Why Stigma? With Michaela Benson

What’s missing from mainstream thinking on stigma? And why must we confront power, politics and history if we are to fight dehumanisation and shame?

Imogen Tyler, author of "Stigma, The Machinery of Inequality", tells friend and fellow sociologist Michaela Benson how her thinking on stigma evolved through the time of Brexit, the “migrant crisis” and Trump – and why stigma power is alive in the widening “war on woke”. They discuss the need to celebrate movements and thinkers – from Du Bois to Black Power – long neglected by ‘stigma studies’.  And they consider the deep entanglement of stigma with migration – from colonialism to Brexit, to the dehumanisation of asylum seekers.

Plus: how can we amplify marginalised voices without reproducing the stigma they face? And how did Imogen’s experience as a working-class student lead to her fascination with the subject – and to a tattoo?

Read more about Michaela Benson and The Stigma Conversations at The Sociological Review

Note: This episode was recorded in Winter 2022, after Manston processing centre was emptied. Read more about the death of Hussein Haseeb Ahmed at Manston here. You can also read the coroner’s report of Nov 2022 into the death of Awaab Ishaak in Rochdale, plus this statement from Awaab Ishaak’s family, and this from Rochdale Boroughwide Housing

Credits

Host: Imogen Tyler
Guest: Michaela Benson
Executive and Development Producer: Alice Bloch
Guest: Michaela Benson
Project Lead: Imogen Tyler
Project Officer: Danielle Galway
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music and Artwork: Bruce Bennett 

Episode resources:

• Shame lives on the Eyelids in Imogen’s book Stigma: the Machinery of Inequality - (2020)
• The Condition of the Working Class in England - Friedrich Engels (1845)
• Never Again: Refusing race and salvaging the human - The Holberg Lecture given by Paul Gilroy (2019)
• Du Bois: Addressing the Colour Line - Gurminder K Bhambra, The Connected Sociologies Curriculum Project.
• From Stigma Power to Black Power - Imogen’s graphic essay with Charlotte Bailey (2019)
• Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity - Erving Goffman (1963)

From Michaela Benson:

• Who Do We Think We Are? – Podcast
• Read more about Michaela’s research on Brexit, Migration, Citizenship and Borders

Find extended reading lists and learn more at The Sociological Review 

Take Action!

Citizens Advice
Poverty Truth Network