182
Book
ReviewSetting
an Important and Positive ToneCitizenship: personal lives and social policy. Gail Lewis,
editor, 2004. Milton Keynes and Bristol: Open University and Polity Press; ISBN 1861345216, 184 pp., £17.99 paper
SAGE Publications, Inc.2005DOI: 10.1177/09675507050130020505
MelissaDearey
University of York
In the
spirit of being `Open to people, places, methods and ideas', the Open University
with this book has again confirmed its commitment to this ethos by its responsiveness
to an urgent and growing lacuna in the third-level social policy and politics
curriculum: the presence and experi- ence of the `user' in social care provision.
Citizenship: personal lives and social policy – one of four core texts
in the Open University course Personal lives and social policy – represents
a bold initiative to `explore the relationship between personal lives and
social policy' through the `lens' of citizenship, using what the authors commonly
refer to as `per- sonal lives' research methods. In an area of scholarship
that has lately been dominated by the macro-theoretical and quantitative influence
of globalization and the international patterning of `race', gender and migra-
tion to map subsequent changes to national identities and the systematic transformation
of the welfare state, this book represents a welcome shift of critical attention
back onto the level of the personal and the domain of lived, everyday life.
Overall, it marks an auspicious moment in life narra- tive research with respect
to its penetration into the wider field of social and political theory and
praxis. Divided into four main sections, the authors use the `personal lives'
approach to explore and contest the discourses of entitlement and belong-
ing through a variety of policy initiatives that have collectively deter-
mined rights to housing, education and asylum in the UK since the Second World
War. Among the laudable aspects of this book is its reflexive imme- diacy
in implementing its own designated objective. Straightaway in Chapter 1, entitled
`“Do not go gently”...', editor Gail Lewis introduces the reader
to the complex and mutually constitutive terrain of social pro- vision and
personal need by recounting an episode from her own life his- tory. Related
in a manner that is at once deeply personal and yet integral to the aim of
the book, Lewis successfully draws critical attention to the inter-subjective
dynamics of `race', sexuality, home and intergenerational
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relationships
in the interface between real life individuals and social services. For a
British academic who is revealing part of her past as well as the individual
and subjective viewpoint, this is accomplished with a commendable lack of
embarrassment either to persons or to theory. As an example of life narrative
research praxis, and in conjunction with the imperative for social researchers
to aspire to ever greater levels of reflex- ivity and mutuality in practice,
this works well, setting a positive tone for how conceptualization and analysis
are to proceed according to this alternative way of thinking and acting, noting
its divergence away from the traditional legitimacy of authority for those
who implement and shape social policy. Where the book is perhaps less successful
is in its efforts to provide readers/students with a sufficiently comprehensive
theoretical back- ground on the political history and idea of citizenship.
The concept of cit- izenship in modern political theory is of signal importance,
a complex cultural and historical notion that requires substantive attention
as a focal point in its own right. While the personal lives methodology is
effectively woven into the fabric of the text, the treatment of and debates
over citi- zenship are less rigorous and adequate. Though the chapter devoted
to this does an admirable job of relating the richness of the notion of citizenship
in the UK since the postwar period, its concentration on Anglophone political
philosophies of citizenship and the nation state severely limit its conceptual
scope. The noticeable inclusion of Gramsci in this section serves to illustrate
the tendency among English-speaking scholars to conflate social and political
theory on the continent with Marxism. In a text that seeks to reclaim subjective
experience, a less structuralist point of view more in line with the Christian/social
democratic tradition on the continent would probably have been better. What
is more, considering the increased tendency of charitable and other organizations
in the UK to represent the views of service users in by reference to European
Social Law and EU Human Rights legislation in order to argue their cases in
response to government consultation initiatives, such a concentration on
these other theories of citizenship and community would seem to be recommended.
Another major problem with this book is the rather unreflective use of the
`personal lives' methodology itself. While there is considerable criti- cism
of `... the dominant or official discourses, echoed by the media, [and its]
focus on evidence, often described as “facts”, which is used to
justify every harsher procedures and removal of welfare services and benefits'
(p. 152), the critical lens never seems to turn itself back onto the meaning
of the individual testimony or personal experience as an alternative theoretical
standpoint. Though these stories are powerful and thought- provoking in their
potential to `humanize' social policy, laudable as this is,
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in an
academic contest it only goes so far. Such an ostensibly methodical usage
of `personal lives' only works to the extent that it convinces people who
were already likely to share these views; others may simply reject them as
idiosyncratic, and all are likely to eventually become immune to their persuasive
powers. The effectiveness of the authors' implementation of life narrative
methodology would be greatly enhanced by a more conscious and theoretically
reflexive treatment of the form, which readers of this journal will know has
been the object of considerable scholarly labour and debate, especially over
the last quarter century. Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend
it. I have no doubt that in response to students' input, subsequent editions
of the text will overcome some of these theoretical oversights, making it
an even better read.