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Living and Working on Sheppey: Past, Present and Future
Graham Crow (Southampton) and Dawn Lyon (Kent)
Re-using the ESDS Qualidata Pioneers of Qualitative Research Collection
University of Essex, 10 December 2009
Overview of project
South East Coastal Communities Project Dawn Lyon, Peter Hatton, Tim Strangleman
(University of Kent), Graham Crow (University of Southampton), Jenny Hurkett, Alice Young (Blue Town Heritage Centre, Sheerness), in association with TEA, and UKDA
Focus on memories of the Naval Dockyard (closed 1960) and its occupational community and on young people’s imagined futures
Partial re-study of Ray Pahl’s 1970s/80s study
Location of Sheppey
Map of Sheppey
(Some of) the project team outside the Blue Town Heritage Centre, Sheerness
The original study
Divisions of Labour (1984) based on an extensive, mixed methods project
Revisiting the archived essays written by 142 school leavers in May 1978 (mainly 16-year-olds, 90 boys, 52 girls)
Speedy publication of ‘Living without a job: how school leavers see the future’ New Society 2 November 1978: 259-62
Revisiting the data
What is gained by re-visiting the archived material?
New Society article acknowledges that it doesn’t do full justice to the full range of themes in the essays: ‘My material would be extremely hard to interpret without some knowledge of the local context. As this improves, I may wish to modify my present interpretation’ (1978: 262)
Methods 1
• First, there are interesting lessons about methods
• Demonstrates the value of ethnographic exploration early on in a large mixed methods study (and need for caution)
• Themes developed by Pahl and Wallace of middle mass, owner-occupation and DIY, distinctive local culture, etc. identifiable in embryo in essays
Methods 2
Middle mass ‘my family and I were not rich but we were not poor either’ (essay F131); ‘I just lived an ordinary life’ (M30)
DIY improvements to owner-occupied housing ‘[with birth of second child] by this time our house was getting crowded and rather than move, we decided to extend’ (F93)
Methods 3
‘when I left school at the age of 16 I started work at a DIY shop learnt the trade… then I bought myself a piece of land with all the knowledge behind me I could build my own house… and that is what happen[ed]’ (M51)
Methods 4
‘Most of these households in the middle mass own their own homes and, judging from the Sheppey Survey, gain substantial satisfaction from creating a style of life based on small-scale domesticity’ (Pahl 1984: 320)
‘the image of the self-made, self-employed, and self-building man is a popular local archetype’ (Wallace 1987: 13)
Methods 5
Reproduction of negative local images ‘this domp of a place’ (M64); ‘living in a dump like Isle of Sheppey’ (M73); ‘I was now living in London away from the increasingly boring Isle of Sheppey’ (M28); ‘I would also dream of the day that I would leave the island for good’ (F110)
Methods 6
But more positive accounts: ‘we decided to stay on the island being as we both had our families here’ (F99); ‘me and my wife decided to move to the Isle of Sheppey back to my home’ (M42); ‘When I retired I bought a house in a quiet part of Minster and I settled down to laze away the years I had left’ (M85)
Methods 7
‘I was shown on a number of occasions how a crude drawing of East Anglia and the Thames Estuary could demonstrate that “Sheppey was a piece of shit in the arse ’ole of England”. But then the conversation would quickly shift and many would emphasise that it was curious how often people came back to the Island after leaving it for a time… people felt at home on Sheppey… Working-class Islanders do have a strong commitment to their locality’ (Pahl 1984: 189, 193)
Sheppey as a ‘space of hope’ (Harvey, 2000)
Debates in social science
Secondly, archived material has points of connection to long-standing debates in social science
Household work strategies link to ambitions, aspirations, plans, fantasies and the best ways of capturing these (Himmelweit et al 1952; Veness 1962; Elliott 2005; Anderson et al 2005; Brannen & Nilsen 2002, 2007)
Doing sociology
Thirdly, feed into knowledge of the history of Sociology and how it is practised
Jennifer Platt’s comment that ‘routine practices’ (2005: 29) of sociologists neglected
Archive includes Pahl’s notes about some of the essays on cards ‘Totally unrealistic idea of what he earns and what he gets – own house, car etc.’ (on 38); ‘Total fantasy’ (on 8); ‘own business buying and selling cars’ (on 76)
Drawing on Himmelweit et al (1952); Veness (1962)
Essays are writing from present about a future that is past
How people conceive of and conduct courses of action (Archer, 2007)
Imagination as method
Imagination of researchers too? Looking back and seeing different themes; exchange on craft of sociology
Emerging themes: Hope/Escape
The ‘might have been’ and intergenerational mobility John made money – compares himself to school friend, Mark,
still in factory job although ‘probably equally as happy now’ – his own children ‘will never have to graft like I did’, not like Mark’s children (M15)
Son got apprenticeship; father failed to (M36) Jill gave up hope of being teacher but younger daughter in
education with ‘hopes of becoming a teacher’ (F91) Adventure: motorbikes, boats and sailing Pleasure: enjoy life ‘until the end’ (M8) Standing: gained ‘respect’ (M16) Geographical mobility Turning points and things working out OK…
Emerging themes: Constraint 1
Failure: in exams, e.g. ‘half the O’levels hoped for’, at interviews, in availability of work
Inadequacy: ‘not good enough’ (M48); wanted to live in Italy ‘but that was asking for too much’ (M56); ‘this [cleaning work] was all I was fit for’ (M75); ‘had to settle for second best’ (F104)
Gratitude: finding a job as ‘one of the most pleasing moments in my life’ (M1); ‘jobs were scarce so you had to take what you can get’ (M30); life ‘not one of sheer tragic disaster’ (F97)
Bourdieu and amor fati; Durkheim and satisfaction relative to expectations
Emerging themes: Constraint 2
Entrapment: By the age of 33, rebel had died - ‘like my father was at that age and probably his father before him’; wife liked upward mobility ‘even though it didn’t make me happy’ (M4); ‘for the next 40 years I did the same thing’ (M22); ‘Went on then dole with thousands of other people’ (M16)
Endurance: ‘Grin and bear it’; ‘learn to like it’ (M2); retirement as ‘tedious’ (M1); ‘it was a matter of keeping a job’ (M33)
Body as expression of life’s limits: legs amputated (M21); rheumatism (M29); ‘cripple’ (M30); car crash (M33); 2 broken legs (M61) – women refer to accidents of male partners, esp in cars (F96, F99, F117, F119)
Multi-voiced texts
Internal conversations and external expressions of reflexive imaginings
Other people’s aspirations for the author Family sayings/community wisdom as
resources for sense-making Examples: ‘settling down’; ‘fell for baby’; re
money ‘it might not seem much to you but it got me by’ (M33)
The (im)possibility of life projects
Significant proportion of essays are apparent ‘nonsense’
Future as extended present (Brannen and Nilsen, 2002)
Fragmented reflexivities? (Archer, 2007) Examples: ‘at 40, I can safely say my life
had ended’ (M4); story stops at age 30 (M12); same job all life (M39); ‘by 50 I was old’ (F129)
Ongoing research
New essays currently being collected (ca 70 so far) – collaboration with Academy - formal process of consent from teachers and students
Under broadly similar conditions to 1978 ones Context of recession But earlier in academic year More explicit wording/instructions to teachers
Both data sets coded and analysed quantitatively
Starting point for other forms of expressions, especially using the visual and everyday technologies
References Anderson, M. et al (2005) ‘Timespans and plans among young adults’ Sociology
39(1) 139-55 Archer, M. (2007) Making our Way through the World, Cambridge University Press Bourdieu, P. (1999 [1993]) The Weight of the World, Stanford University Press Brannen, J. and Nilsen, A. (2002) ‘Young people’s time perspectives: From youth
to adulthood’ Sociology 36(3) 513-37. Brannen, J. and Nilsen, A. (2007) ‘Young people, time horizons and planning, A
response to Anderson et al’ Sociology 41(1) 153-60. Elliott, J. (2005) Using Narrative in Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches (London: Sage) Harvey, D. (2000) Spaces of Hope, Edinburgh University Press. Himmelweit, H. et al (1952) ‘The views of adolescents on some aspects of the
social class structure’, British Journal of Sociology 3(2) 148-72 Pahl, R.E. (1978) ‘Living without a job: how school leavers see the future’ New
Society 2 November 1978: 259-62 Pahl, R.E. (1984) Divisions of Labour (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) Platt, J. (2005) ‘What should be done about the history of British Sociology?’, in
A.H.Halsey and W.G.Runciman (eds) British Sociology Seen from Without and Within. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Veness, T. (1962) School Leavers: Their Aspirations and Expectations (London: Methuen)
Wallace, C. (1987) For Richer, For Poorer: Growing up in and out of work (London: Tavistock)
Contact details
Graham Crow, University of Southampton [email protected]://www.southampton.ac.uk/socsci/sociology/staff/profile.php?name=gpc
Dawn Lyon, University of [email protected]://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/academic/lyon.htmlhttp://nowaytomakealiving.net/
Living and working on Sheppey project http://www.bluetownheritagecentre.com/project.html
