From Out of Apathy to the post-political: The spatial politics of austerity, the geographies of politicisation and the trajectories of the Scottish left(s). (May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Featherstone, David
• Is Part Of: Environment and planning. Volume 39:Number 3(2021)
• Page Start: 469
• Page End: 490
• Publication Date: 2021-05
• Subjects: Austerity -- spatial politics -- post-politics -- New Left -- Scottish Independence movements; Political geography -- Periodicals; Geopolitics -- Periodicals; Policy sciences -- Periodicals; Territory -- Periodicals; 320.1205
• DOI: 10.1177/2399654419885706
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2399-6544

Abstract

This paper offers an alternative approach to some of the temporalising logics and imaginaries which have dominated debates around the post-political and post-democracy. It does this through engaging with the writings of figures associated with the 'First New Left' notably Stuart Hall and E.P. Thompson between 1956 and 1962. I argue that their essays in texts such as Out of Apathy bear some striking similarities with the claims of literatures relating to post-politics and post-democracy. Their work I argue repays substantive engagement; however, because through its attentiveness to emergent practices and geographies of antagonism, it offers a more generative and politically strategic resolution to some of the common discontents of consensus and marketisation of politics that has characterised work on post-politics. The paper develops these arguments through a discussion of how the uneven geographies of politicisation and trajectories of the Scottish left(s) in different parts of the post-war period have shaped and impacted on the spatial politics of austerity in significant ways.