Research
You will find a complete range of our peer-reviewed monographs, multi-authored and edited works, including original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
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Books: Research
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This powerful book analyses Britain’s Tory Party’s endemic racism, immigration policies and imposition of austerity, exposing how 14 years of Tory rule have deepened inequality and division.
With vivid examples, from the Windrush scandal and Grenfell tragedy to Islamophobia, Cole reveals how “hostile environment” policies, the “age of austerity” and brutal budget cuts have shaped lives and communities. Combining sharp analysis with historical context, the book uncovers how these issues are deeply tied to capitalism and class struggles.
In the light of the rise of the far right in Britain and offering both immediate solutions and a vision for systemic change, this crucial work challenges us to imagine a fairer, more compassionate society grounded in justice and solidarity.
The last chapter contains an appraisal of the strikes that confronted Sunak’s premiership. It is noted that as soon as he became Prime Minister, he signalled austerity and went on to enact both extensive industrial austerity by waging war against the unions and fiscal austerity: cutting social expenditure. Given the centrality of social class in his efforts, Sunak’s own class background is briefly dwelt on. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s autumn budget 2022 has been described by Guardian Senior Economics Commentator, Aditya Chakrabortty, as constituting ‘the third wave of austerity since 2010’. Hunt’s March 2023 budget is characterized by ‘get the workers back to work’ and ‘billions for the rich’. The first national nurses’ strike is discussed, as is the eruption of other widespread strike action at the start of 2023. Sunak’s (anti-) Strikes (Minimum Services Levels) Act of 2023 was a continuation of anti-union legislation started by Margaret Thatcher. Five years after a United Nations report, another revealed that extreme poverty had increased. Chapter 8 concludes with Hunt’s autumn statement in 2023 that amounted to more painful austerity than ever.
The introduction to this chapter addresses Suella Braverman’s cruelty having dreamt pleasurably of the first deportation flights to Rwanda. Next, the nature of the relationship between British Asians and the Tory Party is discussed in the context of Braverman who referred to herself as a ‘child of the British Empire’. She instantly ramped up the rhetoric of the hostile environment on being reappointed Home Secretary. The cruelty of that rhetoric manifested itself in a confrontation with a Holocaust survivor. In a propaganda exercise, Braverman visited Rwanda to promote the draconian Illegal Migration Act. She also made racist remarks about ‘grooming gangs’, rebuked the police for seizing ‘gollywogs’ from a pub and claimed, without evidence, heightened criminality among small boat arrivals. Braverman was also accused of breaching the barristers’ code over racist language and she refused a more humane asylum-support scheme. There is more on Islamophobia in the Tory Party and the use of a barge to house people seeking asylum is described as ‘cruel and inhumane’. Further discussions include anti-Gypsy, Roma and Traveller racism and Braverman’s attacks on the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. The chapter concludes with the case of a Tory MP accused of ‘racially abusing’ an activist and the sacking of Braverman for saying the police are biased towards the left.
In the introduction to Chapter 3 , some political controversies surrounding the concept of ‘hostile environment’ are addressed. In the main part of the chapter, it is noted that racism had returned to the heart of electoral politics as the country edged towards the 2010 General Election that resulted in a Coalition Government under the premiership of Tory David Cameron. While Cameron was clearly supportive of the hostile environment, it was Theresa May who was its driver. The chapter, therefore, focuses on her time as Home Secretary and then as Prime Minister. The preparation for the hostile environment consisted of speeches that displayed rhetoric of hate, blame and threat by both May and Cameron. The hostile environment was launched by May in 2012 and was followed by major and draconian changes in family migration rules. There were also May’s notorious ‘Go home or face arrest vans’. This was followed by the Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016 that further restricted immigration. May’s premiership from 2016 to 2019 witnessed the Grenfell Tower disaster and the 2018 White Paper on Immigration. The hostile environment was not confined to migrants and prospective migrants but also Muslims, in the context of rampant Islamophobia in the Tory Party and the Windrush generation whose rights as British citizens began to be drastically eroded.
This chapter highlights Cambodia’s strong changes in the politics of memory since the end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. While a generalized demonization mnemonic dominated during the civil war of the 1980s, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ‘Win-Win Policy’ placed stronger emphasis on the universal victimhood mnemonic from the mid-1990s onwards. This transition meant a shift from a very broad attribution of responsibility to and generalized demonization of the Khmer Rouge to responsibility narrowed to only the highest leaders and a broad recognition of victimhood, even for former Khmer Rouge. However, today, ambivalence remains as the generalized demonization mnemonic still remains important as a political screen for justifying government power, while universal victimhood including low-level Khmer Rouge forwards reconciliation. Furthermore, ambivalence exists regarding the status of Vietnamese in the country, who are both framed as heroes for saving the country from the Khmer Rouge, but also as the historic enemies, intersecting with opposition attempts to undermine the government. The chapter unpacks how these and more marginalized mnemonic role attributions and ambivalences serve different political interests of Prime Minister Hun Sen and the political opposition at different times.
This concluding chapter succinctly draws together the key theoretical and empirical contributions of the book: the introduction of the concept of mnemonic role attributions, the power of ambivalences, a systematic and comparative approach to applying such an analysis of the politics of memory to the memoryscape, as well as specific insights into specific cases. Briefly, the chapter discusses these insights in the context of the broader literature and demonstrates what potential consequences these insights could have for academic discussions, as well as for practitioners working in post-violence societies.
The chapter interrogates Indonesia’s memoryscape since the 1965/1966 genocide against communists, committed in the context of General Suharto’s takeover of power and serving as a legitimating foundation for his subsequent New Order regime. As such, the violence itself has been valorized and those responsible celebrated as heroes, while the targeted communists have been villainized and remembered as perpetrators (albeit of other crimes of attempting a coup). Communism thus outlived the Cold War era as a strong and menacing threat in Indonesian politics. Even since the transition from the authoritarian ‘New Order’ regime to democracy, little has changed in official memory and the attribution of responsibility and roles, particularly given consistencies across political elites and the importance of specific societal and religious organizations. However, official attributions are questioned and challenged in some cultural heritage projects and increasingly in online spaces, augmenting the memoryscape and allowing unheard voices to attribute alternative roles in new interpretations of the past. The chapter pushes back against the trope of a silence regarding the past in Indonesia, showing how political actors actively mobilize the threat of communism and how survivors of the genocide carve out (marginalized) spaces in which to remember the past in their terms.
The Introduction introduces the central interest of the book on how the past is utilized by political actors in the memoryscape to attain or consolidate power and legitimacy in societies after mass violence. By highlighting previous excellent work on memory and the politics of memory, I show the value of two core arguments made in this book. First, I argue that the main way in which the violent past becomes salient for the political present is through the attribution of roles in memory (mnemonic role attributions), asking who is remembered as a perpetrator, victim, hero, and bystander? Second, I show how ambivalences in the memory of the past allow politicians to mobilize different mnemonic role attributions concurrently. The Introduction also introduces the book’s research approach and fieldwork methods, including interviews and participant observation conducted in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Indonesia. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of the book’s structure.
This book explores how political actors draw on memories of violent pasts to generate political power and legitimacy in the present. Drawing on fieldwork in post-violence Cambodia, Rwanda and Indonesia, the book demonstrates in what way power is derived from how roles are assigned, exploring who is deemed a perpetrator, victim or hero, as well as uncertainties in this memory.
The author interrogates the ways in which these roles are attributed and ambivalences created in each society’s political discourses, transitional justice processes and cultural heritage. The comparative empirical analysis illustrates the importance of memory for political power and legitimacy today.
