Local Activism and Neoliberalism: Performing Neoliberal Citizenship as Resistance

Abstract

This paper examines cultural and anti-poverty resistance in the City of Peterborough. i Resistance in the City of Peterborough reveals activists creatively and vibrantly responding to the effects of neoliberal policy. Rather than conform to neoliberalism, as recent scholars suggest that social movements do, they perform good neoliberal citizenship by discursively appropriating neoliberal goals of economic growth in the case of cultural activism and constructions of the self-sufficient, autonomous citizen in the case of anti-poverty activism. Such performances are in aid of (re)claiming public space and leveraging resources from the local state. Thus far, their efforts have rendered some notable successes, although not without challenges. Challenges include having to cope with slow change because of the time it takes to educate politicians and civil servants of the conditions cultural workers and poor people respectively face and uncertainty over who will maintain performative resistance. 1

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