City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Negotiating cohesion, inequality and change, uncomfortable positions in local government, Hannah Jones

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

index present

non fiction

Negotiating cohesion, inequality and change

bibliography

Hannah Jones

uncomfortable positions in local government

How are multiculturalism, inequality and belonging understood in the day-to-day thinking and practices of local government? Examining original empirical data, this book explores how local government officers and politicians negotiate 'difficult subjects' linked with community cohesion policy: diversity, inequality, discrimination, extremism, migration, religion, class, power and change. The book argues that such work necessitates 'uncomfortable positions' when managing ethical, professional and political commitments. Based on first-hand experience of working in urban local government and extensive ethnographic, interview and documentary research, the book applies governmentality perspectives in a new way to consider how people working within government are subject to regimes of governmentality themselves, and demonstrates how power operates through emotions. Its exploration of how 'sociological imaginations' are applied beyond academia will be valuable to those arguing for the future of public services and building connections between the university and wider society, including scholars and students in sociology, social policy, social geography, urban studies and politics, and policy practitioners in local and central government

Introduction: Getting Uncomfortable -- 1: Negotiating cohesion, inequality and change -- 2: Contradictory narratives of cohesion -- 3: 'Is there anything the council did that distracted you from extremism?' -- 4: 'I Love Hackney'/'Keep It Crap' -- 5: 'We spent a lot of time trying to be known for other things' -- 6: 'You need to be totally objective, but you can't be' -- 7. Thinking Inside the Box