Abstract
Acknowledging the importance of heroes in the framing of political identities and building on the expanding interdisciplinary scholarship, this paper offers a novel approach by situating the analysis of public choices of heroes within debates on social change, and, specifically, inclusion and diversity politics. Utilising an original dataset of two individual-level, nationally representative surveys of British and US adults, we demonstrate that the landscape of popular heroism in both countries is shaped by limited acceptance of traditionally under-represented groups such as women and ethnic minorities. Using rigorous testing and regression analysis, we highlight the endurance of a white male hero whose dominance is only challenged through preferences for same-sex and same-race/ethnicity hero-figures, with both trends signposting the symbolic boundaries of embracing the difference. Overall, this paper highlights a critical role of popular heroes in advancing inclusion and diversity agendas and urges for further empirical research on the socio-political functions, and gender, race-specific drivers of heroism.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society |
Early online date | 18 Jan 2024 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 18 Jan 2024 |
Bibliographical note
This work was supported by the AHRC under Grant RG13113-10, 2015-16 andby Swansea University’s College of Arts and Humanities Research Committee small grant, 2017.
Data Availability Statement
The authors are happy to share replication codes and have shared descriptive statistics in the supplementary appendix. For any further information, please contact the corresponding author.Keywords
- Heroism
- Social change
- Gender
- Ethnicity