The politics of a ‘Poncy Pillowcase’: Migration and borders in Coronation Street’
| Author | Robert J Topinka,Alexandria J Innes |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395716675371 |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395716675371
Politics
2017, Vol. 37(3) 273 –287
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395716675371
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The politics of a ‘Poncy
Pillowcase’: Migration and
borders in Coronation Street’
Alexandria J Innes
School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies, University of East
Anglia, Norwich, UK
Robert J Topinka
School of Media, Film and Music, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Abstract
This article examines the ways in which popular culture stages and supplies resources for agency
in everyday life, with particular attention to migration and borders. Drawing upon cultural studies,
and specific insights originating from the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies,
we explore how intersectional identities such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender are experienced
in relation to the globalisation of culture and identity in a 2007 Coronation Street storyline. The soap
opera genre offers particular insights into how agency emerges in everyday life as migrants and
locals navigate the forces of globalisation. We argue that a focus on popular culture can mitigate
the problem of isolating migrant experiences from local experiences in migrant-receiving areas.
Keywords
borders, Coronation Street, cultural studies, migration, politics
Received: 15th November 2015; Revised version received: 28th June 2016; Accepted: 8th August 2016
In a 2007 episode of Coronation Street, Janice Battersby, Sally Webster, and Sean Tully
discuss how they might be able to help their friend, Joanne Jackson, who is identified as
an irregular migrant, detained, and facing deportation to Liberia. Janice suggests ‘we
could write to our MP’, but this suggestion is quickly side-lined in favour of sending her
a scented lavender pillow for comfort and stress relief – an idea upon which Janice heaps
derision. This focus on the mundane, the domestic, and the everyday (notwithstanding
melodramatic storylines) means that soaps, like other female-dominated genres, receive
even less attention than other cultural forms as sites of global politics (Kaklamanidou,
Corresponding author:
Alexandria J Innes, School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies, University of East
Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
Email: a.innes@uea.ac.uk
675371POL0010.1177/0263395716675371PoliticsInnes and Topinka
research-article2016
Special Issue Article
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