The affective life of austerity: uncanny atmospheres and paranoid temporalities

Abstract

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractThis paper moves beyond conceptualisations of austerity as a fiscal policy towards understanding austerity as lived and felt in everyday life, with a particular focus on its affective life. Through an ethnographic focus on public libraries, this paper argues that that austerity can take the form of an affective atmosphere. Bringing together psychoanalytic and Spinozist-Deleuzian accounts of affect this paper explores austerity as an uncanny atmosphere, in which austerity is lived through a series of unknowns that re-emerge throughout the library space. Paranoia subsequently emerges as a way in which to live with uncanny austerity -to make known the unknowns generated by austerity. This paranoia cannot be attributed to 'paranoid individuals', but to practices that become paranoid due to the blurring of reality and fiction that uncanny austerity generates. As austerity continues year after year, the uncertainties that emerge as a result of continual budget reductions are at the same time felt as something already known. In other words, there is a felt sense that austerity will inevitably lead to the contraction of the library service. Lived austerity, therefore, now carries such weight and has a particular depth of experience due to the innumerable previous years of, and encounters with, austerity.

Flat ontology and geography

“…Even if the affective capacity of the components that made up the bump stock were described as having a kind of ‘affective memory’ (Closs Stephens et al, 2017; Hitchens, 2019) that exceeded their event of encounter, it might still be difficult to define what a bump-stock equipped rifle could do ahead of its encounter with something else, as even this memory emerges and re-emerges ‘precisely from the relationship between the eminent elements’ (Hitchins, 2019: 6) in a given situation. From this position, the affective capacity of bodies and objects are still contingent upon an event, even if this event is not completely separated from other events in the past or the future.…”

What moves us also moves policy: the role of affect in mobilizing education policy on sustainability

“…Atmospheres, or as Böhme (1993) puts it, 'affective powers of feeling, spatial bearers of moods' (119), are relational; they emanate and are created by 'things, by people, and by the constellations that happen between them' (Böhme 1995, 33-34 translated by Anderson 2014. Atmospheres are experienced with and through others (Hitchen 2019), and provide a 'ubiquitous backdrop of everyday life' (Bissell 2010, 272). Educational researchers have used this term to differentiate the affective qualities of a school -its ethos, as well as more fragile fleeting affective intensities, such as pushes for progress in data-driven schools that operate 'in "pockets" or spheres which emerge and envelop members of the school in some classes and not others' (Finn 2016, 32).…”

Exploring spatiotemporal variations in public library provision following a prolonged period of economic austerity: A GIS approach

“…Consequently, this has led some commentators to question the future sustainability of library services in some areas (Forbes et al., ). In an attempt to move beyond a solely economic narrative, other commentators have highlighted the lived experience (and geographies) of austerity in everyday life (e.g., Hall, ), and in the context of public libraries specifically (Hitchen, ; Norcup, ). Norcup (), for example, speaks of the gendered impact of library closures/reconfigurations as many library staff are female.…”