Project Overview

The project aims to understand how austerity has impacts that are felt on the ground long after implementation of policies and funding cuts.

Rather than a point in time, society or space, austerity is understood as constantly being formed and reshaped, in dialogue with experiences, histories and futures. It is focussed on three European devolved or autonomous regions:

• Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom
• Barcelona Province in Spain
• Sardinia in Italy

The project is guided by the following research questions:

1. In what ways have young people experienced overlapping socio-political ruptures to their life-courses, according to local austere contexts?
2. How do young people articulate and envision the impacts of these socio-political ruptures on their future biographies?
3. How can life-course perspectives on austerity shape understandings about and applications of the social life of policy?

To address these questions, in-depth creative oral history interviews will be carried out at each site. This will produce a rich, innovative body of data detailing the lived, complex legacies of austerity.