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)

In: Environment and planning. C, Politics and space, Band 39, Heft 3, S. 469-490

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.