I just stumbled on this great list of resources from early this year, on a blog by Alison Stenning:
Some really great blogs have emerged over the past few years as people have tried to document their own, and others’, struggles with austerity. There’s an article about some of these blogs here.
These are some of the most interesting and/or prolific:
http://agirlcalledjack.com – Blog by Jack Monroe who has published particularly about food and food poverty; her Guardian columns (and recipes) are available here:http://www.theguardian.com/profile/jack-monroe
http://katebelgrave.com – “Talking with people dealing with public sector cuts”. Kate Belgrave’s Guardian columns are here: http://www.theguardian.com/profile/kate-belgrave
http://mumvausterity.blogspot.co.uk – Bernadette Horton, “a mum of 4 fighting everyday battles against austerity – and hoping to win!”
Most of these bloggers also tweet; you can find them and follow them for more updates and links to other bloggers.
Many of the major newspapers have developed sub-sections on their websites in which they document the effects of austerity from a number of perspectives.
On Guardian Witness, you can find personal accounts of families living in poverty; you follow the link to Guardian Witness from this page. The Guardian is also home to Patrick Butler’s Cuts Blog.
In 2008, The Telegraph’s went on a ‘Recession Tour‘ of a variety of UK localities.
Much of the material that ends up on the (web)pages of our national newspapers comes from a range of different projects launched by a variety of think tanks, lobby groups, charities and so on. The projects I’m highlighting here are ones which focus on the everyday experiences of recession and austerity in communities.
Real Life Reform is “an important and unique study that tracks over a period of 18 months how people are living and coping with welfare reforms across the North of England”. It has been developed by the Northern Housing Consortium with seven northern housing associations. There are two reports, one from September 2013 and another from December. A third report is due in the spring of 2014. You can follow Real Life Reform on Twitter @RealLifeReform.
The IPPR have developed a Voices of Britain website (http://voicesofbritain.com), as a ”snapshot of the condition of Britain in 2013”.
The Family and Parenting Institute’s work on Families in the Age of Austerity is another exploration of the effects of austerity on families.
The Campaign for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Working Group for the North East produced this report on the impact of austerity measures on women in the North East.
For an Irish perspective, have a look at http://irelandafternama.wordpress.com – a blog written mostly by geographers on Ireland’s experience of financial crisis and austerity.
Head to the blog for the rest of the post, which also has links to academic works on austerity: The Social Geographies of Recession and Austerity | researchingrelationships.
Also check out her own post about the costs of Austerity in Britain: https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/alisonstenning/the-costs-of-austerity/
Looks like she isn’t writing more, but always nice to find someone with kindred interests…