The Personal Is Political (and Relational)

Abstract

With this chapter, I explore the relational politics of austerity. I return to and refresh Hanisch’s ideas about the personal as political, connecting them with long-standing concepts in human geography regarding relationalities and care ethics, alongside burgeoning work on quiet politics and activisms. With this body of literature, I conceptualise how the personal and relational affects of austerity are inherently and deeply political, expanding upon discussions in earlier chapters about everyday social infrastructures and intimacies. Placing personal and political geographies at the heart of enquiry, this chapter offers new ways of thinking about austerity in everyday life, particularly in terms of social unevenness and everyday politics and the potential of relational space. I also aim to connect disparate feminist literatures on everyday politics and care ethics, grounding them in spatial and relational contexts. Ethnographic findings are arranged into three themes: quiet politics of austerity, micro-aggressions and the everyday politics of difference, and the politics of presence.