Living and Feeling the Austere

Abstract

This paper moves beyond conceptualisations of austerity as fi scal \npolicy towards exploring the multiple ways austerity may be lived and felt in \neveryday life. Drawing on research with families affected by disability, this \npaper argues that austerity is felt as a series of atmospheres that envelop and \ncondition times and spaces of the everyday. Austerity is made both affectively \nand materially present through these atmospheric intensities as they register \nand radiate between individual bodies and everyday objects. As they shape both \nday-to-day practices and future imaginaries, atmospheres of austerity generate \nnumerous individualised experiences that result in multiple affective relations \ntowards austerity. As a result, this paper holds together the following relations \nto austerity: anticipating austerity, adapting to austerity, ‘getting on with life’ \nand accepting austerity. These show that austerity is more than an economic \npolicy; it is a phenomenon that is understood through individuals’ lived and \nfelt realities that are often experienced through fl uctuating, non-coherent \nand sometimes confl icting affective relations that come to shape how people \nfeel and act in the everyday. It is through a conceptualisation of austerity as \nlived that we might galvanise people against austerity by encouraging a more \nnuanced and multi-tonal counter politics that takes into account the multiple \naffective relations that are expressed through various domains of everyday life.

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