Wendy Bottero - A Sense of Inequality

London New York

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: HB 978-1-78348-786-8

ISBN: PB 978-1-78348-787-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bottero, Wendy, 1965- author.

Title: A sense of inequality / Wendy Bottero.

Description: London ; New York : Rowman & Littlefield International, [2019] | Series: Transforming capitalism | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "This book considers what provokes everyday 'views' or framings of inequality"-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019040032 (print) | LCCN 2019040033 (ebook) | ISBN 9781783487868 (cloth) | ISBN 9781783487875 (paperback) | ISBN 9781783487882 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Equality.

Classification: LCC HM821 .B67 2019 (print) | LCC HM821 (ebook) | DDC 305--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040032

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040033

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

This book is dedicated to my family, Kim, David, Ben and Grace, my very supportive friends Ang and Ian, and to all the staff at Wythenshawe Hospital and The Christie at Salford Royal. Defend the NHS!

Any book is a work of many hands and multiple sources of inspirationalthough I will be claiming the sole REF credit. Nonetheless, I must acknowledge the many colleagues and friends who have supported me, and not just through the process of writing the book.

I must first thank my editors, Ian Bruff and Gemma Edwards, and my publisher Rowman & Littlefield International, for their incredibly helpful and thoughtful advice and for their patience about this long-delayed book.

Many colleagues at Manchester offered advice and encouragement and allowed me to rehearse the books arguments to them at what must have been very dull tea breaks, and for this I thank Andy Balmer, James Rhodes, Brian Heaphy, Nadim Mirshak, and Kevin Gillan. Bridget Byrne and Jackie OCallaghan in particular were stalwarts and great friends. To those colleagues who read chapters in draft and offered detailed feedback, I am eternally grateful, so thank you, Sarah Irwin, Bridget Byrne, Owen Abbott, Charlotte Branchu, Laura Fenton and Kirsty Morrin. I am also deeply grateful for the help and support of Graeme Kirkpatrick and Alice Bloch. My good friend Claire Alexander was the source of many tea breaks, and while she undoubtedly lowered my productivity she did wonders for my spirits and morale.

My deepest debt of gratitude goes to the members of the University of Manchester pragmatism reading group: Owen, Charlotte, Laura and Kirsty. Our journey through pragmatist and pragmatist-adjacent authors was thought-provoking, enormous fun and made a major impact on the ideas in this book. Your collegiality and generosity in the exchange of ideas was so intellectually nourishing it reminded me of why I got into academia in the first place.

We have a detailed picture of changing patterns of inequality and their impact on peoples lives but a weaker sense of how people perceive, interpret and understand issues of inequality or of how such understandings are located in everyday concerns. At a time of stark inequality, it is important to understand what shapes everyday views or framings of inequalities in terms of the practical and strategic significance that people place on inequality. In doing so, we also need to examine the everyday bases of protest, resistance and dissent. It is because the subjectivities of inequality matter for the practical tasks of tackling inequality that it is important to understand them better. But what do ordinary people think about inequality? Unfortunately, we have a relatively thin and disconnected understanding of this. Too often work on the subjectivities of inequality has been siloed into disconnected research traditions and is more often focused on why people