Search

Your search keyword '"Kelliher, Diarmaid"' showing total 32 results
Start Over Author "Kelliher, Diarmaid"
32 results on '"Kelliher, Diarmaid"'

2. Solidarity, class and labour agency : mapping networks of support between London and the coalfields during the 1984-5 miners' strike

Author

Kelliher, Diarmaid

Subjects
331.892, G Geography (General)
Abstract

From March 1984 to March 1985, over 150,000 British coal miners walked out on strike in protest at plans for widespread closures in the industry. Alongside the strike developed a large and diverse support movement, both within Britain and internationally. This thesis focuses on the solidarity campaign in London, a city far from the heartlands of the coal industry. The support movement outside of the coalfield areas has been relatively understudied in the years since the dispute, and this thesis is a contribution to recuperating this important history. The four central empirical chapters are organised thematically. The first explores relationships developed between London and the coalfields from the late 1960s, arguing that the support of 1984-5 must be rooted in ongoing mutual relationships of solidarity. The second describes the diverse spaces and sites in which the support movement was enacted, and how distinct tactics such as twinning and forms of politicised mobility reduced the distance between London and mining areas, enabling the development of personal relationships across space. The third focuses on the weaknesses of the support movement, working-class opposition to the strike, and the relationship between this absence of solidarity and the anti-union rhetoric of elites. In the fourth empirical chapter, I emphasise how the intersecting politics of class, race, gender and sexuality were raised through the miners’ strike solidarity movement, and the forging of new relationships across spatial and social boundaries. Through a study of the miners’ support movement, this thesis makes a number of central theoretical contributions. It is concerned firstly with developing an account of translocal solidarity as a generative relationship that can construct connections across social and geographical boundaries, and develop new political theories and practices. Secondly, I argue for an intersectional approach to class as a way of rejecting simplistic divisions between the politics of class, gender, sexuality and race. In particular, I highlight intersectionality as a historical process whereby relationships of solidarity across space inform a politics that is simultaneously able to recognise differences and develop commonalities. Thirdly, I emphasise how translocal networks of solidarity contribute to relational constructions of place, but that such an understanding is not inimical to a deep, historically rooted local development of class. Fourthly, I argue that a spatially and temporally dynamic understanding of the construction of cultures of mutual solidarity can contribute significantly to how we think about labour agency.

Published
2017

20. The 1984-5 miners' strike and the spirit of solidarity

Author

Kelliher, Diarmaid

Subjects
Pride, business.industry, media_common.quotation_subject, Perspective (graphical), Neoliberalism, Gender studies, Adversary, language.human_language, Solidarity, Welsh, Political science, language, business, Accommodation, media_common
Abstract

The thirtieth anniversary of the 1984-5 British miners' strike has seen a number of attempts to engage with the legacy of the dispute. This article discusses three examples: Pride, a dramatised account of Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners; Still the Enemy Within, a documentary that presents an overview of the strike from the perspective of rank-and-file activists; and Pits and Perverts, a play focusing on a gay couple in London who gave accommodation to Welsh pickets. Particular attention is given to the ways in which the support movement is represented, which is taken as the starting point for a wider discussion about the nature of solidarity. I argue that focusing only on 1984-5 risks positioning the coalfields as only recipients of solidarity, whereas the support of the miners for the Grunwick dispute in the late 1970s and other struggles suggests a more reciprocal relationship. This mutual solidarity was often rooted in a conception of the 'labour movement', but one whose boundaries where frequently contested. I conclude by arguing that representing this spirit of solidarity is not an exercise in nostalgia, but an attempt to keep alive the memory and possibility of alternatives to neoliberalism.

Published
2015

21. Class struggle and the spatial politics of violence: The picket line in 1970s Britain.

Author

Kelliher, Diarmaid

Subjects
*SOCIAL conflict, *VIOLENCE, *POLICE brutality, *ARCHIVAL research, *PRACTICAL politics
Abstract

The late 1960s to the mid‐1980s in Britain was a period of intense industrial struggle, with strike levels at their highest since the 1920s. Concerns surrounding trade union power became central to broader anxieties about British "decline" and "crisis." These issues took a spatial form in conflicts around the nature of the picket line. This paper discusses the picket line in 1970s Britain in the context of recent debates on the geographies of violence, particularly in relation to questions of class and property, and the mutually constitutive temporalities of structural and direct violence. Rather than focusing on the diffuse processes of an abstract capitalism, I argue for greater attention to be paid to class conflict in shaping experiences and epistemologies of violence. This paper therefore places more emphasis on agency in the production of violence than has been prevalent in recent debates in geography. Drawing on extensive archival research, the paper focuses on three key disputes in this period. Building on work in labour geography, it explores how the assertive working‐class presence of mass pickets were portrayed as violent through an account of the miners' strike in 1972. It then considers a similar process in relation to flying pickets during the 1972 builders' dispute, emphasising the threat of a politicised working‐class mobility. Finally, the paper considers the coercive state response in the violent policing of the picket line during the 1976–8 Grunwick dispute. The radical right‐wing project of neoliberalism emerged in part as a solution to the perceived threat of the labour movement; critical to its success and consolidation was challenging the "enemy within" of militant trade unionism. These violent class struggles around picketing in the 1970s, I argue, are crucial for understanding the long‐term, structural violence of neoliberalism. This paper discusses the picket line in 1970s Britain in the context of recent debates on the geographies of violence, particularly in relation to questions of class and property, and the mutually constitutive temporalities of structural and direct violence. Through accounts of the 1972 miners' and builders' strikes, and the 1976–1978 Grunwick dispute, the paper explores the mass picket, the flying picket, and police violence. Rather than focusing on the diffuse processes of an abstract capitalism, I argue for greater attention to be paid to class conflict in shaping experiences and epistemologies of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2021
Full Text
View/download PDF

22. Constructing a culture of solidarity: London and the British coalfields in the long 1970s

Author

Kelliher, Diarmaid

Abstract

This article explores relationships of solidarity constructed between London and the British coalfields from 1968 until the 1984–1985 miners’ strike. Foregrounding the development of a culture of solidarity over this period resituates the support movement during the 1984–1985 strike as embedded in longer-term relationships, which suggests a more equal relationship between coalfield and metropolitan activists than is given by focusing narrowly on the year itself. I argue that a spatially and temporally dynamic sense of the development of these relationships allows us to better grasp the potentially mutual nature of solidarity. Thinking about the construction of this culture of solidarity can contribute significantly to understanding the nature of labour agency. I emphasise the generative nature of solidarity, particularly the ways in which the spatial and social boundaries of the labour movement were challenged through solidarity relationships, allowing in some instances a more diverse conception of working-class politics.

Published
2017

23. Radical Lambeth 1978-1991.

Author

Kelliher, Diarmaid

Subjects
POLITICAL participation, RESISTANCE to government, STATE power, FEDERAL government, GOVERNMENT aid, ACTIVISM, LOCAL elections, ELECTIONS
Published
2022

26. Assembling cultures: workplace activism, labour militancy and cultural change in Britain's car factories, 1945-82: by Jack Saunders, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2019, x+298 pp., £80 (hbk), ISBN: 978 1 5261 3339 7.

Author

Kelliher, Diarmaid

Subjects
*ACTIVISM, *SOCIAL change, *CORPORATE culture, *FACTORIES, *INDUSTRIAL relations, *DIRECT action
Abstract

Assembling cultures: workplace activism, labour militancy and cultural change in Britain's car factories, 1945-82: by Jack Saunders, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2019, x+298 pp., £80 (hbk), ISBN: 978 1 5261 3339 7 Jack Saunders' excellent new book charts the shifting dynamics of workplace activism within post-war Britain's car factories. Saunders repeatedly emphasises that workplace activism shaped ideas of what was considered common sense and reasonable within the factory. [Extracted from the article]

Published
2023
Full Text
View/download PDF

29. Solidarity, class and labour agency: mapping networks of support between London and the coalfields during the 1984-5 miners’ strike

Author

Kelliher, Diarmaid and Kelliher, Diarmaid

Abstract

From March 1984 to March 1985, over 150,000 British coal miners walked out on strike in protest at plans for widespread closures in the industry. Alongside the strike developed a large and diverse support movement, both within Britain and internationally. This thesis focuses on the solidarity campaign in London, a city far from the heartlands of the coal industry. The support movement outside of the coalfield areas has been relatively understudied in the years since the dispute, and this thesis is a contribution to recuperating this important history. The four central empirical chapters are organised thematically. The first explores relationships developed between London and the coalfields from the late 1960s, arguing that the support of 1984-5 must be rooted in ongoing mutual relationships of solidarity. The second describes the diverse spaces and sites in which the support movement was enacted, and how distinct tactics such as twinning and forms of politicised mobility reduced the distance between London and mining areas, enabling the development of personal relationships across space. The third focuses on the weaknesses of the support movement, working-class opposition to the strike, and the relationship between this absence of solidarity and the anti-union rhetoric of elites. In the fourth empirical chapter, I emphasise how the intersecting politics of class, race, gender and sexuality were raised through the miners’ strike solidarity movement, and the forging of new relationships across spatial and social boundaries. Through a study of the miners’ support movement, this thesis makes a number of central theoretical contributions. It is concerned firstly with developing an account of translocal solidarity as a generative relationship that can construct connections across social and geographical boundaries, and develop new political theories and practices. Secondly, I argue for an intersectional approach to class as a way of rejecting simplistic divisions between

30. Solidarity, class and labour agency: mapping networks of support between London and the coalfields during the 1984-5 miners’ strike

Author

Kelliher, Diarmaid and Kelliher, Diarmaid

Abstract

From March 1984 to March 1985, over 150,000 British coal miners walked out on strike in protest at plans for widespread closures in the industry. Alongside the strike developed a large and diverse support movement, both within Britain and internationally. This thesis focuses on the solidarity campaign in London, a city far from the heartlands of the coal industry. The support movement outside of the coalfield areas has been relatively understudied in the years since the dispute, and this thesis is a contribution to recuperating this important history. The four central empirical chapters are organised thematically. The first explores relationships developed between London and the coalfields from the late 1960s, arguing that the support of 1984-5 must be rooted in ongoing mutual relationships of solidarity. The second describes the diverse spaces and sites in which the support movement was enacted, and how distinct tactics such as twinning and forms of politicised mobility reduced the distance between London and mining areas, enabling the development of personal relationships across space. The third focuses on the weaknesses of the support movement, working-class opposition to the strike, and the relationship between this absence of solidarity and the anti-union rhetoric of elites. In the fourth empirical chapter, I emphasise how the intersecting politics of class, race, gender and sexuality were raised through the miners’ strike solidarity movement, and the forging of new relationships across spatial and social boundaries. Through a study of the miners’ support movement, this thesis makes a number of central theoretical contributions. It is concerned firstly with developing an account of translocal solidarity as a generative relationship that can construct connections across social and geographical boundaries, and develop new political theories and practices. Secondly, I argue for an intersectional approach to class as a way of rejecting simplistic divisions between

31. Solidarity, class and labour agency: mapping networks of support between London and the coalfields during the 1984-5 miners’ strike

Author

Kelliher, Diarmaid and Kelliher, Diarmaid

Abstract

From March 1984 to March 1985, over 150,000 British coal miners walked out on strike in protest at plans for widespread closures in the industry. Alongside the strike developed a large and diverse support movement, both within Britain and internationally. This thesis focuses on the solidarity campaign in London, a city far from the heartlands of the coal industry. The support movement outside of the coalfield areas has been relatively understudied in the years since the dispute, and this thesis is a contribution to recuperating this important history. The four central empirical chapters are organised thematically. The first explores relationships developed between London and the coalfields from the late 1960s, arguing that the support of 1984-5 must be rooted in ongoing mutual relationships of solidarity. The second describes the diverse spaces and sites in which the support movement was enacted, and how distinct tactics such as twinning and forms of politicised mobility reduced the distance between London and mining areas, enabling the development of personal relationships across space. The third focuses on the weaknesses of the support movement, working-class opposition to the strike, and the relationship between this absence of solidarity and the anti-union rhetoric of elites. In the fourth empirical chapter, I emphasise how the intersecting politics of class, race, gender and sexuality were raised through the miners’ strike solidarity movement, and the forging of new relationships across spatial and social boundaries. Through a study of the miners’ support movement, this thesis makes a number of central theoretical contributions. It is concerned firstly with developing an account of translocal solidarity as a generative relationship that can construct connections across social and geographical boundaries, and develop new political theories and practices. Secondly, I argue for an intersectional approach to class as a way of rejecting simplistic divisions between

32. Contested Spaces: London and the 1984-5 Miners' Strike.

Author

Kelliher D

Abstract

The 1984-5 British miners' strike can be understood as a defence of place as well as jobs. Such a conception encourages us to foreground the local in accounts of the strike. However, I argue in this article that the local should not be understood in an excessively bounded way. By paying attention to relationships developed between London and the coalfields during the dispute, we can see how direct personal networks of solidarity were constructed between these very different places. This article discusses the spaces in which solidarity activity for miners in London took place. I argue that political activists rooted themselves in localities by constructing permanent spaces such as centres and bookshops, which enabled the development of concrete relationships between different places. I highlight 'twinning' as a distinct spatial tactic used by supporters of the strike to bridge geographical distance and develop personal connections between London and the coalfields. I also show that elements of the state were used to both sustain this solidarity and to restrict the space available for the miners and their supporters. I argue centrally, therefore, that opposing political visions for moving beyond the post-war settlement manifested in a struggle over space in the 1980s., (© The Author [2017]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Published
2017
Full Text
View/download PDF

Catalog

Books, media, physical & digital resources
See catalog results