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The University of Southampton
Geography and Environmental Science

A Very Personal Crisis: Everyday Fragilities and Relational Biographies in Times of Austerity  Seminar

Time:
13:00
Date:
21 February 2018
Venue:
Shackleton Building 44, Room 1087

For more information regarding this seminar, please email Dr Nathaniel Lewis at N.M.Lewis@soton.ac.uk .

Event details

In this paper I draw on ethnographic research with families in Greater Manchester, UK, to expand geographical understandings of crisis in and through everyday life. Using examples from my empirical data, including conversations, photographs and biographical mapping, and woven together with feminist writing on structural, spatial and social fragility, I argue that moments of crisis - such as austerity - can be revealing of the fragilities within familial and personal relationships. In times of austerity and hardship questions are raised about how people image themselves, and the space and time in which they situate their lives - previously, presently and prospectively. I illustrate how personal conditions of austerity are often approached with a personal inventory of other important life experiences and memories, of social, emotional or financial hardship, which resonate strongly. While this can provide people with a sense of hope, it is also personally affective and can have lasting impacts on a person and their intimate relationships.

Speaker information

Dr Sarah Marie Hall, University of Manchester. Lecturer in Human Geography

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