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Contact: [email protected] In Broken Images: A Marxist Approach To Working With Life Stories by Ian Jasper Canterbury Christ Church University Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 i Abstract In Broken Images: A Marxist Approach to Working with Life Stories Author: Ian Jasper, PhD. Candidate, Canterbury Christchurch University Working with an approach to the interpretation and analysis of life stories based in the Marxist tradition this study looks at the lives of six teachers of literacy to adults who live and work on The Isle of Thanet in Kent. The study reviews points of divergence between postmodern theories based within a narrative constructionist approach to the interpretation of life stories and a Marxist approach. A case is made for a Marxist approach to life story work being both valid and informative. The first part of the study looks at considerations of methodology as these affect life story work in general and Marxist life story work i patiula. “oe ok fo Goethe ad Balza is peseted to sho ho Mas own scientific worldview grew out of wider artistic and scientific traditions beyond those with which it is usually associated. Attention is drawn to the relationship between Marxism and humanism and how both can be brought together to provide a fertile and humane form of social science. The life stories of the six teachers are presented in a form agreed to by those whose stories are told. Three themes emerging from the stories are selected by the researcher for further investigation. These themes are class and identity, managerialism, and place. Each of these three themes is analysed to show the relationship of the six life stories to Marxism. On this basis the argument is then put forward that Marxism itself has an important contribution to make to the academic study of life stories. This final argument forms the substance of the concluding chapter. Keywords: life stories, Marxism, postmodernism, class and identity, managerialism, place. ii In Broken Images: A Marxist Approach to Working with Life Stories Table of Contents Page number Title Page Abstract i Dedication ii Table of Contents iii Introduction: In Broken Images 1 Antecedents 1 - The Poverty of Postmodernism 22 Introduction to the Life Stories: Method and Methodology 51 Hannah Cooper 60 Grace 79 Antecedents 2: Subjects, Objects, Methods, and Digging 95 Catherine Edwards 123 Sarah 138 Antecedents 3: Marxism and Life Stories 154 Paul Beer 188 Susan Moore 203 Class and Identity 218 The Management of Illusions 256 Place 292 Concluding Comments 325 References 339 In Broken Images He is quick, thinking in clear images; I am slow, thinking in broken images. He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images; I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images. Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance; Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance. Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact; Questioning their relevance, I question the fact. When the fact fails him, he questions his senses; When the fact fails me, I approve my senses. He continues quick and dull in his clear images; I continue slow and sharp in my broken images. He in a new confusion of his understanding; I in a new understanding of my confusion. Robert Graves In Broken Images: A Marxist Approach to working with Life Stories Introduction: In Broken Images Introduction: In Broken Images How can Marxism and life story work be brought together? It might be a surprise to discover that Karl Marx, a man possessed of tremendous self- elief, had as a pesoal otto De oius duitadu You ust hae douts aout eethig. It is ol logial that dout is alost eessail a peoditio of the deelopet of udestadig. This is the lai ade ‘oet Gaes i the poe I Boke Iages. Whilst ot akig a lai to the appaet isdo possessed the I i Gaes poe, the oute hih that I poeeds is, I hope, siila to own. Such progress as I have made in my own thinking on the issues raised in this thesis have come aout piail eause the eseah poess led e to dout eethig i a a which I feel has been constructive. At the centre of this thesis there are six life stories collected from literacy teachers who have spent a considerable part of their lives working in or near to the Isle of Thanet in Kent. Four of these teachers have lived and worked there all their lives. Two have only worked in Thanet for a few years, though in both of these cases the women involved have had significant contact with Thanet for all of their lives. The people whose life stories follow are all aged between forty and sixty years old. The stories were collected and put together over a five year period between 2008 and 2013. These life stories were questioned, reflected on, and written about until the mode of understanding upon which this thesis is based emerged. This thesis is about how these life stories might be comprehended. Sometimes it is argued that life story work is inevitably auto/biographical (Stanley, 1992). There are many reasons to agree with this proposition. One important reason in the case of this thesis is that in the process of its production I have had the opportunity, and need to reflect upon, and revise how I think about my own life and especially my relationship towards the body of thought and action which is inescapably and clumsily efeed to as Mais. Oe a i hih life sto ok, ad ideed a eall 1 In Broken Images: A Marxist Approach to working with Life Stories Introduction: In Broken Images transformational learning experience, is inevitably auto/biographical is that it obliges those who undertake it to reconsider their own life story. There is absolutely no disrespect attached to saying that life stories must be questioned, quite the reverse. I have no doubt that the stories I have been told and which this project is based on have been told in perfectly good faith. The eait of a pesos story cannot be established through its immediate acceptance, it emerges under interrogation. This interrogation must be based upon care and respect but it must be scrupulous. One reason for the required depth of interrogation is because much the greater part of the wealth a life story offers is latent. Later in this thesis a life story of Paul Beer is told. Paul recounts how in a Further Education college a lecturer who taught front of house restaurant management lost his hair as a result of ill health. He was obliged by the college managers and despite his own unwillingness, to work in the restaurant wearing a wig. All involved were aware of the desperate inadequacy of the wig. Today, some twenty years later, chefs in Thanet still recount the story with evident eaasset. I to ases hefs ho hae oooated Paul Bees epot hae pointed out that the wig looked awful and have finished their account with the question Wh did the do that? Wh ideed? Tig to grasp the meaning of this event involves us in consideration of such things as power, fissiparous social and cultural values, peeptios of health ad aesthetis, hua epath ad i etai otets, its paucity. From the very start of this project just after my first interview with Hannah Cooper on a cold Friday afternoon in February five years ago, I felt a sense of responsibility emerging because of the importance to my interviewees of the stories I was being told. The researcher in this form of eseah ollets the sto of peoples lies. Thee is inescapably an expectation that people will be prepared to share what can only be some of their most valued and intimate possessions. Hannah began her story by asking me why I wanted her life story as it as pett oig eall, she also told e that she didt eall hae athig to sa. Afte the fist interview with Hannah I walked along Margate sea front, by now it was dark and the town had an indistinct menace. Inside I felt privileged that Hannah had told me her story. With such privilege comes responsibility. 2 In Broken Images: A Marxist Approach to working with Life Stories Introduction: In Broken Images In all the interviews there were points when those telling their stories stopped to consider what they were saying, pausing for thought, or mentally replaying what had been said in order that they themselves might better understand its meaning. All stories must involve the communication of meanings. The sequencing of events appears as the first characteristic of the story, but even this immediate temporal arrangement is itself inseparable from the giving of meaning to what has happened. It was also apparent that in almost all, if not every single case, the storytellers were telling their stories for the first time.