Alex Kirby-Reynolds

• Affect
• Imagination
• Temporality
• Democracy
• Brexit
• Populism
• Nationalism
• New Materialism
• Multimodal Ethnography
• Filmmaking
• Co-production

Thesis: Brexit and the (Il)liberal Colonisation of Time: Structures of Feeling and Actually Existing Democracy

As part of the White Rose DTP Brexit Aftermaths Network, my research specifically looks to explore people's everyday experiences of democracy, disaffection and the state in relation to Brexit.

Much academic and public commentary in this area rushes to 'populism' as a means of both explaining Brexit and the contemporary political moment in which normative political frameworks are becoming increasingly challenged.

This doctoral research project aims to engage with leave voters in Rotherham, as an example of the supposedly 'left-behind' place that fuels demand for populism, to consider whether our understanding of people and their relationships to national politics might be enriched through a closer look at their emotional relationships to past, present and future formal structures of power.

This will be conducted through an ethnographic study centred around a co-produced media experiment in which participants may create one or more films that explore their actual and desired relationships with democracy.

Working with civil society partners, these co-productions will provide an opportunity to input in grassroots efforts to create an alternative democratic local media platform.