Infrastructures of solidarity: the spatial politics of the left in 1980s Scotland

Hampton, Rosie Levine (2025) Infrastructures of solidarity: the spatial politics of the left in 1980s Scotland. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of unemployed workers’ centres, women’s centres, and lesbian and gay bookshops as infrastructures of solidarity on the left in 1980s Scotland, with a particular focus on Glasgow and Edinburgh. I examine the construction, running, and closure of various spaces, demonstrating the ways in which the crafting of these infrastructures intimately shaped the spatial politics of solidarity produced within them. I propose that these are uniquely illuminating case studies through which to understand the myriad constitutions of the political left in 1980s Scotland. I build on Massey’s key theorisations on space, as a product of social relations and as a domain of multiplicity, to interrogate the ways in which infrastructures of solidarity were shaped by various political and emotional trajectories (Massey, 2007). This thesis draws from a set of oral history interviews that I conducted between May 2021 and February 2022. Consequently, I argue that the historical emotional geographies of solidarity in 1980s Scotland are best emotively and reflectively explored through oral history interviews.

This thesis makes a number of central contributions. First, I contend that an analysis of solidarities that are built in particular spaces can reveal the inter-play of different subjectivities that shape relationships and acts of solidarity. The process(es) of crafting infrastructures of solidarity reveals how left-wing activists negotiated questions of space, funding, and labour in ways that did not always align exactly with the proposed aims of the centre or bookshop in question. The insights gleaned from these infrastructures of solidarity reinforce Doreen Massey’s assertion that you cannot take any space as given along the lines of a predetermined location or subjectivity (Massey, 2005). As such, this thesis attends to an existing gap in historical and geographical literature regarding a detailed examination of spaces such as unemployed workers’ centres, women’s centres, and lesbian and gay bookshops. Second, I demonstrate the ways in which fluid conceptions of space, as spheres of multiplicity, can further strengthen theorisations of solidarity as a generative political relation often constructed between diverse political groups (Featherstone, 2012; Massey, 1999). I centre the interpersonal relationships built within and between particular spaces, arguing that accounting for these in an analysis of the coexistence of difference within these sites, allows for a nuanced and generative conception of solidarity. Thirdly, I demonstrate that engaging with the complex emotional reflections produced by solidarity when negotiated across diverse political groups should be central to our understandings of how solidarity is built and maintained over time. From this, I stress that care is an integral relation to factor into an analysis of these emotional relationships of solidarity. The empirical material I engage with throughout this chapter evidences the thoughtful care-full solidarities that sustained those organising within these infrastructures and ultimately the spaces themselves.

Finally, I make important methodological contributions in this thesis. By centring the inter-subjective relationship between the oral history interviewees and I, I develop a framework for a politically grounded, collective research practice that captures the historical geographies of solidarity and struggle as we organise. I consider how the production of oral histories can enable those of us involved in political struggle to look both back and forward simultaneously. Doreen Massey (1999) proposed that engaging with the multiplicity of space insists on the genuine openness of the future (p.3). I write from these foundations, to assert the practical contributions of this thesis in the building and doing of solidarity.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General); J Political Science > JA Political science (General); J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN1187 Scotland
• Colleges/Schools: College of Science and Engineering > School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
• Supervisor's Name: Kelliher, Dr. Diarmaid, Featherstone, Professor David and Karaliotas, Dr. Lazaros
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-84892
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 14 Feb 2025 12:12
• Last Modified: 14 Feb 2025 16:06
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84892
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84892