The Other America

Harris Beider is Head of School of Social Sciences and Professor of Communities and Public Policy at Birmingham City University. Previously he was Professor of Community Cohesion at the Centre for Trust, Peace & Social Relations at Coventry University and Visiting Professor at Columbia University in the City of New York. Harris has published widely on race, racism and white working class. Kusminder Chahal is Senior Research Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at Birmingham City University. His research interests include race and racism, lived experience, hate crime, victim support and service responses and community-based engagement and research. He is an established equality and diversity practitioner and is currently leading on the Birmingham 2029 project - BCUs community-university engagement programme.

Introduction; the state of the white working class;
Under pressure; a community lost, and regained?;
Problematic framing; setting the record straight;
Political disconnect, nostalgia; reclaiming the past;
Grassroots definitions of whiteness, working class;
Reflections on race, identity and change;
Conclusion; a new understanding of the white working class.