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Citizenship, Democracy and Belonging in Suburban Britain

Making the Local

Examines how suburbanites form community in the face of neoliberal isolation.
 
An activist group in outer London’s Surbiton suburb, the Seething Villagers commemorate a fictional local history through tongue-in-cheek community festivals. These admittedly “stupid” gatherings celebrate a mythical village of Seething and its many adventures, including a run-in with a mountain-crushing giant. Citizenship, Democracy and Belonging in Suburban Britain explores how the Seething Villagers and other suburbanite fantasies fashion community in the face of neoliberal isolation. By taking the artists’ playfulness seriously, David Jeevendrampillai demonstrates how suburbanites develop fellow-feeling without access to traditional community centers.
 

228 pages | 25 color plates | 6.14 x 9.21 | © 2021

Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology


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Table of Contents

List of figures Preface Acknowledgements 1.Introduction 2. Theoretical frames of the book 3. The making of an unused map: moments of incommensurability 4. How to make a suburb part 1: diagrams, expertise and cake 5. Being stupid in the suburbs: life in the state of Seething 6. Making a suburb part 2: the research activities of the Free University of Seething 7. Citizenship in the suburbs: shit and the story of the filter beds 8. Conclusion Afterword by an anonymous interlocutor Index

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