Telford Luke
School for Business and Society, University of York, York, United Kingdom.
Front Sociol. 2025 Jul 23;10:1632190. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1632190. eCollection 2025.
Characterized by structural problems including persistent deprivation, the UK's left behind places have attracted increased scholarly, political and media attention in recent years. Throughout neoliberalism governments have implemented a range of policies to attempt to address the plight of these locales, but successful attempts at turning around their socio-economic predicaments are rather rare. One fundamental problem is that the UK has been a low investment nation across much of the neoliberal era, resulting in left behind zones not receiving the level of resourcing required to ameliorate the issues they face. This article begins by outlining how the decline of left behind places is tethered to neoliberal political economy, before discussing neoliberalism's failure to resurrect these areas. The paper then theoretically explicates left behind places in relation to systemic violence and absence. It suggests neoliberalism's inability to revive the left behind is systemically violent in its effects, resulting in a sense of political invisibility and the loss of hope. The article closes by claiming the absence of widespread political representation, engagement and a positive future among the left behind ensures the continued infliction of systemic violence.
英国的落后地区存在包括长期贫困在内的结构性问题，近年来受到了学术界、政界和媒体越来越多的关注。在整个新自由主义时期，政府实施了一系列政策来试图解决这些地区的困境，但成功扭转其社会经济困境的尝试却相当罕见。一个根本问题是，在新自由主义时代的大部分时间里，英国一直是一个低投资国家，导致落后地区没有得到改善其面临问题所需的资源水平。本文首先概述落后地区的衰落如何与新自由主义政治经济相关联，然后讨论新自由主义未能复兴这些地区的情况。接着，本文从理论上阐述了落后地区与系统性暴力和缺失的关系。它表明，新自由主义无法复兴落后地区，其影响具有系统性暴力，导致一种政治上的无形和希望的丧失。文章最后指出，落后地区缺乏广泛的政治代表、参与和积极的未来，这确保了系统性暴力的持续施加。
