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Based on 222 qualitative interviews conducted through a large ethnographic research project on transformed industrial landscapes in six countries, the main argument of the article is threefold. First, landscapes and narratives about past and present landscapes are relevant to the identity of class; second, the transformation of industrial landscapes is most emphatically expressed by nostalgia; third, the narratives are a transnationally constitutive element of class identity. The narratives of workers about the transformation and destruction of former workplaces express an identity crisis as seen in feelings of mourning and indifference. However, this does not indicate an erosion in the relevance of identity. Considering class as also having an emotional dimension, the article demonstrates that a class identity also evolves out of loss and longing. As nostalgia for a past now gone is a common narrative identity element in the research areas, it is considered as constitutive of a transnational class identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social class has traditionally played a key role in explaining social behaviour and cognition. However, recent analyses have been dominated by the view that the relevance of class for behaviour has dwindled in advanced industrial societies. We contest this view by focusing on the subjective components of class consciousness. Using a national survey of Danish citizens, we show that individuals continue to hold meaningful conceptions of classes, to identify with them and, moreover, to perceive substantial levels of differences between them with these latter beliefs being strongly structured by respondent class identification. These results are all the more intriguing because they stem from a high affluence/low inequality national context that should be a particularly good case for failing to find such rich class perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an insecure post-industrial society, working-class young men must forge new youth transitions. This entails rethinking what it is to be a 'man' beyond the world of industrial paid employment. It also involves a reshaping of a whole 'way of life' with the erosion of traditional labour and leisure lifestyles. This ethnographic study contrasts the cultural habitations of young men from traditional skilled working-class backgrounds with those from families experiencing long-term inter-generational unemployment. It explores their differently textured 'going out' experiences, their values, attitudes and practices. By focusing upon the subtle and explicit demarcations that distinguish the 'rough' from the 'respectable' working-class, the article argues that social class is of marked and continuing salience in youth culture. Furthermore, the work suggests that by exhibiting 'spectacular masculinities' of white male excess, young men accrue a body capital that has a currency and a local exchange value within the circuits they inhabit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]