Major meritocracy

Blairism and beyond

Aspiration Nation

Tragi-comedy: Bojös `hard work¿

Blue-collar billionaires: Farage, Trump and the destabilisation of merit

Theresa May and the Middle England meritocrats

Aspiration for all?

Meritocracy vs. mutuality

Part two: Popular parables

Chapter four: Just like us? Normcore plutocrats and the popularisation of elitism

Meritocracy and the extension of privilege

The 1%, the new rentiers and transnational asset-stripping

Normcore plutocrats

Normcore aristocrats

The kind parent

Luxury-flaunters

The new rich are different

Chapter five: #Damonsplaining and the unbearable whiteness of `merit¿

#Damonsplaining and externalised white male privilege

Post-racial meritocracy

The racialization of merit: people

The racialization of merit: products

The racialization of merit: production

Trying to shut women up

Calling out the myth of postracial meritocracy

Externalised and internalised neoliberal meritocracy

Chapter six: Desperate success: Managing the mumpreneur

Doing it all

Child labour

Desperate success

Entrepreneurial Man

Magical femininity

The mumpreneur and the branded self

Disaggregation and alternatives

Conclusion: Beyond neoliberal meritocracy

Failing to convince

The journeys of meritocracy

What¿s the alternative?

Changing the cultural pull of meritocratic hope

Alternatives to the ladder

Index

Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2017
Fachbereich: Allgemeines
Genre: Importe, Medienwissenschaften
Rubrik: Wissenschaften
Thema: Lexika
Medium: Taschenbuch
ISBN-13: 9781138889552
ISBN-10: 1138889555
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Kartoniert / Broschiert
Autor: Littler, Jo
Hersteller: Routledge
Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Books on Demand GmbH, In de Tarpen 42, D-22848 Norderstedt, info@bod.de
Maße: 210 x 148 x 14 mm
Von/Mit: Jo Littler
Erscheinungsdatum: 15.08.2017
Gewicht: 0,331 kg
Artikel-ID: 127834514
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