UK local government justification, critique, and resistance to the transfer of social infrastructure

Keywords: Social Infrastructures, Neighborhoods, Community Asset Transfer, Pragmatic sociology, Interviews, UK.
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

In the UK, the emergent practice of Community Asset Transfer (CAT) – a process whereby local authorities transfer ownership of neighborhood public buildings such as libraries, community and sports centers to community groups – alters responsibility for the provision and maintenance of social infrastructures. CAT renders visible new uneven landscapes of localist action often associated with fiscal retrenchment and it also provokes local deliberations which complicate narrow understandings of austere practice.

This paper, through a lens of pragmatic sociology, presents a thematic analysis of three local authority case studies based on interview data supported by secondary documentation. CAT is considered here as a collective endeavor constructed by many actors and a product of the local authorities within which they emerge. To be clear, my study is not carried out as a normative judgement of the process of CAT, nor of the actors involved. Instead, it acquaints us with how embedded local values and norms are mobilized to deliver CAT. The themes presented here testify to the emergence and deployment of local rationales that establish CAT practice and contribute to its development. They include, i) justification and critique, ii) post hoc justification, and iii) emerging post hoc resistance.

My contributions are threefold, empirical recognition of the different rationales behind CAT, conceptual in supplementing a political economy approach to CAT by offering understandings of the deliberative practices that are involved in practice. Finally, theoretically, by provides understandings that begin to chart the links between acquiescence and resistance that these deliberative practices involve.