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Austere Intimacies and Intimate Austerities

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Everyday Life in Austerity

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life ((PSFL))

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Abstract

With this chapter, I continue to scrutinise and critique current conceptualisations of everyday life in austerity. Having established that everyday social relationships are made up of family, friends and other intimate relations, I set about exploring the intimacies that constitute these relationships: their forms, consistencies and reciprocities. Such intimacies can lead to further closeness and strengthened bonds, or to tensions and conflict. Both of these elements are significant within relational geographies of austerity. Situating social relationships as the focus, in this chapter, I work outwards to consider the difference that austerity makes for intimacy, and that intimacy makes for austerity. My aim is to illustrate how the hidden or less-discussed pockets of everyday intimacies in austerity can be uncovered when our focus is on relationships and relational space. After introducing ideas about intimacy from a range of scholars across human geography, sociology, philosophy and social care, the chapter is then arranged into four parts: intimate monetary arrangements, momentary encounters, more-than-human intimacies and material proximities.

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  1. University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Sarah Marie Hall

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  1. Sarah Marie Hall
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Hall, S.M. (2019). Austere Intimacies and Intimate Austerities. In: Everyday Life in Austerity. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17094-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17094-3_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-17093-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-17094-3

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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