Bread-and-butter politics: democratic disenchantment and everyday politics on an English council estate

Koch, Insa (2016) Bread-and-butter politics: democratic disenchantment and everyday politics on an English council estate. American Ethnologist, 43 (2). 282 - 294. ISSN 0094-0496

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Abstract

Despite evidence of widespread disenchantment with formal politics among England’s impoverished sectors, people on the margins continue to engage with elected representatives on their own terms. On English council estates (social housing projects), residents mediate their experiences of an alien and distant political system by drawing local politicians into localized networks of support and care. While this allows residents to voice demands for “bread and butter,” personalized alliances with politicians rarely translate into collective action. The limits of a “bread and butter” strategy highlight the precariousness of working class movements at a time when the political left has largely been dismantled. They also demonstrate the need to account for the lived realities of social class in aspirational narratives for “alternative” democratic futures.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(IS...
Additional Information:	© 2016 American Anthropological Association
Divisions:	Law
Subjects:	J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain
Date Deposited:	14 Mar 2016 10:16
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2024 18:27
Funders:	Wenner-Gren Foundation, German National Academic Foundation, Wadham College, University of Oxford
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/65709

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