Hughes, Celia P. (2011) The socio-cultural milieux of the left in post-war Britain. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between activist subjectivities and the shaping of Britain’s late
sixties extra-parliamentary left cultures. Based on the oral narratives of ninety men and women, it
traces the activist trajectory from child to adulthood to understand the social, psychological, and
cultural processes informing the political and personal transformation of young adults within the
new left cultures that emerged in the wake of Britain’s anti-war movement, the Vietnam Solidarity
Campaign (VSC). To this end the study charts the development of the political and cultural shifts on
the left over the decade from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. It shows how throughout this
period dialogue between inner and outer activist life occurred against a background of ongoing
realignment on the left from a fluid, eclectic cultural network around the VSC to a demarcated post-
VSC left after 1969, that saw increasing divergence between a non-aligned libertarian New Left on
the one hand and a Trotskyist far left milieu on the other.
The study seeks to claim a valid space for Britain’s left activist landscape within the political,
social and cultural framework of ‘1968’ and British post-war historiography. Privileging individual
and collective subjectivities, the thesis examines ways of belonging inside Trotskyist and non-aligned
left milieux by situating the respondents, their radical histories and activist cultures within the
changing post-war fabric. It shows that investigating individual and collective memories provides
deeper understanding of the ‘cognitive maps’ that young men and women created, as they
attempted to situate themselves as radical, global beings as well as local, gendered social citizens.
As micro-studies the individual stories reveal how the experience of social, emotional and
political maturation from child to adult intersected with a specific social and political moment – the
formation of a new and distinctive left culture that came to full fruition only in the aftermath of 1968
with the arrival of Women’s Liberation and the new personal politics. Exploring the social and
psychological impact of post-war childhood and youth, the study engages with the political and
emotional impact of Women’s Liberation on the men and women within the cultural context of the different left milieux.
Overall, the thesis questions how, from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, the variant
cultures of the milieux penetrated public and private spaces, and shaped early life experiences of
work, political activity, family, and political and personal relations in order to understand how
activism shaped social patterns and psychic being.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Political activists -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, New Left -- History, Vietnam Solidarity Campaign -- History, Liberalism -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, Youth -- Political activity -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century
Official Date:	September 2011
Dates:	Date Event September 2011 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of History
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Horn, Gerd-Rainer
Sponsors:	Arts & Humanities Research Council (Great Britain) (AHRC)
Extent:	viii, 385 leaves : ill.
Language:	eng

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