Classwork Project Workshop

Classwork Project Workshop

Does class feel as important to you as race, gender and other equity topics? Is class something you don't often get to think about and discuss, especially with people from different class backgrounds to yours?

Class helps shape all aspects of our lives, including how we organise in social justice movements. This one day workshop aims to deconstruct our classed experiences and the ways in which we reproduce the same class system we fight against, in order to create stronger, more egalitarian social justice movements.

This exciting and groundbreaking workshop is led by *The Classwork Project* https://www.theclassworkproject.com/testimonials-for-class-work-project to bring together people of working class, middle class, owning class and any other class identity to talk about money, class and power.

The Venue has been paid for by Iyengar Yoga Oxford, so all ticket money will go to fund the Claswork Projects amazing work.

The UK class system is complicated and contested. It is embedded within the global class

system, at the same time as having its own specific characteristics and compositions. The

working class is told to unite and fight, but some segments of this class are given far greater

rewards by the capitalist system, whilst others are marginalised and demonised. Whether this is

through unemployment, insecure housing and work or immigration status, the impacts can have

profound socio-psychological effects on the individuals who experience it.

This workshop will explore the processes of fragmentation and stratification within the non-

owning and non-governing classes within the UK. It will emphasise the voices of those with lived

experience of prolonged poverty and marginalisation, while also looking at the ways people of

all class backgrounds can actively fight against class injustice. Drawing on our personal

experiences as class embodied individuals, together we will examine the ways in which our lives

are shaped by our class position.

We will be careful not to remove class from its capitalist context. This means emphasising our

access to material resources and the ways this affects our lives and social justice politics. Only

then will we also look at the ways cultural and social capital affect class. This means looking at

the ways “what you know” and “who you know” can provide access to education, jobs, service

provision, etc.

All of this will be done by drawing from our personal experiences, examining the ways our lives

are shaped by our class position. We will also pay attention to the ways class intersects with

other parts of our identities, such as gender, race and ability.

While we will introduce some ideas and concepts, please be aware that much of the workshop

will require your active participation and willingness to reflect on your own class position with the

group. As facilitators, we want to create a safe but challenging environment in which to learn

from each others’ knowledge and experiences.

This workshop has been organised as a try-out for possible future use in a retrospective cohousing project. For this session the following networks have been invited: Cohousing Oxford members, Iyengar Yoga teachers and students in Oxford, All Teach Maths Tuition Oxford community, Roots Radical Learning’s Oxford community, and Oxford housing coops and informal activist network.

Host or Publisher Iyengar Yoga with Toby Golds in Oxford