Divining the Local Sacred Local Authority, Local Rites, Local Emotion, Local Ethics, Local Action and Class
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Divining the local sacred local authority, local rites, local emotion, local ethics, local action and class A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Catherine Isobel Darlington Brunel Business School Brunel University January 2019 Abstract This argument rests on the claim that i) local authority, ii) rites, iii) emotions, iv) ethics and v) action are co-constitutive, mediated somewhat by vi) intra-class divisions and that the outcome of this is vii) the local sacred. The claim is that the local level matters. Local authorities foster particular varieties of the sacred created over long periods. Each is the outcome of local rites at first contested, then affirmed and re-affirmed over time. Long-term diachronic and synchronic comparisons of two local authorities, using methods chosen pragmatically, divined two local authorities’ contrasting ‘religious lives’. One location demonstrates regular, large-scale and spectacular gatherings, which sustain a shared categorical distinction between a ‘Dirty Old Dartford’ and a ‘Brighter and More Beautiful’ future Dartford. Impatient Improvers displaced indignant Economisers, ethical distinctions which correspond only approximately to protagonists’ class positions. The second location demonstrates quiescence today. However, though Uxbridge, by common consent, is identified as ‘okay’, it was once animated by fierce seventeenth century disputes over collection of market tolls and later by mid nineteenth-century Chartist attempts at ‘vindication of the working man’, articulated locally by Gerald Massey and John Bedford Leno in The Uxbridge Spirit of Freedom and Working Men’s Vindicator. Conducted by Working Men (1849). I trace how pronounced ritualised disputes were then supplanted by quieter gatherings such as fruit and vegetable competitions, agricultural shows and horticultural displays. In this way an ordinary and quiet life of domesticity was treasured. Again, class was only part of the account of burgagers versus aristocrat, then artisan versus petty bourgeois (Steinmetz and Wright, 1989). To understand local authority-formation it is necessary to understand its varying ritual and sacred impetus. For this task I develop especially Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life ([1912] 1915) and more recent neo-Durkheimian writing. However, in considering the development of local authority Regulation Theory is acknowledged and the ‘relative autonomy’ thesis as applied locally (Smith, 1984) which also rests on historical analysis, but of class. But neither Smith nor other neo-Marxist regulationists investigate ritual and affect while much regulation theory is altogether ahistoric. I also find major discrepancies between Marxist regulation theory and the evidence; doubting – especially at the local level - links supposed to exist between regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation (cf. Peck and Tickell, 1992) claimed as necessary to accumulation. While the local actors studied could be said to have enacted class interests - and for this reason we must consider the contribution which neo-Marxist Regulation theory might make – the animation of an interest is treated instead using a neo-Durkheimian approach. Interests remain inert unless invested with passion and this seems unlikely without ritual enactment. The sacred has powerful constructive and destructive social potentiality (Durkheim, [1912] 1915) but it is notoriously difficult not only to define but also to identify. As 2 will be demonstrated, local authorities do much to harness, demarcate and contain the local sacred by careful placement of special totemic objects in defined spaces. The elements of this model of local authority may be used to divine the local sacred empirically. It can be employed by researchers, town centre managers and the local population. Keywords: authority, animation, Durkheim, elementary forms, emotions, class, ethics, interests, local, ‘religion’, rites, sacred 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Stephen Smith wholeheartedly for all the generous support given, and for all the stimulating conversations, often about your passion, Dartford past, present and future. You have opened up different perspectives on the world. Thank you so much to Professor Ruth Simpson for unflagging support during the latter stages of the PhD and encouragement to ‘keep on going on’. This was invaluable. The support given by the administration team has been so helpful. Thank you. Thank you also to Neil, my husband, for his unstinting support, particularly during the latter stages. 4 CONTENTS Abstract 2 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................. 4 List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter One: Introduction .................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter Two: Treatments of Authority, Ritual, Affect, Class and Regulation A Theoretical Discussion ...................................................................................................................... 29 Section One: Authority, Class and Regulation Neo-Marxian Theories of the State ......................................................................................................... 31 The ‘Instrumentalist-Structuralist’ Debate and Smith’s Historical Solution ........................................... 39 Neo-Marxians and Emotions ................................................................................................................... 45 Section Two: Moral Authority, Ritual, Emotion and the Sacred ...................................................... 48 The Durkheimian Account of Authority ................................................................................................. 51 Public Emotions ...................................................................................................................................... 63 Emotions and the sacred .......................................................................................................................... 69 Summary Weber in contradistinction to Durkheim and Marx ................................................................................ 88 Chapter Three: Exploring the Local Community Studies ................................................................................................................................. 98 Imagined Communities ......................................................................................................................... 107 Remembering ........................................................................................................................................ 108 Community Power Studies .................................................................................................................... 109 Historians of Local Authority .............................................................................................................. 112 Chapter Four: Methodology and Methods ....................................................................................... 114 Chapter Five: Dartford/Dartford Borough Council Findings and Discussion .............................. 137 Chapter Six: Uxbridge/London Borough of Hillingdon Findings and Discussion ........................ 282 Chapter Seven: Final Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................ 368 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 420 Erratum: The passage beginning ‘Selected exemplars…’, pages 269-281, duplicates the passage also beginning ‘Selected exemplars…’, pages 383-395. Please disregard the earlier passage. 5 Figures Title and Page Number Figure One The ‘Elements’ (137) Figure Two Lady Worsley (150) Figure Three Members of the new Urban District Council, 1894 (204) Figure Four The Shopping Carnival (220) Figure Five Celebration of Celebrations (222) Figure Six The 1932 Pageant and Industrial Exhibition (224) Figure Seven Incorporation and Charter Parade, 1933 (249) Figure Eight Finale of the Historic Pageant (260) Figure Nine Celebration of Celebrations (261) Figure Ten A Plaque at the Entrance to St. Edmund’s Pleasance (262) Figure Eleven Holy Trinity Church from St. Edmund’s Cemetery. (264) Figure Twelve Heritage Postcards (266) Figure Thirteen Regime of Accumulation (281) Figure Fourteen Timings for the 1932 Uxbridge Show (347) Figure Fifteen One of the Three Judging Rings, Dog Section, the 1932 Uxbridge Show (349) Figure Sixteen Montage of ‘Una of Rollright’ and Floral Display, the 1951 Uxbridge Show (351) Figure Seventeen Bambi and Pansy, the 1951Uxbridge Show (351) Figure Eighteen End Piece, ‘Diplomatic Pudding’ (365) Figure Nineteen Rival Radios (366) Figure Twenty Dartford, Dirtford (367) Figure Twenty-One The Portrait Bench, Dartford. (371) Figure Twenty-Two Central Park and Dartford Library. (372) Figure Twenty-Three The Giant Pink Handbag, Uxbridge. (373) Figure Twenty-Four A ‘Student Lock-In’ (374) Figure Twenty-Five ‘Anticipation’ by Anita Lafford (375) 6 Chapter One: Introduction ‘Go!’ said she, once more (and now her voice was like a cry). The soldiers are sent for – are coming. Go peaceably. Go away. You shall have relief from your