The focus on gender in and around the process of deindustrialisation is a very welcome development. The academic attention paid to the decline of male dominated places of work in part can be seen as a continuation of industrial/work sociology's longstanding interest in working-class industrial workers. It may seem counterintuitive to suggest that, notwithstanding a critical gendered account of deindustrialization that pays more attention to women, there remains a need to understand more fully the subtle processes of male gender construction within industrial work. Arguably what has not been fully accounted for are the subtle, complex, and varied ways in which younger males became fully fledged men through a shopfloor ritual, social and cultural transmission, and rites of passage. The article makes two main points. Firstly, it reflects on the notion of care in work and the idea of a moral order of the workplace wherein the workplace acted as an extended caring family. I want to think about this social form through my own research as well as that of other scholars in a variety of industrial workplaces, and also by drawing on workplace autobiography. Secondly, the piece highlights the continued attraction of an older one-dimensional image of male industrial work. In studying this aspect of workplace masculinity, we might be better placed to think about the nature of gendered loss associated with mass industrial closure over time and how in-work socialization patterns have been dramatically transformed. In the process this account will add great depth to our understanding of deindustrialization and industrial culture more generally.

This article argues that in order to engage sociologically with the future the discipline needs to rediscover its historical imagination. It makes three main points. First is the idea that sociology needs to be more historical and to illustrate how this has been done well before. Second, it explores ideas, concepts and theories used in thinking about the past, which are in turn useful in organising how we imagine the future – in particular nostalgia, and especially that surrounding industry. Finally, it offers ways of thinking about the sociologically mediated relationship between past, present and future through the burgeoning field of deindustrialisation studies.

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chapter, how money and income constrain and influence everyday family practices and strategies. The concept of family participation therefore provides a much better approach to understanding the complex and dynamic lives of low-income families and fathers. A key strength of Tarrant’s book lies in how it is embedded within the policy context. This includes considering how the welfare state itself constrains and deprives families, both through its lack of coherent support or strict and inflexible punitive financial sanctions. It also considers the role of austerity. In Chapter 7 the men interviewed highlight the importance of community centres for them in facilitating social connections and supporting them in transitioning away from violent and hyper-masculine forms of masculinity. Yet, Tarrant discusses how these spaces are increasingly under threat in austerity Britain. Nevertheless, it is important to consider how the policy context will have changed in the wake of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, which is likely to have exacerbated the challenges and social inequalities explored in this book. While this book provides a significant contribution to understanding the narratives of low-income fathers, it is important to note it does not represent the full spectrum of lowincome fathers. In particular, the diversity of the sample is limited with only one participant coming from an ethnic minority background. While Tarrant concedes that this is representative of the population of the area and the recruitment strategy (those known to professionals in support organisations), she acknowledges the importance of researchers and support organisations alike developing more coherent strategies for engaging with individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds. It would be valuable for any further study to consider the lives of low-income ethnic minority fathers who are often not covered by such services. Overall, Fathering and Poverty is an invaluable contribution to our sociological knowledge of men’s experiences of caring in the context of deprivation; exploring the nuanced and dynamic nature of low-income fatherhood. This is crucial for exposing and challenging stigmatising assumptions about working-class fathers and ensuring they are given a voice.

The Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies is a timely volume that provides an overview of this interdisciplinary field that emerged in the 1990s in the context of deindustrialization, the rise of the service economy, and economic and cultural globalization. The Handbook brings together scholars, teachers, activists, and organizers from across three continents to focus on the study of working-class peoples, cultures, and politics in all their complexity and diversity.

This chapter provides an overview of the filed of working-class studies and its engagement with the issues of culture broadly understood.

This chapter provides an overview of the book and the project on which it is based. It places the closure of the Guinness brewery within a wider context of the process of plant closure and deindustrialization in the United Kingdom and North America. It shows how the story of one plant, from its beginnings in the 1930s through its closure in 2005, can tell a much bigger story about contemporary capitalism. It outlines and explains the project and the methods, theories, and concepts used in the book. The chapter places the interview material collected here within other examples of oral history. In particular, it examines the notion of image and imagination developed by Humphrey Jennings.

This chapter looks at the experience of work from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. It draws extensively on oral histories carried out by the author with former shop floor workers, supervisors, and managers. It details the type of labor carried out by production workers and in particular explores the idea of an independent shop floor culture and identity at Guinness Park Royal. It looks at issues such as boredom, humor, and authority as well as the nature of unionization at the plant. The chapter looks at questions of industrial citizenship and how a strong workplace identity allowed workers a great deal of autonomy over what they did and how they did it. This Guinness workplace culture is put in context with a broader discussion of work identity in the United Kingdom during the long boom.

Abstract This chapter looks at the process of closing the Guinness Park Royal Brewery, from the announcement by management in 2004 through the actual last brew, which was made in the summer of 2005. It looks at how the workers experienced this process and how they reflected on not just the closure announcement but also their wider feelings about work at Guinness. The oral histories contain moving reflections on the meaning of work for Guinness workers and for their children, who face an increasingly uncertain work future. It puts what happened at Park Royal in the wider context of deindustrialization and rationalization.

Recently there have been calls for sociology in Britain to reflect on its longstanding historical attention and focus, something which has been neglected of late. At the same time there is growing interest in the historiography of British sociology and critical reflection on how its early post-war assumptions went on to structure later research, writing and scholarship. Developing both of these insights this article looks at British sociology's longstanding relationship with the coal industry, its work and especially its communities. From Coal is our Life (1956) through to Coal was our Life (2000) the sector has been an important site of sociological attention. It was an early focus of post-war community studies, becoming home to a residual traditional working class. Later still it was an arena of conflict on the front line of Thatcher's Britain, before becoming a site on which to study loss and deindustrialisation. This article asks what sociology learnt from the deep coal mining industry and what it might still explore in the future around questions of regeneration and the half-life' of deindustrialisation.

Following recent calls for a more self-aware and historically sensitive sociology this article reflects on the concept of deindustrialisation and industrial change in this spirit. Using EP Thompson's classic The Making of the English Working Class and his examination of industrialising culture with its stress on experience, the article asks how these insights might be of value in understanding contemporary processes of deindustrialisation and work. Drawing on a range of sociological, cultural and literary studies it conceptualises the differences and similarities between two historic moments of industrial change and loss. In particular it draws on the literary concept of the 'half-life of deindustrialisation' to explore these periods. The article has important implications for how we think about contemporary and historical industrial decline.