introductions thread

[wrdnrd]

There seemed to be some interest in getting to know each other a little, which i think is sensible and potentially really fun -- and potentially also really nerve-wracking for the shy and anxious among us. Like me. :) I feel really awkward when i'm put on the spot to make an introductory post all on my own, so let's try an introductory thread and see how that works.

The downside is that it will get old and slip down the main page so that as a group we might not see a new introduction if it happens weeks from now. Using Dreamwidth's tracking feature to keep an eye on the post is always a good option. And if i see an uptick in the number of members, i'll try throwing open a new post for introductions and general conversation.

And if it doesn't work at all, we can always ditch the idea later!

I'll kick off introductions with one of my own. Because i started the community, i'm going to blather a bit at length so people can get an idea of who i am and where i'm coming from, but please feel free to say as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing!

Comments

[liseuse]

Okay! Here goes! (I feel duty bound because, umm, I said I wouldn't mind introductions. But now I have stage fright. Umm.)

Hello! My name is Hannah, and I live in York (England, not Nebraska or Pennsylvania or any of the other countries/states where there is also a place called York) with my mother, Pseudo-Stepfather and two cats.

I grew up in North Yorkshire in the 90s and then the Isle of Wight in the 00s - which is all rural and contained. The rural aspect of my upbringing has a lot to do with how I think about class. My parents, on the other hand, grew up on some of the biggest council estates in Manchester, and my mother is the daughter of immigrants from Ireland in the late 40s, which also has a big impact on how I think about my class, and class in general. I grew up fairly solidly working class, but we edged into the middle class as I got older.

Through education, and the concerted efforts of my mother and father, I am fairly solidly middle class these days. I went to what is classed a 'good' university for my BA, and a 'good' university for my MA and I'm currently ploughing through a PhD. All this education, however, has had the effect of making me very conscious about my class and how I interact with people of other classes, and what my upbringing has given me.

It also means that, like Chris, I am on a steeper learning path about urban class issues/poverty than I am about rural ones. Our family narrative is very much one of the estate being a success after rural poverty, and a lot of my thinking about class involved fighting against/thinking about that narrative. Academically I do look at class in my research but in a very different way to how I think about it in my everyday life (my research is about the C17 in England, and our class divisions don't apply) but one of the post-PhD options I am considering is a career in exploring access to postgraduate education and how it is, potentially, affected by class and class-stereotyping to a greater level than undergraduate education.

For a rounder picture, I am a 24 year old, white, queer, single and cis-gendered woman. I am Catholic, albeit one of those liberal ones who gets shunned by slightly more Catholic-Catholics. Politically I am very much on the left and my current bedtime reading is a book entitled Images of Plague and Pestilence.