Affective politics and neoliberal subjectivities in ‘left behind’ places
Counter-narrating regional decline within/from Finland’s ‘Capital of Pessimism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7153166 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Grete Gansauer (0000-0002-4016-518X, University of Wyoming, corresponding author), Johanna Lilius (0000-0002-3002-3997, Aalto University), R Adams (0000-0001-6254-0385, University of Vienna), Ria-Maria Adams (0000-0002-5048-4600) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1140-1157 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environment and Planning C Politics and Space (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2399-6544 • E-ISSN: 2399-6552 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/23996544251317099 |
| OpenAlex | W4407751912 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 35 |
Increased scholarly and political interest in the ‘geographies of discontent’ demands attention not only to the material—but also to the emotional and discursive—dimensions of regional inequality. Amidst growing investigation into the affective geographies of depopulation and post-industrial life, little empirical work yet explores how ‘left behind’ communities themselves contribute to broader political discourses concerning deprived places. This paper asks: what potentials do local initiatives have to transform endogenous and exogenous discourses of decline? Drawing on J.K. Gibson-Graham, we analyze the case of the Pessimists Association in Puolanka, Finland—an artists’ initiative which parodies their shrinking town through comedic performance art. Through qualitative and ethnographic methods, we find that the Pessimists’ humorous and joy-full counter-narrative of regional decline reconfigures affective norms toward shrinkage by centering abundance, belonging, and acceptance. Yet by capitalizing on Puolanka’s ‘slow death,’ the project privileges entertainment/exchange-value for exogenous audiences over its cathartic/use-value for Puolanka residents. In all, this case details how entrenched neoliberal subjectivities thwart a wholly reimagined ‘politics of possibility’ for ‘left behind’ places. But, more hopefully, it also suggests strong potential for local initiatives’ affective resonance to transform discourses of decline beyond their grassroots
Economic growth · Economics · Ethnography · Gentrification · Grassroots · Narrative · Pessimism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Rural development and sustainability · Urban Planning and Governance
Cannibal Capitalism
Mediating Neoliberal Capitalism
Liveability under shrinkage
The Production of Subjectivity
Listening to People
Toward a queer psychology of affect
Human capitalisation in activation
Left behind places’
Governmentality, Capitalism, and Subjectivity
Radically Ordinary Lives
Place-based rural development
Transformative city branding and the evolution of the entrepreneurial city
Local agency and development trajectories in a rural region
Untangling regional development traps through narratives
Towards an emotional energy geography
For a geographical understanding of affect and emotions
Affect and subjectivity
Intensities of feeling
Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Second Edition
The Affect Theory Reader
Generative Anger
Rethinking the place brand
The emotional geography of a mine closure
Imagining a future in the austerity city
Getting it right
The Psychic Life of Neoliberalism
A Quest for Passion
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |