Introduction

Mannay, Dawn ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7368-4111 2016. Introduction. Mannay, Dawn, ed. Our Changing Land: Revisiting Gender, Class and Identity in Contemporary Wales, Gender Studies in Wales, Cardiff: University of Wales Press,

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Abstract

In common with most introductory sections, this chapter provides the reader with an insight into the rationale for bringing this edited collection together. It sets out the aims and scope of the volume, as well as providing an overview of the following chapters and the ways in which they connect to the core themes of Welshness and everyday life in contemporary Wales. In this way, it forms a starting place, an opening and a beginning but no commencement is entirely novel – for the present is always embedded in the past; and at the same time oriented to the future. As Berger (1972, p. 370) contends: The present tense of the verb to be refers only to the present: but nevertheless with the first person singular in front of it, it absorbs the past, which is inseparable from it. ‘I am’ includes all that has made me so. It is more than a statement of immediate fact: it is already biographical’ Throughout Our Changing Land: Revisiting Gender, Class and Identity in Contemporary Wales, there is an emphasis on this temporal positioning as all of the chapters are both reflective, contemporary and forward thinking. As Steedman (1986, p. 6) argues, ‘specifity of place and politics has to be reckoned with in making an account of anybody’s life, and their use of their own past’; and this premise holds for studies of the collective, and the nation, as well as understandings of individual biographies and futures.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races L Education > L Education (General) T Technology > TD Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering T Technology > TR Photography
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Wales; Welsh life; gender; class; identity; nationality; national identity; language; class; politics; environment
Publisher:	University of Wales Press
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	31 Oct 2022 10:18
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/84314

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