Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore the differences between temporalities forged by some practices of UKIP voters in Margate, England, and the notions of time advanced by the current government’s multicultural agenda in order to unpack the non-negotiable aspects of those political movements.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will compare temporalities (Munn 1992) forged by some practices of UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) voters and sympathizers in Margate, England, and the notions of time advanced by the current government's multicultural agenda. In doing so, it hopes to address the non-negotiable character of the two movements. The paper will explore the ways in which different "cultures" fostered by a multicultural agenda encounter difficulty in standing next to each other when the material environment that one stands on is the very tool for the construction of belonging of another. As a consequence, territory emerges in this analysis as a non-objective space that cannot be rationalized into equally divided areas for different social groups. During their daily routine and also in national holidays my British informants use the material remnants of the past that are present in their town (such as its pillars, stones, graves, squares and old buildings) to forge a British past and memory. According to my informants, history has left marks that altered the very soil on which my informants live. As a consequence, every now and then, in community gatherings and also in their private old houses, this particular version of the past is remembered, discussed and enacted, thereby producing a sense of belonging to the nation and an imagined community (Anderson 1983). As a consequence, Margate's territory is then inscribed in a very specific temporality that can hardly be accommodated to the objective spatial interpretations of a multicultural agenda.