My earliest conscious political memory was the Greek election of October 1993, when I was 10. I have recollections of politics before then in the news and the newspapers (Gorbachev, George HW Bush, the Romanian flags with the hole in the middle), but these elections were my first full-on experience in terms of understanding there’s a political decision taking place. People in my family happened to be very interested and mobilized in favor of one of the two major parties in Greece then. What is interesting in terms of memory for me is that, as I revisit that period in Greek politics in Youtube videos, things look much less apocalyptic and monumental as I made them out to be as a child back then. In my mind the 1993 elections were a landmark, but looking back at it through the eyes of an adult (and political scientist) things look much more pedestrian and derivative than what they seemed back then.
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Last autumn we ran an experimental online public engagement series called 'earliest political memories'. We collected a total of 68 memories that were generously contributed by members of the public. You can read all the contributions here. The series caught the attention of our colleague Rachel O'Connell in the School of English who…
In "earliest political memories"
On Friday morning last week (24/07/2016) the UK woke up to the outcome of the referendum vote on EU membership. The blogosphere, social media and mainstream media are awash with attempts to make sense of what happened, as have my own conversations with others over the last three days. These 'furious' sense…
In "cultural work"
I have two early political memories. I think what stands out for me is why they still resonate and the significance of the place/time that the memories evoke. The first, is in a CofE Sunday School when I was around 6 or 7 years old. I never enjoyed Sunday School…
In "earliest political memories"