Communal Beingness and Affect

Abstract

In Chapter 1, we saw that the inhabitants of Steeltown had to cope with chronic insecurity for over two hundred years and then the works closed and everything changed, ushering in more insecurity but without a central employer in changed work conditions, as we explored in Chapter 2. What it is important to convey is that far from witnessing a stable community with full employment and then a wrench and shift to neoliberalism, we are talking about a community that has a long history of chronic insecurity. As Christine says above, nothing is secure – but nothing has been secure for two centuries. In this sense, in many ways then, the closure of the steelworks and neoliberalism present perhaps less of a shift than one might imagine and, rather, intensification of the same – that nothing is secure. So, we are arguing in this chapter that the community developed over that two hundred years ways of coping and supporting each other that provided some sense of security, a sense in particular of continuity of being to counterpoint what was not provided by the economic and work conditions.

Nothing is secure. Nothing is secure at all. That’s the sad thing about it. You can’t relax. People are just stressed by the thought that I could be at work today and tomorrow it’s closed, which they have in the Valleys. It’s on the news. They’ve gone to work and the doors are locked.

— Christine, Steeltown resident