Contributions, conjunctures and care: Revisiting Formations of Class and Gender

Since its publication in 1997, Formations of Class and Gender has become a touchstone for research in sociology and feminist media and cultural studies due to the precise, evocative and generative way it pinpoints and theorises class and gender. Skeggs’ careful ethnographic work – listening to 83 women training to be carers in the north of England over 12 years – provides tangible evidence of classed ‘feelings’ at the intersection of culture and economy and uses a multifaceted cultural studies approach to understand how this relates to their socially and historically specific context, or conjuncture. Formations gave many people a language with which to extend their analysis of the cultural violence enacted through the terms of ‘respectability’, alongside the undervalued nature of classed and gendered labours of care. These insights have had remarkable analytical reach for sociology and media and cultural studies, helping us understand how inequalities are both formed and felt. This article analyses the book’s contribution in three parts. The first opens by highlighting key features of the text and sharing our reflections on the book when re-reading it in the present. The second part charts the impact and contributions of the text in and around feminist media and cultural studies. The third part discusses the book’s continued relevance for understanding the current conjunctural moment of widening social inequality and a crisis in care, when sexism, racism and class divides adopt new incarnations, and suggests how its lessons might be repurposed today.