Afterword: Austerity and After

Abstract

This book represents an attempt to develop a conjunctural analysis of ‘austerity’, focusing on the ways in which the past - the historical era of ‘austerity Britain’ - has been put to work in the present. I have sought to offer an alternative to the ‘for’ and ‘against’ paradigm of austerity by drawing attention to the diverse ways in which social actors have made use of concepts of austerity, and in which audiences and consumers have responded to these mobilizations. At the same time, this conjuncture has served as a case study for the elaboration of a series of arguments about ‘left’ (green, red, and feminist) political uses of the past, and the assumptions about history that adhere in theoretical reflection on these political movements. In this afterword I want to sum up the conclusions I have drawn in relation to these two objectives, before turning to two themes I have yet to address adequately. These themes relate to the discursivity of austerity, and to its periodization: what comes ‘after’ austerity?