Insecure Times: Living with Insecurity in Modern Society

by Hill,Michael; Hill,Michael

• ISBN13: 9780415170932
• ISBN10: 0415170931
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-14
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Insecure Timessystematically analyzes social and economic insecurity and its effect on a range of issues and institutions in Europe and North America, including: its causes, the role of the state, housing, and family life.

Table of Contents

Contributors	ix
Preface	xi
Insecure times: conceptualising insecurity and security	1	(22)
John Vail
Introduction	1	(1)
Living in insecure times	1	(2)
Why we are writing	3	(2)
Security, insecurity and risk	5	(3)
Conceptual issues in insecurity	8	(9)
Readers' guide	17	(6)
PART I Generating insecurity
Who dreams of failure? Insecurity in modern capitalism	23	(18)
Jane Wheelock
Does insecurity matter?	23	(2)
Different views of the significance of insecurity	25	(5)
The golden age and insecurity	30	(5)
A new regime of insecurity?	35	(3)
Who dreams of failure?	38	(3)
States of insecurity: the political foundations of insecurity	41	(17)
John Vail
The state and arenas of security	41	(6)
The political foundations of insecurity	47	(5)
Paradoxes of security and insecurity: contemporary reflections	52	(6)
Insecurity: philosophy and psychology	58	(17)
Alex Howard
Feelings of insecurity	58	(1)
Facts about insecurity	59	(4)
Forms of insecurity	63	(1)
Philosophies of insecurity	64	(1)
Philosophy and coping strategies for insecurity	65	(10)
PART II Institutionalising insecurity
Fear or opportunity? Insecurity in employment	75	(14)
Jane Wheelock
The growth in insecurity	75	(4)
The sources of the problem: working all the hours God sends	79	(4)
Market competition and opportunity	83	(1)
Fear of failure: the impact of insecurity	83	(4)
The wider costs and benefits: self-exploitation or self-fulfilment?	87	(2)
Insecurity and social security	89	(16)
Michael Hill
Introduction	89	(1)
Defining social security	89	(1)
Social security: replacing morality by mathematics?	90	(2)
Social security and the security of the state	92	(2)
Who benefits from social security?	94	(1)
Who does not benefit from social security policies?	95	(1)
The insecurity of social security	96	(2)
The contemporary attack on social security	98	(5)
Conclusions	103	(2)
No place like home? Insecurity and housing	105	(14)
Roberta Woods
The security of housing?	105	(1)
The recommodification of housing	105	(1)
Residualisation	106	(3)
Tenant participation	109	(1)
Homelessness	110	(2)
Housing agencies	112	(1)
Mortgage default, repossession and negative equity	113	(2)
An insecure future?	115	(2)
Conclusions	117	(2)
Nuclear fallout: divorce, kinship and the insecurities of contemporary family life	119	(18)
Bob Simpson
Personhood, place and family life	120	(2)
Nuclear fallout	122	(3)
The unclear family	125	(3)
Managing continuity and transformation in the late twentieth century	128	(5)
Conclusion	133	(4)
PART III Insecurity as lived experience
Narratives of insecurity in Teesside: environmental politics and health risks	137	(17)
Peter Phillimore
Suzanne Moffatt
Introduction	137	(3)
Teesside: historical background	140	(2)
Environmental insecurity and environmental politics in Teesside	142	(6)
Experiences of insecurity	148	(2)
Concluding remarks	150	(4)
Insecurities in contemporary country life: rural communities and social change	154	(15)
Neil Ward
Philip Lowe
Introduction	154	(1)
Rural restructuring and contemporary country life	155	(5)
Country life and insecurity	160	(1)
Case study: the environmental regulation of farming practices	161	(3)
Case study: hunting wild mammals with dogs	164	(1)
Insecurity and lived experience: lessons from the countryside	165	(4)
The road to nowhere: youth, insecurity and marginal transitions	169	(15)
Robert Macdonald
The insecurity of youth transitions	169	(2)
Insecure transitions: the case of Teesside	171	(9)
Solving insecurity: from welfare to work?	180	(4)
Boys will be boys: social insecurity and crime	184	(15)
Beatrix Campbell
Boys will be boys...	184	(1)
...and girls will be women	185	(1)
Crime and masculinity	186	(2)
Back to basics?	188	(4)
The collapse of civilisation as we know it	192	(1)
Communities and crime	193	(6)
Democratic vistas: imagining a twenty-first-century security	199	(14)
John Vail
The democratic imagination and security	199	(3)
An egalitarian political economy of security	202	(6)
Security policies: redistribution of work	208	(5)
Bibliography	213	(18)
Index	231