Brexit as postindustrial critique

Ringel, Felix

doi:10.1086/709780

Brexit as postindustrial critique

Ringel, Felix

Authors

Dr Felix Ringel felix.ringel@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Abstract

Anthropologists and other commentators struggle to make sense of pre-COVID-19 political developments in the postindustrial Global North. Various narratives were created to explain these dramatic events and changes, deploying an armory of social science analysis. We could approach one of these worrying developments, Brexit, as a postindustrial phenomenon. To make this case, I will compare my ethnographic material from postindustrial German cities with my experience in North East England as a non-UK, EU citizen. Brexit is not just a delayed response to economic decline and insecurity, epitomized in the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent times of austerity. Rather, Brexit indicates that the former industrialized countries of the Global North have not yet redefined their political and economic organization. Further, they have not developed an idea of what life after the postindustrial crisis can look like. I show that anthropology can contribute to precisely this kind of future-thinking.

Citation

Ringel, F. (2020). Brexit as postindustrial critique. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 10(2), 361-366. https://doi.org/10.1086/709780

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	2020
Deposit Date	Jul 2, 2021
Publicly Available Date	Jul 2, 2021
Journal	HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Electronic ISSN	2049-1115
Publisher	HAU Society for Ethnographic Theory
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	10
Issue	2
Pages	361-366
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1086/709780