The nineties in 1990s Britain: long-sighted temporalities at the turn of the millennium

Abstract

Abstract Chronological categories of periodization such as decades, centuries and millennia are broadly treated with scepticism by historians. This essay reframes the questions we ask of such categories by exploring their contemporary significance for ‘ordinary’ historical actors. It focuses on the curious case of 1990s Britain, a decade that, in comparison to the historiographical advents of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, has been slow to emerge as a distinct trope of periodization. In considering why this might be, the essay looks beyond explanations that focus on the political legacy of Blairism, the stasis of neo-liberal hegemony or the retrospective notion that the decade marked a ‘holiday from history’ – an oasis of consensus, tranquillity and indeed boredom sandwiched between the class and cold wars of the 1980s and a post-9/11 clash of civilizations. Instead, it examines how the nineties were being constructed, contested and wielded in the 1990s themselves. Drawing on materials generated by the sociological organization the Mass Observation Project (M.O.P.), narratives of past, present and future co-produced by ‘ordinary’ observers and the authors of the M.O.P. directives, the article traces the shifting constellation of decadal temporalities that circulated during the nineties. As the decade drew to a close, the spectre of the millennium encouraged a lengthening of imagined temporal trajectories: eyes were cast beyond the immediately surrounding years to the larger terrain of the century and even the millennium. These long-sighted temporalities obscured the nineties as a category of historical significance, shaping the source base and collective memory of the decade. Ultimately, a study of the temporal regimes operating in 1990s Britain reveals the cultural power and emotional stickiness of seemingly arbitrary chronological markers.