The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism and Carbon Footprint - Softcover

Ellie Harrison

3.47

117 ratings by Goodreads

9781912147960: The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism and Carbon Footprint

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1912147963 ISBN 13: 9781912147960

Publisher: Luath Press Ltd., 2019

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I will not travel beyond Glasgow's city limits, or use any vehicles except my bike, for a whole calendar year. - Ellie Harrison, January 2016. This simple proposition to attempt to live a low-carbon lifestyle of the future put forward by an English artist living in post-industrial Glasgow cut to the heart of the unequal world we have created. A world in which some live transient and disconnected existences within a global knowledge economy racking up huge carbon footprints as they chase work around the world, whilst others, trapped in a cycle of poverty caused by deindustrialisation and the lack of local opportunities, cannot even afford the bus fare into town. We're all equally miserable. Isn't it time we rethought the way we live our lives? In this, her first book, Ellie Harrison traces her own life's trajectory to examine the relationship between literal and social mobility; between class and carbon footprint. From the personal to the political, she uses experiences and knowledge gained in Glasgow in 2016 and beyond, together with the ideas of Patrick Geddes who coined the phrase 'Think Global, Act Local' in 1915, economist EF Schumacher who made the case for localism in 'Small is Beautiful' in 1973, and the Fearless Cities movement of today, to put forward her own vision for 'the sustainable city of the future', in which we can all live happy, healthy and creative lives.

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Review:

Ellie Harrison's project her extreme lifestyle experiment is an anticipation of what's to come. We will all have to relax our standards on what we regard as a legitimate or respectable 'job', as the new pieces of our socio-economic future settle... Harrison's mix of occupational skills, community activism, education and self-expression - and her enthusiastic interest in how all these elements fit together - is going to be more and more the mainstream experience of 'work' in our societies. We should learn from her, and from the new wave of socially-engaged artists like her. --PAT KANE, The National, January 2016

It's horrendously crass to parachute someone in on a poverty safari while local authorities are cutting finance to things like music tuition for Scotland's poorest kids. I don't know the artist personally but I think we'd all benefit more from an insight into what goes on in the minds of some of Scotland's middle class. --DARREN McGARVEY, The Daily Record, January 2016

Brava to Ellie Harrison for continued integrity and conviction, as she uses her education, skills and (self-acknowledged) privileged position as an artist to challenge the failing economic status quo and ruffle the feathers of our corrupt, complacent establishment in Glasgow and beyond. --ZARA KITSON, Facebook, January 2017

About the Author:

Ellie Harrison was born in the London borough of Ealing in 1979. She moved north to study Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University in 1998. In 2008 she continued northwards to do a Masters at Glasgow School of Art and has been living in Glasgow ever since. She has previously described herself as an artist and activist, and as 'a political refugee escaped from the Tory strongholds of Southern England'. In 2009 she founded Bring Back British Rail, the national campaign for the public ownership of our railways. As a result of thinking globally and acting locally during The Glasgow Effect in 2016, she is now involved in several local projects and campaigns aimed at making Glasgow a more equal, sustainable and connected city.

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