[ecrea] Remembering and Rethinking Images of Welfare in the (Post) Austerity Era

Remembering and Rethinking Images of Welfare in the (Post) Austerity 
Era: a one day symposium

Venue:  Loughborough University
Date:  Friday 9th March 2018
Booking and further information:  www.imagesofwelfare.eventbrite.com

Confirmed speakers and contributors:   Peter Golding, Ruth Lister, Kim 
Allen, Kayleigh Garthwaite, Jo Ingold, Mark Monaghan, Ruth Patrick, Gaby 
Wolferink and Dominic Wring.

2017-18 will mark the 35th anniversary of the publication of Peter 
Golding and Sue Middleton’s classic study Images of Welfare. This is a 
cause for celebration, but also a cause for reflection. With nearly 500 
Google Scholar citations, the work continues to be a key reference point 
for understanding contemporary social policy, its associated politics 
and media representation. There is something of a timeless quality to 
the study. Golding and Middleton highlighted various mechanisms and 
processes employed by the tabloid press during the 1970s in the 
production of ‘scrounger phobia’ narratives which began to feature 
heavily in political discourse at this time. The issues the book 
documents – pervasive demonizing coverage of the so-called 
‘underserving’ poor – are still commonplace and have even taken on a new 
dimension in the era of what Jensen (2014) refers to as ‘poverty porn’ 
and the new commonsense about ‘welfare’ and ‘worklessness’ which have 
become increasingly pejorative terms in contemporary times.

A recent special edition of the journal Poverty and Social Justice 
(October, 2016), exploring attitudes to, and experiences of, ‘welfare’ 
in Britain payed homage to Golding and Middleton’s work. References to 
their study were found in all four contributions. A key theme of the 
journal, echoing Golding and Middleton, was that that pejorative 
attitudes to ‘welfare’ were prominent during the reputed ‘golden age’ of 
the welfare state (circa mid 1940s – mid 1970s) and, therefore, that 
aspects of the UK’s ‘machine of welfare commonsense’ have longer 
historical roots than is often imagined (Hudson and Lunt, 2016). A 
second and related theme was that attitudes towards ‘welfare’ are also 
inherently complex, malleable and often contradictory, allowing for a 
range of positive and negative attitudes co-exist. Thus, although 
attitudes towards providing ‘welfare’ to ‘the poor’ have hardened over 
time, attitudes towards whether ‘the poor’ are deserving of any state 
help have barely changed (Taylor-Gooby, 2015). So, although the media 
and political elites have engaged in stoking up the stigma and shaming 
of social security over the past few decades, giving rise to many myths 
surrounding ‘welfare’, this does not simply translate into outright 
negative attitudes from the public. The picture is more nuanced.

The results of the 2017 General Election and the resurgence of Labour on 
an anti-cuts, anti-austerity agenda adds some weight to the idea that 
public attitudes to ‘welfare’ are characterized by complexity. It also 
provides a timely opportunity to re-examine lessons from Images of 
Welfare. This is the primary aim of this one-day symposium. Through 
different forms of presentation (key note lectures, panel papers and 
round tables), it will bring together key thinkers across a range of 
career stages and disciplines including social policy, sociology, 
criminology, media and communications, business and economics, amongst 
others. In doing so, it will highlight the heritage of Loughborough 
research (Golding and Middleton, 1983; Lister, 2010) demonstrating how 
this has influenced current debates in representations of ‘welfare’ and 
how this can provide a platform to shape future policy trajectories at 
what might turn out to be an important cross-road in the politics of 
social policy in the UK and beyond.

Organisers: Mark Monaghan, Gaby Wolferink and Dominic Wring 
(Loughborough University)



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