Everyday affects and meaning-making narratives of the "Cost of Living Crisis

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This project maps cultural responses to the "Cost of Living Crisis". Since late 2021, rampant inflation in the cost of both energy and everyday goods has caused an abrupt fall in living standards across the UK. I argue that this everyday experience is made sense of through the concept of "crisis", which spawns a multitude of meaning-making narratives. These narratives may be hegemonic, alternative or resistant of dominant political paradigms. To understand how this works, I approach the crisis from three sites of analysis. First, I analyse coverage of the crisis in the mainstream UK media. Then, I compare this to portrayals of the everyday experience of crisis found in the Mass Observation Archives in Sussex. Finally, I analyse cultural objects (memes, tweets, graffiti) that condense the complexity of the crisis into short, snappy critiques. In doing so, I offer an account of how subjects interpret, narrativise and critique the"Cost of Living Crisis", including its global dimensions.