Phil Hedges

This note is a post-script to my Interface paper Writing a History of Now: The
Campbell House Rent Strike (WHN), adapting the theoretical framework
presented to a different social media platform in order to write a different type
of radical history. Whilst the history in WHN can be understood as
longitudinal, the narrative depicted in this note is latitudinal; shallow in terms
of the length of engagement, it is broad in terms of the number of actors whose
voices are included. To write from this position, I switch focus from Facebook
to Twitter and from a single account to a single hashtag - #NoCapitulation,
created during the 2018 UCU strike over cuts to the USS pension. The
introduction outlines the context of the research before a methodology section
revisits theories discussed in WHN. Here I address the ethics of using Tweets in
research; nominally public information, there are nonetheless ethical concerns
related to using this data without consent. Drawing on Benjamin, I suggest
changes to the model of the Repairer that illuminate the epistemological
position of the researcher using Twitter data. The note concludes with a
history of 13th March 2018 written using #NoCapitulation and reflection on the
robustness of this narrative.

E.P. Thompson used the Times letters page to compare the responses of the middle classes in the 1970 electricity workers dispute to the opinions of bourgeois correspondents in earlier unrest. This essay looks at similar letters published during the UCU strike action over the USS pension scheme in order to explore continuity in British antiunion sentiment. 

Published online at http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/e-p-thompson-the-uss-strike-and-the-servant-problem/

Against a backdrop of unaffordable housing, students from University College London (UCL) undertook rent strikes that won concessions from University landlords. This paper examines one of the first UCL strikes - the dispute at Campbell House Halls of Residence.

The UCL, Cut the Rent (UCL,CTR) group was arguably crucial in this struggle. One of the outward facing tools for organising was the Facebook page - and this paper begins by presenting an account of the strike assembled solely from material posted on this page.

The process of assembling this account is outlined, describing the criteria for inclusion as a source, before drawing on Walter Benjamin and Steven J. Jackson to present the epistemological position that underpins the paper. The historiographical concerns that arise from this process are explored, with Eric Hobsbawm's lecture 'The Present as History' referenced as a basis for these discussions.

Feedback on the account by the minority of UCL,CTR activists who engaged with the researcher highlights a desire to construct an accurate narrative - albeit from differing motivations. Finally the narrative presented is closely examined and gaps in the account are highlighted. To demonstrate the limitations of the methodology, these gaps are addressed using material from oral history interviews.

In 2016, the Marxist historian Peter Linebaugh published an anthology of 'May Day essays'. These " occasional " essays cover broad themes that link together temporally and spatially disparate events. This paper seeks to extract the theories that underpin these texts as part of a practical attempt to outline a framework for future 'May Day essays'. Beginning with a detailed explanation of the rationale underpinning the paper, sections examine several key essays from the anthology. In doping so, the meaning of Linebaugh's May Day is outlined and the characteristics of a May Day essay are defined, before two key models are examined in an attempt to outline them as coherent theories. A close reading of the essay May Day with Heart is then undertaken to draw stylistic guidelines from a complex text. The conclusion briefly examines a 'May Day essay' themed around housing struggles drafted using the framework outlined in this paper.

This paper is a companion to the author's Hooray, Hooray, The First Of May: Sketching A Theory Of Peter Linebaugh's May Day (2017). Drafted to demonstrably implement the findings uncovered in that study, this 'occasional' essay retells the narratives of the rent strikes in St Pancras (1960) and University College London (2015), alongside resistance to the M11 motorway (1994). The theoretical framework used to link these temporally and spatially distinct narratives was developed from a close reading of several essays published in Linebaugh's The Incomplete, True, Authentic and Wonderful History of May Day (2016). These theories are outlined in the companion paper. Here, Linebaugh's model of a red and green May Day structures the essay, drawing on the ancient festival of fertility and the modern celebration of class struggle respectively, and the narratives are linked directly to resisting exploitation and expropriation. Stylistic techniques observed in Linebaugh's work are also replicated.

This note begins to answer the question - in a period of change, where membership and activist turnover is high, how do trade union branches ensure that their past struggles are remembered? I consider how a narrative approach to understanding group forms of memory may help to maintain an awareness of past industrial wins and losses - what for brevity I call the memory of 'struggle' in the workplace. Inspired by personal experience and written with union activists and organisers in mind, I draw upon the work of Charlotte Linde (2009; 2015) to answer a series of rhetorical questions. In this way I begin to think through the implication of a narrative approach to thinking about memory for trade union branches. These questions outline a working understanding of memory before suggesting that memory can be understood as 'static' or 'dynamic'. I move on to think about how public sector institutions forget before considering how this could impact upon trade union branches when at the branch level members are also employees of these institutions. I conclude by suggesting that events marking anniversaries of branch wins and losses are examples of 'occasions' designed for sharing narratives and keeping memories of past struggles active.

‘Quit Lit’ testimonies outline the reasons why academics at various stages in their careers abandon the increasingly neoliberal ivory tower. Quitting is an act of weak resistance that this note seeks to place in an infrapolitical framework by marrying James C. Scott with Francesca Coin’s analysis of the genre. Quitting is akin to the act of desertion, which in turn can be understood as a covert version of mutiny. In this context I draw upon Scott’s work to build a theoretical model that I apply to 50 Quit Lit testimonies via top down thematic analysis. I present findings in four broad categories. Coding around hidden transcripts highlights that ‘Quit Lit’ authors (what I label ‘deserters’) discuss with their peers their critique of the academe. Examining when the hidden transcript breaches public transcripts suggests that there are three strategies for containing dissent – threatening to damage careers, ignoring the critiques of academia and attempting to shift the blame onto the deserter. Coding the act of quitting shows that - for temporary and student ‘deserters’ - a confrontational exit is often absent. Finally examining what ‘deserters’ desert to reveals that testimonies are written from a variety of positions beyond sanction from former employers.