On 7 and 8 September 2015, the University of Roehampton hosted a BAAL/Cambridge University Press seminar, which brought together researchers from a wide range of perspectives in terms of their objects of study and modes of investigation.
Our keynote speaker, Liz Morrish (Nottingham Trent University) opened the seminar. She explored the view from the academic ground, demonstrating the influence of neoliberal economic discourse on universities, especially the increasing presence of discourses of accountability, performance and auditing. While these discourses may be easy for language experts to deconstruct, their effects once they become institutionalised are apparently immovable. Academics have become the new precariat. The situation for students is no less pressing.
Liz Moor (Goldsmiths, University of London) considered data from the Mass Observation Archive about pocket money. These provide a detailed and varied account of individual history and memory in relation to receiving and spending money. Significantly, the responses prompted individuals to recall and examine their emotions, not only in relation to money but also in relation to their family and personal life. Evi Sifaki and Annabelle Mooney (University of Roehampton) examined historical synonyms for ‘mean’ and ‘generous’. With data collected from The Historical Thesaurus of English, they analysed the definitions and etymologies of these terms in order to document and draw out the conceptual baggage of these words.
The next two papers dealt with benefits and social welfare. Laura Patterson (Lancaster University) presented work on the documentary Benefits Street and its audience reception. While respondents were asked to comment on the clips shown to them, they brought to the discussion a range of personal narratives, social stereotypes and hegemonic preconceptions about class, benefits and employment in order to raise topics and behaviours not actually present in the prompt material. Chris Roberts (University of Roehampton) began with an analysis of a 2008 infomercial ‘Benefit Thieves, We're Closing in’ that urged members of the public to report on neighbours taking advantage of the benefit system. He paid attention to the markers of class, gender and social status used to position the ‘thief’ as other and the reporter as worthy citizen. He connected these mediated messages about benefits to broader discussion about the current economic situation.
The first day included the screening of a teaser for a documentary, Money Puzzles, currently being created by Michael Chanan (University of Roehampton) and Lee Salter (Sussex University). Also presented was the exhibition ‘The Roles We Play’ from ATD Fourth World, comprising portraits of and narratives from people in poverty, highlighting their personal stories and their contributions to society.
The final event of the day was a reflection on issues raised by Liz Morrish in her keynote address. Delegates were invited to bring to the seminar a book that they would like to share with either students or colleagues. Dr Morrish spoke about a particular case of a professor at a London university subjected to severe performance management. The professor took his own life. The books were used to build a cairn and the titles shared among delegates to promote debate, discussion and consolation.
The second day opened with two papers about children's books. Tanweer Ali (Empire State College, State University of New York) and Eva Lebdušková, (J. E. Purkyně University, Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic) examined the Harry Potter series. Taking the series as a corpus, they uncovered the objects and practices that index wealth as well as attitudes about poverty. Analysis of the banking system in Harry Potter showed it to be extremely conservative. Astrid Van den Bossche (University of Oxford) took as her data children's picture books from the US and the UK. These show a clear association between money and coins, and coins and counting. She argued that counting and being good at maths is connected with being clever and having the necessary talents to accumulate wealth. Patience, too, is clearly a virtue in these texts.
Finally, Kate Harrington (University of Essex) posed the question ‘What is money?’. Considering legal language and recent cases about money, she showed that ‘money’ is not a viable concept in the law. She concluded that money is nothing more than a speech act of promise in line with the inscription that appears on a British bank note: ‘I promise to pay the bearer . . .’.
The question of what money is surfaced repeatedly as did related queries concerning debt, and the connection between discourse and practice in the fields of micro- and macro-economics. Money is connected to and is indexical of a range of social and cultural discourses, values, narratives and relationships. The line between fact and fiction is not easy to draw as the former are only ever contingent and ideological, and the latter are more personal, visceral and situated than the term ‘money’ immediately suggests.
