Research

Researching the new 'dangerous class'

Published 11 September 2012

Victorian Society was haunted by a fear of the 'dangerous' class – the workless, rootless, immoral, criminal, mobile and potentially revolutionary enemy within, spawned by the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation of the 19th century, according to criminologist Professor Peter Squires.

He and other leading experts in the field are now gathering at an international conference at the University of Brighton to investigate whether current political, social and economic changes are creating a new 'dangerous class'.

The conference's keynote speaker is Professor Guy Standing of Bath University who has dubbed this new class 'the Precariat' because their means of life have been rendered vulnerable and 'precarious' by modern employment conditions and wider political, social and global changes taking place in the 21st century.

They include people who have been thrown out of work after their jobs have been outsourced abroad where labour is cheaper; migrant workers willing to accept lower wages in the UK; people who have chosen alternative lifestyles, such as travellers or protesters; and more generally the poor, disaffected victimised, socially excluded and vulnerable.

Peter Squires, professor of criminology and public policy at the university's School of Applied Social Science and one of the conference organisers, said: "The Precariat represents many needs and interests. We see it emerge, for example, during periods of riots and disorder, during protests, when the lid gets lifted on the 'black' or illegal economies of contemporary cities, or when concerns about people and sex-trafficking and immigration hit the headlines."

Exploring "the Precariat": an interdisciplinary conference, which takes places tomorrow (12 September) at the university's Falmer campus, will attempt to understand the 'Precariat' and what it means for British society.

Those taking part are from a variety of disciplines, including sociology, economics, criminology and migration studies to public policy. They will explore different aspects of the 'precariousness' phenomenon, ranging from migration and second class citizenship, riot and disorder, educating the Precariat and precarious women and the global sex industry to vulnerable employment and precarious childhoods in a risky world.