Affective Geographies of the Ballot Box

This paper interrogates the relationship between affective, place-based identities and the performative act of vote-casting. It tells the story of one solo, rural walk to the Polling Station in May 2014, and uses this narrative to explore how issues of subjectivity, temporality and spatiality are refracted in the experience of voting in a rural setting. Drawing on stories of a suffrage campaigner who lived locally, this paper explores how communities of memory are implicated in acts of voting. It also considers vote-casting as a staged event, and concludes with reflections about the political force of affective relations.