Apocalypse and change. With GP Andy Knox
02/17/23 • 31 min
“Change can happen. Change has happened...”
Poverty makes us unwell. GP Andy Knox sees this in his North Lancashire consulting room, meeting people whose lives could improve if stigma and destitution went away. He tells sociologist Imogen Tyler about the burnout facing doctors and frontline workers trying to care for their communities on scant resources, and reflects on how we need to ask “bigger deeper questions” about what’s making our society sick.
But, inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s idea of hope as an “axe” – as something to practice, actively – Andy says change can happen if we have the humility to listen and the audacity to act differently. Describing working alongside his area’s Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, he shows how listening can be an anti-stigma practice, and also reflects on the power of social movements. We must not scoff, he says, at “being woke” – indeed, in this time of “apocalypse” and revelation, refusing to “wake up” is not an option.
Note: **In this episode, Andy mentioned suicide rates among female GPs. For recent research on this, see Claire Gerada's work in the British Journal of General Practice.
Credits
Host: Imogen Tyler
Guest: Andy Knox
Executive & Development Producer: Alice Bloch
Project Lead: Imogen Tyler
Project Officer: Danielle Galway
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music & Artwork: Bruce Bennett
Episode resources
- Andy Knox’s forthcoming book Sick Society (2023)
- Hope in the Dark Rebecca Solnit (2004)
- The dictionary of alternatives utopianism and organisation Martin Parker, Fournier, ValeÌrie & Patrick Reedy (2010)
- Poet, writer, activist Dionne Brand receives her honorary degree (2018)
- Doughnut economics : seven ways to think like a 21st century economist Kate Raworth (2017)
- The work of Katherine Trebeck
- The value of everything: making and taking in the global economy Marina Mazzucato (2018)
- Learning from the Sixties A lecture by Audre Lorde lecture (1982)
- Andy Knox’s blog at The King’s Fund
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project
Find extended reading lists and learn more about The Stigma Conversations at The Sociological Review
Act!
Trussell Trust
Independent Food Aid Network
Enough is Enough
Disabled People Against Cuts
Everydoctor
Healing Justice
Shelter
Southall Black Sisters
The Peoples Assembly
Acorn
“Change can happen. Change has happened...”
Poverty makes us unwell. GP Andy Knox sees this in his North Lancashire consulting room, meeting people whose lives could improve if stigma and destitution went away. He tells sociologist Imogen Tyler about the burnout facing doctors and frontline workers trying to care for their communities on scant resources, and reflects on how we need to ask “bigger deeper questions” about what’s making our society sick.
But, inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s idea of hope as an “axe” – as something to practice, actively – Andy says change can happen if we have the humility to listen and the audacity to act differently. Describing working alongside his area’s Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, he shows how listening can be an anti-stigma practice, and also reflects on the power of social movements. We must not scoff, he says, at “being woke” – indeed, in this time of “apocalypse” and revelation, refusing to “wake up” is not an option.
Note: **In this episode, Andy mentioned suicide rates among female GPs. For recent research on this, see Claire Gerada's work in the British Journal of General Practice.
Credits
Host: Imogen Tyler
Guest: Andy Knox
Executive & Development Producer: Alice Bloch
Project Lead: Imogen Tyler
Project Officer: Danielle Galway
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music & Artwork: Bruce Bennett
Episode resources
- Andy Knox’s forthcoming book Sick Society (2023)
- Hope in the Dark Rebecca Solnit (2004)
- The dictionary of alternatives utopianism and organisation Martin Parker, Fournier, ValeÌrie & Patrick Reedy (2010)
- Poet, writer, activist Dionne Brand receives her honorary degree (2018)
- Doughnut economics : seven ways to think like a 21st century economist Kate Raworth (2017)
- The work of Katherine Trebeck
- The value of everything: making and taking in the global economy Marina Mazzucato (2018)
- Learning from the Sixties A lecture by Audre Lorde lecture (1982)
- Andy Knox’s blog at The King’s Fund
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project
Find extended reading lists and learn more about The Stigma Conversations at The Sociological Review
Act!
Trussell Trust
Independent Food Aid Network
Enough is Enough
Disabled People Against Cuts
Everydoctor
Healing Justice
Shelter
Southall Black Sisters
The Peoples Assembly
Acorn
Previous Episode
Doing Anti-Racism. With Geraldine Onek and Jasmine Patel
How are racism and stigma power linked? How can education empower us to face the past and tell new stories? And why must we break historical silences? Sociologist Imogen Tyler talks to fellow activists from Lancaster Black History Group, formed after a Black Lives Matter Vigil in the city in 2020 – which few know was once the fourth largest slave trading city in the UK.
Teacher Geraldine Onek – who came to the UK as a child refugee from Sudan – describes working with schoolchildren to teach them about slavery and centre the lives of Black Lancastrians. Student Jasmine Patel describes her research, with fellow school pupils, into the city’s slavery family trees. Together, they show how facing the past is empowering - and what anti-racism means.
Note: This episode was recorded in Nov 2022, at which point The Tate had not responded to this letter described by Jasmine Patel. .
Credits
Host: Imogen Tyler
Guests: Geraldine Onek & Jasmine Patel
Executive & Development Producer: Alice Bloch
Project Lead: Imogen Tyler
Project Officer: Danielle Galway
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music & Artwork: Bruce Bennett
Episode resources
- Lancaster Black History Group feat. resources for schools
- The slave trade and the economic development of eighteenth-century Lancaster Melinda Elder (1992)
- Race, the Floating Signifier Stuart Hall (1997)
- Doing reparatory history: bringing ‘race’ and slavery home Catherine Hall (2018)
- Ghostly Presences, Servants and Runaways: Lancaster's Emerging Black Histories and their Memorialization 1687–1865 by Alan Rice (2020) in Britain’s Black Past ed. Gretchen Gerzina
- Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London - Simon Newman (2022)
- The Liverpool Slave Trade, Lancaster and its Environs Melinda Elder (2007)
- A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution Toby Green (2020)
- Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage Sowande’ Mustakeem (2016)
- The Slave Ship: A Human History Marcus Rediker (2008)
- Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora Stephanie Smallwood (2008)
- Blood Legacy: Reckoning with a Family’s Story of Slavery Alex Renton (2021)
- Sugar in the Blood: A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire Andrea Stuart (2012)
Find extended reading lists and learn more about The Stigma Conversations at The Sociological Review
Take Action!
The Slavery Family Trees project
Lancaster Black History Group
The Judges’ Lodgings Museum
International Slavery Museum
The Stigma Conversations - Apocalypse and change. With GP Andy Knox
Transcript
Welcome back to the Stigma Conversations with me, Imogen Tyler. By now you'll know why I want to talk about stigma, even when there are so many conversations going on out there that are doing great work to break down boundaries and taboos. Stigma is dehumanising, divisive, places limits on our lives, and talking about how that makes us feel really matters. But if we're to change things at the structural level, we need to also really talk about
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