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Authors: Simon Poulter and Sophie Mellor (Close and Remote), Nathan Evans, Moestak Hussein, Akilah Tye Comrie, Trasi and the wider community of research volunteers in Bristol and Cardiff Editors: Dr Debbie Watson and Marilyn Howard Editorial Advisor: Kathryn Castles Preface: Dr Debbie Watson Art: Close and Remote working with the wider community of research volunteers in Bristol and Cardiff Life Chances project is a part of Productive Margins: Regulating for Engagement research programme. Research design and delivery has been co-produced between community organisations, community volunteers and academics, exploring life on a low income and the regulatory services that families encounter in two urban settings - Bristol and Cardiff. Most community research volunteers are not named as authors to protect their identity and potential implications for individuals. The programme is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The programme is a collaboration between University of Bristol, Cardiff University, South Riverside Community Development Centre, Single Parent Action Network (SPAN) and Productive Margins. This is a work of sociological fiction First published 2016 copyright: the authors 2016 PREFACE Life Chances project is an innovative collaboration between University academics, grassroots community organisations and artists and is part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded research programme called Productive Margins headed by Professor Morag McDermott. Asking questions of how people experience and resist regulatory processes is central to all the Productive Margins projects and they all originated with community organisations working with people at the margins of society asking what questions mattered most to them. In the Life Chances project this comprised of the Single Parent Action Network (SPAN) in Bristol working together with South Riverside Community Development Centre (SRCDC) in Cardiff; considering the parents and family members living on low incomes that their services work with and for. Driving questions emerged that focused the academic partners (Universities of Bristol and Cardiff) to consider what the welfare system might look like for families experiencing low income if children and families were truly placed at the centre of concerns? Such an ambitious aspiration called for innovative ways of working with people. We were keen from the outset to enable participation and engagement from community members but not through traditional approaches of social science research. This was not about capturing ‘voices of the poor’- however valid that may be. It was about giving people opportunities to re-imagine their lives, in different systems of regulation using Utopian modes of thinking and expression. To do this they needed to draw upon their experiences and those of people they know. The research team was recruited by members of the communities we were researching with and comprised an academic lead, a researcher and commissioned artists Close and Remote. Together the Life Chances project has worked across social science and arts and humanities disciplines to draw together methods that engage people at numerous levels; that allow for people to have their stories heard in safe ways; and that provide space for imagination, creativity and future thinking to speak to policy and other stakeholder audiences about everyday people’s experiences with societal systems of control and regulation. Life Chances, the novel, is the product of arts based practice coming together with social science research in co-produced ways, with research ‘participants’ engaged as community volunteers. Methods utilised have included jewellery making, media and campaign training, poster design, peer learning about regulatory systems, transactional analysis, game design and fictional novel writing. The characters have been developed by people about people’s lives and the project process is reflected throughout the novel. This is hugely innovative as a social science methodology as our participants have been co-authors and creatively produced the material for the novel. It is also highly contemporary and relevant to policy in the UK as we witness the roll out of the Universal Credit system and we anticipate the outcome of the EU referendum and implications for people’s lives as the regulatory systems that currently govern them come under potential scrutiny and change. Whilst we present the outcomes of the project in a fictional, accessible and hopefully enjoyable format, there are serious academic and policy messages that are being conveyed through the real-life scenarios and characters which we hope have an impact on the reader, whoever you may be…. Dr Debbie Watson Reader Childhood Studies Academic Lead, Life Chances project CHAPTER ONE February Diane opens the car door and places her bag on the passenger seat. It’s almost spring like today but there are still flurries of an easterly wind. She has spent the whole night framing the pitch, ready for Nick’s call this morning. She checks her watch, 9.30am. He said he’d call at nine. She looks over towards the betting shop. An elderly man is standing outside smoking and greeting passersby, joking and smiling. Since she’s been staying at Kesha’s house in St Pauls, she’s seen him every day. She’s noticed his sharp suit and large rimmed 80’s glasses. “I bet he’s got a story to tell.” She starts the car engine, indicates and begins to pull out just as her phone rings. She pulls back in, fumbles in her bag for her phone and sees Nick’s name flashing up on the screen. “Hello, Nick, thanks for getting back to me, is now a good time?” she says politely. “Yes, go for it, I’ve got five minutes before I need to slide into the editorial meeting. I’ll warn you straight away, budget is tight and I’ve already over-commissioned for the next two weeks. So make it good…” he says. “OK, it’s about Life Chances and different places and people and how it can never be an even playing field. It’s about how the political establishment always aim to control the language and by doing so they can bring their own ideological agendas to bear. It’s about real people and how they fail to fit these agendas and then get excluded…and then how poverty is actually a construct of the state…” Nick is distracted by several emails coming in about a train crash in South Wales. “Diane, you need to give me a bit more than this…I’ll be honest I’ve commissioned loads of these kind of pieces over the last five years, it needs to be more focussed. Our readers want real insight,” he says, occupied by pictures flashing up on his screen of emergency vehicles attending the rail crash. “Ok Nick, here’s the hook. Our now Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Ivan Dunhouse-Jones, went on this tour of Britain in 2009, whilst he was in opposition. He saw with his own eyes what he called Broken Britain and developed a renewed debate around the family, poverty and making work pay. With renewed confidence he realised that if you change the language and use phrases like ‘Life Chances’ you can sell a new form of politics to the centre ground based on setting people up on a new path. It has a quasi-religious utopian feel to it Nick, kind of Pilgrims Progress for the second millennium...” Nick likes Diane’s work, she’s one of the best freelance investigative journalists they have on the books, but he can’t really see anything new in what she’s saying. And his readership want something that is critical of the current government, not praising it. “Diane, tell me where does Life Chances come from? It sounds like evangelical language to me…” he says. “Nick, the thing is Life Chances comes from the German sociologist Max Weber’s writing – it’s sociological theory that describes how people’s lives are affected by a whole range of things..where they were born, where they went to school and social class…” Diane realises that it’s not going well, Nick sounds distracted and uninterested. She struggles to up the pitch content. “What I am proposing is to retread the steps of IDJ and take my own tour of ‘Broken Britain’. I’ve already visited a few of the places that Dunhouse-Jones talks about and looked into it and of course some of what he says is true but then you read the sub-text and you can see that there are weasel words at play. It’s not about giving everyone an equal chance, it’s about pushing them into low pay and even more uncertainty than they had before…” she pleads. 1 Nick sees a light in the story. He’s under pressure to drive more web traffic and decides to offer Diane a run and he needs to get into the meeting. The Image is still losing print readers and he’s been encouraged by the editor to secure more advertising through online features. “Ok, Diane, the tour sounds a good way to shape the articles. Follow in the footsteps of IDJ and knock out some web pieces for me. If it works we can shape it into something for the paper later. I can give you two days research time and mail me over some treatments…alright?” “Thanks Nick, it will be worth it I promise you.” she explains but Nick has already cut the line. __________ Desiree has been at the offices of G4N since 6am cleaning the lower floors. The anonymous tower, in the centre of the city, was formerly owned by the government but was taken over by the corporation in 2002. She has worked part-time for G4N for nine years. The job’s ok, better now that she’s been moved back from a zero hours contract to set hours each week.

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