The politics of precarity in the 21st century

Professor Mike Savage from the London School of Economics will be discussing the recent work that he and his team conducted for the BBC on their Great British Class Survey.

This survey went viral on social media, and as such became the largest survey of social class ever conducted in the UK. In approaching the survey from a conceptualisation of class based on the distribution of economic, social and cultural capital, the research has unveiled findings that indicate that class is in fact an incredibly complex and political issue in modern society. In his seminar, Mike will be reflecting upon the project and the implications of his findings for the current political context, as well as looking beyond traditional labels of class to explore how and why society has changed, and what this means for people who find themselves in the margins as well as the centre.

Mike Savage is Professor of Sociology and head of department at the London School of Economics, following his positions as Professor and head of department at the Universities of Manchester and York. He was the founding Director of 'CRESC' – the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, and was appointed Academician of the Social Sciences in 2003 and Fellow of the British Academy in 2007. His academic work has primarily centred around the ‘cultural turn’ of sociology, and has spent many years working to develop methods that allow academics working with class theory to do better justice to the cultural dimensions of social life.