Abstract
In this short contribution, we attempt to explore the ways in which austerity measures – deficit reductions through tax increases and cuts to public spending – generate unexpected political subjectivities among women of colour activists in Britain. In particular, we ex- amine how the dramatic cuts to public spending and the privatization of public services simultaneously subject women of colour by further destabilizing their already precarious economic position and create new possibilities for women becoming radical agents for social change. We argue that the dynamic for mapping this process of women of colour becoming new (or, at least, different) political agents is found in the oftentimes disrespected and devalued social relations of caring and care work (Erel, 2011). We argue that caring for and about Others is a dual process of subjectivation through the (re) privat- ization of care through the roll back of the social welfare state and a politics of becoming which generates new solidarities for collective action among women of colour.
Highlights
In this short contribution, we attempt to explore the ways in which austerity measures – deficit reductions through tax increases and cuts to public spending – generate unexpected political subjectivities among women of colour activists in Britain
By intruding into this space to tell a different kind of story about austerity politics, it might perhaps be possible to reframe how we think about the ongoing economic crisis, whose interests are served by governing institutions and how we might think differently about resistance to the crisis – beyond the tropes of documenting a populist far-right backlash
In mapping women’s of colour’s activism against austerity, against the far right and for migrants’ rights in London,5 we find that care is the crucial social relationship that guides many women’s activism and is an important dynamic for building solidarity for collective action
Summary
We attempt to explore the ways in which austerity measures – deficit reductions through tax increases and cuts to public spending – generate unexpected political subjectivities among women of colour activists in Britain. Taking seriously the dynamics of women of colour’s activism under austerity matters because it disrupts the binary in EU studies scholarship that privileges a focus on the macro politics of EU institutions over the lived experiences and outcomes at the microlevel. By intruding into this space to tell a different kind of story about austerity politics, it might perhaps be possible to reframe how we think about the ongoing economic crisis, whose interests are served by governing institutions and how we might think differently about resistance to the crisis – beyond the tropes of documenting a populist far-right backlash. We turn to explore how women of colour confront the challenge of care by investigating how care acts as both a barrier to public space and as the fulcrum for a new public politics
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