This week we have been reading segments from Imogen Tyler‘s fantastic book, Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality. I invite you to explore Imogen’s website for plenty of excellent resources on the book, especially the excellent graphic essay, From Stigma Power to Black Power. This connects really well with our focus in Week 1 on the Black Panther Party’s analysis of politics and Week 5’s engagement with Indigenous resistance. The research is based on activism she has been involved in with the Morecambe Bay Poverty Truth Commission.
To give the backdrop to the stigmatisation of welfare recipients that we focused on for our discussion (although the book also deals with stigma as a technology of power beyond this), me lecture discusses neoliberalism and austerity, as well as inequality in Australia. This provides the backdrop for our discussion in Week 7 with Kristin O’Connell from the Anti-Poverty Centre.
Imogen Tyler very kindly joined me to discuss her book. Her interview can be watched here, divided into four clips:
In order to bring to light some of the issues based by Stigma, we also watched Ken Loach’s film, I, Daniel Blake in preparation for our second assessments which will be based on the film.
As always, you can follow along with the lecture on Mentimeter and access a reference list here.