Cultural Politics of Austerity

Rebecca Bramall teaches media and cultural studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Brighton, UK.

• Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: Austere times 2. On being 'inside' austerity: austerity chic, consumer culture and anti-austerity protest 3. The past in the present: history, memory, ideology and discourse 4. Dig for victory! Eco-austerity, sustainability and new historical subjectivities 5. The state of austerity: governance, welfare and the people 6. Turning back time: feminism, domesticity and austere femininities 7. Afterword: austerity and after Notes Bibliography Index

"This book offers a useful map for thinking critically and reflexively about austerity and our investment in it. ... this book will provide a snapshot and a map to help us translate the ways that austerity is made appealing, and how we are made complicit in it. ... Bramall's book offers a valuable toolbox for thinking about how to break and remake the hegemonic common sense of austerity culture." (Tracey Jensen, Journal of Cultural Economy, November, 2015) 'The Cultural Politics of Austerity is a critical and novel contribution to a contemporary debate of crucial importance: how the meaning of 'austerity', as something that is related but different to government spending cuts, is negotiated in everyday life. Although the volume is explicitly framed primarily as a contribution to memory studies, Rebecca Bramall's arguments will clearly be of interest beyond that field as well.' - Liam Stanley, Political Studies Review 'Bramall's valuable intervention makes space for a much needed political self-confidence in the face of austerity and its aftermath. It advocates re-moulding anti-austerity politics to a more innovative and productive politics that both imagines and labours to build a sustainable and equal society in the context of dwindling resources. As such, it will be of interest to students, scholars and activists seeking to understand and grasp the possibilities for change.' - Anita Biressi, Feminist Review