Brexit

Modes of uncertainty and futures in an impasse

Bibliographic Data

ID8963152
AuthorsBen Anderson (0000-0002-9541-6142, Department of Geography Durham University Durham UK), Harold Fisher Wilson (0000-0002-5154-0467, Department of Geography Durham University Durham UK, corresponding author), Peter J Forman (0000-0002-0545-4541, Sociology University of Lancaster Lancaster UK), Julia Heslop (0000-0003-1539-6266, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Newcastle University Newcastle UK), Emma Ormerod (0000-0001-9064-1976, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology Newcastle University Newcastle UK), Gaja Maestri (0000-0002-7935-0358, Sociology and Policy Aston University Birmingham UK)
Year2019
Volume45
Issue2
Pages256-269
Publication date2019-09-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/tran.12348
OpenAlexW2973253948
LanguageEN
Citations received33
References cited33

Alongside the emergence of various populisms, Brexit and other contemporary geopolitical events have been presented as symptomatic of a generalising and intensifying sense of uncertainty in the midst of a crisis of (neo)liberalism. In this paper we describe what kind of event Brexit became in the impasse between the UK’s EU referendum in 2016 and its anticipated exit from the EU in 2019. Based on 108 interviews with people in the North‐East of England, we trace how Brexit was variously enacted and felt as an end, advent, a harbinger of worse to come, non‐event, disaster, and betrayed promise. By following how these incommensurate versions of Brexit took form and co‐exist, we supplement explanatory and predictive approaches to the geographies of Brexit and exemplify an approach that traces what such geopolitical events become. Specifically, we use the concept of “modes of uncertainty” as a way of discerning patterns in how present uncertainties are lived. A “mode of uncertainty” is a shared set of practices animated by a distinctive mood through which futures are made present and felt. Rather than treat uncertainty as a static, explanatory context, we thus follow how different versions of Brexit are constituted through specific “modes of (un)certainty” – negative hope, national optimisms, apprehensive hopefulness and fantasies of action – that differentiate within a seemingly singular, shared sense of uncertainty

Brexit · Context (archaeology · Economics · European union · Financial economics · Futures contract · Geopolitics · International trade · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Referendum · Sociology · History · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Urban Planning and Governance

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