Youth Beyond the City: Thinking from the Margins 9781529212037

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YOUTH BEYOND THE CITY

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YO UT H B E YO N D T HE C I T Y TH I N K I N G F ROM T HE MARG I N S E D I TE D BY DAV I D FA RRU G I A A N D S I GN E RAV N

YOUTH BEYOND THE CITY Thinking from the Margins Edited by David Farrugia and Signe Ravn

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Bristol University Press University of Bristol 1–​9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +​44 (0)117 374 6645 e: bup-​[email protected] Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk © Bristol University Press 2022 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-5292-1204-4 hardcover ISBN 978-1-5292-1205-1 ePub ISBN 978-1-5292-1203-7 ePdf The right of David Farrugia and Signe Ravn to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design: blu inc Front cover image: willfrancis/unsplash.com Bristol University Press use environmentally responsible print partners. Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Contents List of Figures and Tables Notes on Contributors

v vi

Introduction: Thinking from the Margins David Farrugia and Signe Ravn

1

PART I Inequalities: Education and Aspiration on the Margins 1 Peripheries within the City: The Role of Place/​Space in 21 Shaping Youth Educational Choices and Transitions Aina Tarabini, Judith Jacovkis and Alejandro Montes 2 Disrupting the Discourse of Under-​representation: The 40 Place of Rural Students in Australian Higher Education Equity Policy Sally Patfield, Jennifer Gore and Leanne Fray 3 Becoming a Young Organic Farmer in the Indian Punjab 57 Trent Brown PART II Materialities: Spatiality and Sensory Embodiment 4 Reimagining Space, Reorganizing Lives: Environmental Activism in Myanmar Johanna Garnett 5 ‘A Quiet Place’: The Natural Environment as a Sphere of (Non)Belonging for Refugee-​background Young People in Regional Resettlement Locations Caitlin Nunn 6 Bright Lights, No City: Investigating Young People’s Suburban and Rural Drinkscapes Laura Fenton, Claire Markham and Samantha Wilkinson

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PART III  Identities: Mobility, Rootedness and Belonging 7 Thinking beyond the Neighbourhood and National Territory: Exploring Central American Migration from a Mobilities Perspective Lirio Gutiérrez Rivera 8 Youth Transitions and Spatiality: The Case of a Deprived Coastal Town in the UK Aniela Wenham 9 Housing and Regional Rootedness: Home Ownership beyond the Metropolis Julia Cook, Helen Cahill and Dan Woodman

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PART IV  Temporalities: Historicizing Space and Place 10 Places of Belonging, Places of Detachment: Belonging and 195 Historical Consciousness in Narratives of Rural Finnish Girls Kaisa Vehkalahti and Helena Ristaniemi 11 Backward Youth? Racist Trolling and Political 215 (In)Correctness among Young People in Rural Sweden Susanna Areschoug 12 At the Margins: The Persistent Inequalities of Youth, 235 Place and Class Rob MacDonald Index

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iv

List of Figures and Tables Figures 5.1 5.2

Wings, tethers and anchors (detail), N.C. Nostalgia for home, Asaad

107 110

Tables 1.1 1.2 1.3

Conceptualization of mobility patterns Conceptualization of reasons for school choice Conceptualization of the territoriality of course supply

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26 27 27

Notes on Contributors Susanna Areschoug is a doctoral student at the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden, and holds a BA and a MA degree in gender studies from Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests lie in the intersection between the everyday lives of (rural) youth and the continued production of gendered, racial and spatial hierarchies. She is particularly interested in the materializing effects of neoliberal economic imperatives, and how these material conditions, in turn, work to influence who can be understood as a ‘proper’ (neoliberal) citizen-​subject. Trent Brown is Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Farmers, Subalterns, and Activists: Social Politics of Sustainable Agriculture in India (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He has written on a variety of topics related to contemporary India, including sustainable rural development, social movements, youth and migration. His current research explores India’s efforts to introduce formal skill development initiatives for the rural sector. Helen Cahill is Honorary Professor in Youth Wellbeing in the Youth Research Centre in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests include the use of dialogic, performative and embodied methods for researching gender, wellbeing and the use of post-​structural theory to inform pedagogies for social change. She is co-​editor of the Springer Series ‘Perspectives on Children and Youth’. Julia Cook is Lecturer in Sociology and Australian Research Council DECRA fellow at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research interests include the sociology of youth, time and housing, and her most recent research addresses Australian young adults’ pathways into home ownership, focusing particularly on the role of intergenerational transfers in facilitating entry into the property market. She is on the editorial board of the journal Time & Society. Her first book, Imagined Futures: Hope, Risk and Uncertainty, was published with Palgrave in 2018. vi

Notes on Contributors

David Farrugia is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His work focuses on youth, identity, globalization and work. His most recent book, entitled Youth, Work and the Post-​Fordist Self, was published with Bristol University Press in 2021. David is an associate editor of the Journal of Youth Studies, and is on the editorial board of Sociological Research Online and the co-​editor of a special issue in Young: Nordic Journal of Youth Research on the topic of interdisciplinarity and spatial thinking in the sociology of youth. Laura Fenton is Research Associate in Sociology at the University of Manchester and the University of Sheffield, UK. She completed her PhD at the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives (University of Manchester) in 2018 with a thesis that employed life history interviews to explore how British women from different generations and social classes used and made sense of alcohol in their day-​to-​day lives. Laura is currently working on two projects: one on the decline in youth drinking with the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group (SchARR) and one on austerity and altered life courses at the University of Manchester. Her research interests include youth, gender, intimacy and creative biographical methods. Leanne Fray is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle, Australia in the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre. She has extensive experience in qualitative research and has previously worked on research projects across such disciplines as health, education and social science. Her research interests include improving student access and participation in higher education. Johanna Garnett lectures in sociology, peace studies, political science and criminology at the University of New England (UNE), Armidale, Australia. Her research interests are youth, globalization, social movements and peace building. Her PhD focused on the significance of place for young adults from agrarian communities in the nascent democracy of Myanmar and discussed their political and social agency in a time of rapid social transformation. She belongs to a global community of critical educators and activist scholars working towards a more socially just global future. Jennifer Gore is Laureate Professor and the Director of the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre at the University of Newcastle, Australia. In addition to a programme of research on student aspirations, she is currently leading a suite of studies focused on improving student outcomes and supporting teacher professional development through an innovative approach called Quality Teaching Rounds.

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Lirio Gutiérrez Rivera is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia. Her research includes urban violence, contemporary prisons, youth gangs, social mobility and state responses to crime and violence in Latin America, particularly Honduras and Colombia. She is currently working on two research projects: one about gender and urban planning in Medellin, Colombia. The second research project is based on her work as an expert witness for Central Americans seeking asylum in the US and explores the connection between different forms of violence experienced by women and contemporary migration in Central America. Her book, Territories of Violence. State, Marginal Youth, and Public Security, was published in 2013 with Palgrave. Judith Jacovkis is a doctor in sociology and researcher at the Center on Globalisation, Education and Social Policies, Spain. She has participated in different research projects on cash transfer social policies, educational policies and social inequalities. Currently she is focused on the politics, the policies, the governance and the experience of educational trajectories and transitions through the projects ‘Can dual apprenticeships create better and more equitable social and economic outcomes for young people? A comparative study of India and Mexico’ and ‘EDUPOST16 Project. The construction of post-​16 educational opportunities. An analysis of post-​compulsory educational transitions in urban settings’. Rob MacDonald is Professor of Education and Social Justice at Huddersfield University, UK. He also holds Visiting Professorships at Monash, Aalborg, Bristol and Nottingham universities. He previously worked and studied at the universities of Durham and York, and was Professor of Sociology at Teesside University from 2002 to 2017, where he worked with colleagues to develop the Teesside Studies of Youth Transitions and Social Exclusion. He is Editor in Chief (joint) of the Journal of Youth Studies. He has researched and written widely about young people and youth transitions, about unemployment and work, about youth crime and drug use, and about poverty and inequality. Claire Markham is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Her PhD, in Social Policy, explored multiple representations and experiences surrounding the village pub. Her main research interests focus on individual and community wellbeing, community development, and the sustainability of rural communities and she has significant experience in conducting community-​based research using qualitative and participatory methods. viii

Notes on Contributors

Alejandro Montes is a doctor in sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain (2019). Since 2013 he has worked as a researcher at the Center on Globalisation, Education and Social Policies (GEPS-​UAB). He also is a researcher of the project ‘The construction of educational opportunities post-​16. An analysis of transitions to post-​ compulsory secondary education in urban contexts (EDUPOST16)’ and participated in various projects with international educational institutions such as UNICEF and Save the Children. Currently his main areas of interest are the analysis of educational pathways and transitions, specifically in access to higher education, and the impact of social inequalities on them. Caitlin Nunn is Research Fellow at the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Caitlin’s research is located at the intersection of refugee studies and youth studies, focusing on refugee youth resettlement and associated processes of integration, transnationalism and belonging. Much of her work is produced in partnership with young people, organizations and communities through participatory and arts-​based approaches. Caitlin has collaborated with young people and artists to produce a range of creative outcomes including exhibitions and short films. Sally Patfield is a postdoctoral researcher working in the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre at the University of Newcastle, Australia. With an interest in equity research and practice, her PhD investigated the aspirations of school students who would be the first in their families to enter higher education. Signe Ravn is Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Signe’s research interests include youth, risk, marginalization, gender, temporality and qualitative methodologies. She is currently writing on questions of futurity, emotion and subjectivity. Signe published the co-​authored book Youth, Risk, Routine: A New Perspective on Risk-​taking in Young Lives (with Tea Bengtsson) with Routledge in 2019. She sits on the editorial boards of Time & Society and Qualitative Research, is a co-​founder of the Narrative Network at the University of Melbourne and co-​hosts the podcast Narrative Now. Helena Ristaniemi is a doctoral student on the project Northern Rural Youth in Flux at the University of Oulu, Finland. The project explores the everyday life and constructions of girlhood in Finnish Sámi homeland and involves both indigenous and non-​indigenous girls aged 14–​16 years. Ristaniemi has a background in history and her PhD focuses on historical consciousness in ix

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questions of belonging and intergenerationality, more specifically the role that local cultures and history as well as family binds play in the life choices of the Northern girls. Aina Tarabini is Associate Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain and researcher at the GEPS research centre. Her research focuses on sociology of education and educational inequalities and is particularly oriented to the study of youth dispositions, choices and transitions, through the lens of social justice. She also does analysis of pedagogic practices from a critical sociological perspective. Currently she is the principal researcher of the project ‘EDUPOST16. The construction of post-​16 educational opportunities. An analysis of post-​compulsory educational transitions in urban settings’ (www.edupost16.es). Kaisa Vehkalahti is Senior Lecturer, and Academy Research Fellow at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Vehkalahti specializes in the history of childhood, youth and education. Her current research interests focus on changing rural youth, which is the topic of her projects Rural Generations on the Move: Cultural History of Rural Youth, 1950–​2020 (Academy of Finland, 2019–2​ 024), and The Future of Nordic Youth in Rural Regions: A Cross-​National Qualitative Longitudinal Study in Four Nordic Countries (Future Challenges in the Nordics -​program, 2022–​2026). Vehkalahti has been the editor-​in-​ chief of Kasvatus & Aika, a Finnish peer-​reviewed journal in the history of education, and Chair for the Ethics Committee for Youth and Childhood Studies in Finland. Aniela Wenham is Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of York and the Programme Convenor for the BA Social Policy in Children and Young People. Aniela’s primary research area is vulnerable populations with complex and multifaceted needs. She also has methodological expertise on qualitative longitudinal methods and practice experience as a youth worker. Samantha Wilkinson is Senior Lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She completed her education at the University of Manchester with a BA in human geography, an MSc in environmental governance and a PhD in human geography. Her doctoral research explored young people’s drinking practices and experiences. Samantha’s diverse research interests include: children and young people’s identity; innovative qualitative methods; home care and dementia; and alcohol consumption. Dan Woodman is the TR Ashworth Professor of Sociology in the School of Social and Political Sciences and Assistant Dean (Advancement and x

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Notes on Contributors

Engagement) in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His primary research area is the sociology of youth, young adulthood, and generations and he uses this focus to also contribute to the sociology of work and sociological theory. His writing conceptualizing generational change and the new social conditions impacting on young adults is internationally recognized. He is co-​editor-​in-​chief of the Journal of Youth Studies.

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Introduction: Thinking from the Margins David Farrugia and Signe Ravn

Introduction The intellectual frameworks that guide contemporary thinking about youth are shaped according to distinctions that are at once spatial and epistemological. Distinctions between the urban and the rural, the global north and the global south, and the centre and the periphery underpin how academic and social policy actors locate, understand and intervene in youth. These frameworks position certain young people (especially those in the urban centres of the global north) as intrinsically interesting and emblematic of youth in general, representing globally desirable ways of life. They allocate others to marginal positions, rendered uninteresting or constituted as objects of intervention within projects (such as ‘global citizenship’ or economic development schemes) that contribute to the valorization or devalorization of differently positioned youth and to the aspirations of powerful institutional actors. These positions of marginality also reflect long-​standing theoretical histories and geographies of knowledge production that underpin the disciplines that study young people’s lives. Concepts such as modernity, globalization and youth itself have all been written from the perspective of the urban centres of the global north, which are positioned as the critical sites of epistemological investment –​the place to be in order to create significant knowledge and access critical social processes. The margins produced through these investments are thereby rendered unproductive and unimportant. In this context, this book offers a new conceptual and epistemological project –​to think productively about youth from a position of spatial marginality. The aim is to make visible economic, cultural and personal processes that are invisible from the perspective of the ‘centre’ of the urban metropolis. In particular, the aim of this book is to think critically and productively about space and the materialities of place, including how these materialities contribute to connections and divergences shaping young people located outside of the major cities. From this position, the book 1

YOUTH BEYOND THE CITY

creates new, critical perspectives on globalization and mobility, as well as contributing to existing concerns including education, citizenship, work, leisure and consumption. The book decentres the dominant urban focus in youth sociology to build new theory from the perspective of young people that are both spatially and epistemologically marginal to the field as it stands. In this sense, the book is both a unique empirical collection and also charts a new research agenda for studies of youth. In this introduction we provide an exploratory overview of what this agenda looks like and what it can achieve for youth studies. We introduce the four different sections that make up the book, and the chapters within these sections, situating each in the literature and highlighting how the chapters in each section contribute to the overall aim of the book.

Creating the margins The agenda of this book intervenes in a long conceptual history that dates back to the social theories that were installed as foundational concepts as the social sciences were institutionalized (Connell, 2007). Concepts such as modernity, organic solidarity, gesellschaft and capitalism itself described contemporary societies as synonymous with life in the urban centres of Western Europe (Farrugia, 2014). Later sociological thought such as the interactionist tradition of the Chicago school also searched for the key dynamics of social life in a particular vision of the urban milieu, which was understood to produce novel forms of social interaction. With the influence of these concepts, spaces beyond the city were positioned as increasingly marginal to sociology, representing pre-​modern forms of social life that were uninteresting to the discipline as it developed. Doreen Massey (2005) called this the reduction of space to time, in this case operating as a distinction between the contemporary urban and the pre-​modern rural. This distinction is therefore foundational to the theoretical frameworks and epistemological investments of the field, and to the assumed spatio-​ temporalities of social theory. This distinction –​and the privileging of the cities of the global north –​ continues in the theories that have come to influence the sociology of youth. A key example of this is the impact of the individualization thesis (Beck, 1992) on the field (Woodman, 2009; Andres and Wyn, 2010; Farrugia, 2013). This framework develops within (and is perhaps the final iteration of) epochal theories of social change aimed at identifying stages of modernity according to the structures and subjectivities of the industrial and post-​ industrial economies of the global north. This thesis included claims for the ‘despatialization of the social’ which positioned metropolitan youth as the harbingers of a globalized modernity, in which attachment to place was less significant than an emerging cosmopolitan sensibility (Farrugia, 2018). In 2

Introduction

this, the individualization thesis, like other theories formulated at the same time such as Giddens’ notion of time-​space distanciation (1990), reflects the erasure of spatiality and place-​based difference as a result of privileging the urban as the site of modernity. The result is a lack of understanding of the experiences of rural young people globally, an incomplete understanding of the processes that have contributed to inequalities between urban and rural youth, and a failure to appreciate social transformations across these spatial binaries taking place as part of shifting mobilities of capital and culture (Farrugia, 2014). As well as urban/​rural dichotomies, something similar has taken place in relation to global north/​south distinctions. As discussed extensively in Cooper et al (2019), the dominance of European theory and research focusing on the experiences of the global north has tended to marginalize young people in the global south from youth studies, leaving these to disciplines such as anthropology, area studies and development studies. Conceptual frameworks and models of youth experience developed on the basis of young people in Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia have also travelled throughout the globe with problematic consequences. This includes the normative expectation that young people in the global south make ‘transitions’ (such as from school to work) in ways similar to those expected of youth in the global north. It also includes universalizing experiences based on structural distinctions (such as between education and work) that are inapplicable in the global south (and increasingly in the global north as well). These frameworks are also mobilized within economic development projects which aim to increase global economic competitiveness through enhancing the biographical transitions of southern youth (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2014; Farrugia, 2018). This is an instance in which the universalizing assumptions of theories developed in the urban centres of the global north become intertwined with the political ambitions of nation states and other, supra-​national political actors. With these critiques in mind, thinking productively from the margins means a new approach to the basic foundations of the sociology of youth –​ the epistemological frameworks and investments, the ontological assumptions about space, time and young people, and the empirical vantage points that are privileged in theoretical development and debate. The aim of the book is to suggest ways in which these tasks might take place, beginning with the lives of young people in places currently rendered marginal to the thinking in and further development of the field, whether that is in peripheral coastal locations in the northern part of the UK, or in rural areas of India. In this context, thinking productively from the margins means beginning with the material and relational foundations of marginal places rather than universalizing theories produced elsewhere, and building conceptual agendas that centre these dynamics in debates about youth globally. In this way, this 3

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agenda offers new ways of understanding the political and spatial relations produced through institutional interventions into youth, and problematizing the limited spatio-​temporalities that frame the concept of youth as such. This includes ultimately dissolving the relations of centrality and marginality that currently organize conceptual debate in the field, and arriving at a view of youth as spatially located and ultimately heterogeneous. This is the agenda that we hope to stimulate with this collection.

Where are the margins? As we assembled this collection it became clear that this agenda must begin by interrogating where the margins of the discipline can be found. While we are critical of the spatial and epistemological distinctions currently shaping the field, moving beyond them means engaging critically with relations of marginality as they currently operate. In order to do this, we began with the aim of privileging the experiences of rural and regional youth internationally, addressing what we had identified as an empirical and theoretical absence in the field. In order to think productively from the margins, the aim was to move beyond the city. However, as we received submissions and assembled the collection it became clear that this definition was inadequate for the task at hand and limited our ability to question the metropolitan centre as the taken for granted vantage point for understanding youth. As a result of this process, we therefore offer a collection that includes chapters which cross the distinction between the inside and the outside of the city, as well as a productive and heterogeneous definition of what lies beyond. This outcome also allows a more critical view on the metropolitan centre as a vantage point for theorizing and institutional intervention. Our efforts to ‘go beyond the city’ have revealed the nature of the city as an epistemological investment in youth studies, as a centre that privileges not merely metropolitan youth, but a certain vision of metropolitan life that marginalizes the experiences of many young people living in urban spaces. As we both have discussed previously, urban spaces are associated with valorized modes of youthful existence, often connected to cutting-​edge taste cultures and modes of cultural association that are popularly associated with cool, youthful ways of life (Farrugia, 2014, 2018; Ravn and Demant, 2017). Urban spaces are also understood as the scene for post-​industrial economic transformations, containing heterogeneous service economies that constitute an unequal and precarious landscape for young people’s biographical transitions (Walkerdine et al, 2001). However, while these representations are part of the overall tendency to position the urban as the primary site of modernity, they present a more homogeneous vision of the centre than that which emerges from the perspective of the contributions in this volume. Theorizing and policy-​making about cities are dominated by 4

Introduction

visions of ‘global’ cities (Sassen, 2012) or large, high-​tech symbolic, financial, cultural and creative economies that operate as nodes in globally significant flows of capital and culture. However, while cities are associated with the most valorized modes of youthful experience, they are also heterogeneous spaces which include forms of marginality and peripheralization within their spatial boundaries. Cities are porous, and rural–​urban mobilities have become critical to urban economies internationally (for example Elmhirst, 2002; Pun, 2005; Ni Laoire, 2007). Thinking productively from the margins has therefore also meant decentring the city as a privileged site for understanding youth, and arriving at a more complex definition of marginality than urban/​ rural dichotomies will allow.

Towards dismantling the margins: the chapters in the book The contributions in this book develop this agenda across four thematic areas. Each area addresses a set of concepts and concerns that develop the margins beyond the city in the directions sketched out in this introduction so far. These include inequalities in space and place as they are reflected in educational identities and contexts, the embodied and sensuous materialities of place, experiences of mobility and rootedness, and the temporalities and histories of place as they are produced and experienced by young people. Here we outline each of these sections, and the chapters within them, in more detail.

Inequalities: education and aspiration on the margins In this first section, we focus on intersections between the margins and educational aspirations in particular and identities in educational spaces more broadly. This section contributes to a number of discussions in youth studies and sociology of education, where space and place have long been of interest. First, from a structural perspective, spaces on the geographical margins, and students from these geographical backgrounds, are often recognized as facing particular barriers in the (higher) education system. In Australia for instance, students from regional and remote backgrounds are one of the government-​ identified ‘equity groups’ (Koshy, 2014) who need additional support. In that sense, spaces on the margins are marked as not just different from urban spaces, but as inferior and not normative. While recognizing that identifying inequalities in access to quality education is important from a social justice point of view –​something which Tarabini and colleagues address in Chapter 1 –​the equity group approach and similar ‘categorical’ initiatives inadvertently position students beyond the city as ‘deficit’ students, who may be ‘too’ anchored in their local communities, have the ‘wrong’ kinds of aspirations, or simply not 5

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be ‘aspirational enough’ altogether. We return to these discussions when introducing Part III on mobilities and belonging. Second, in research on youth aspirations and educational identities there is a long tradition for considering how social space shapes youth aspirations, often through a focus on how a place-​specific habitus impacts what young people in particular locations come to see as being ‘for them’ and not for them (Thomson and Taylor, 2005; Allen and Hollingworth, 2013; Kintrea et al, 2015; Wenham, 2020). This body of literature is interested in how specific educational aspirations enter the ‘spatial horizons’ (Rönnlund, 2020) of young people. The three chapters in this section all contribute to both of these agendas. Taking Barcelona, Spain, as their case study, the first chapter by Aina Tarabini, Judith Jacovkis and Alejandro Montes takes a novel approach to the idea of ‘the margins’ by exploring how urban peripheries may not always be situated geographically beyond the city, but can in fact be found within the urban space. In their complex analysis of the relations between school supply, school choice and student mobility patterns, the authors demonstrate how working-​class or otherwise disadvantaged areas are made peripheral through institutional policy and planning processes. For instance, while public school programmes leading to working-​class jobs are located in working-​class areas, private programmes leading to more elite or specialized jobs are located in middle-​class neighbourhoods, even within vocational education and training (VET) programmes. Through this analysis the chapter argues that these peripheries at the structural level come to be mirrored in student identities; or in the authors’ words that the peripheral areas come to function as ‘communicating vessels’ that indicate to students which educational programmes they ‘should’ choose. The focus on normative future aspirations is also key to Sally Patfield, Jennifer Gore and Leanne Fray’s chapter on the under-​representation discourse in Australian educational policy. While this discourse is often focused on social class and the under-​representation of students from working class backgrounds in higher education, the authors take an innovative approach to this discussion by shifting their focus from class to geography and the persistent under-​representation of students from rural backgrounds in higher education. However, rather than exploring ‘solutions’ to this apparent problem, the authors take the discourse of under-​representation itself to task, arguing that this problematically positions rural students as Other by regarding their educational choices as illegitimate. Through an analysis based on qualitative interviews and focus groups with both students, parents and other community representatives in one Australian rural community, the chapter challenges this representation. The analysis shows how aspirations are formed through both ‘strategic innovation’ and ‘strategic compromise’, to use the authors’ words, that is, adapting to local opportunities and developing local support systems to support those choices. In that sense, 6

Introduction

the chapter demonstrates how rural communities and their residents are first of all not static entities and second not ignorant or naïve in forming educational aspirations that can be realized ‘on the margins’, that is, lead to jobs and futures in the local communities rather than assuming mobility on part of the young residents. The last chapter in the first section of the book takes us to Punjab, India. Here Trent Brown problematizes current initiatives to encourage more young people in global south rural settings to choose a career in agriculture. Such initiatives, seen as a remedy for young people’s out-​migration from rural areas in the global south, are typically based on neoliberal and individualist understandings of aspirations and success that are out of synch with the processes through which future aspirations are formed. In this chapter, Brown explores agricultural training programmes targeting young people and focusing on organic farming and analyses the ways in which farming aspirations take shape among young people enrolled in these programmes. His analysis demonstrates that their educational choices are rarely reflections of a passion for farming or of seeing farming as a pathway to a successful future for them as individuals. Rather, these educational choices are social products that reflect family and community dynamics and indeed may be aspirations of the entire family rather than a single young person. While the chapter in this way highlights and adds to factors commonly cited as influential in shaping youth aspirations –​such as class, gender, geography –​ it also forces a reflection on the individualist underpinnings of the concept of aspiration as this is often deployed in analyses stemming from the global north, thereby providing a much-​needed corrective to the theorizing of youth aspirations more generally. Summing up, the chapters in this first section of the book highlight and critique efforts to regulate youth aspirations from ‘the centre’, whether that is in terms of institutions seeking to maintain both spatial and social segregation as in Chapter 1, policies seeking to ‘improve’ rural youth’s aspirations in Chapter 2, or intervention programmes that rely on individualist assumptions as in Chapter 3. By shifting their analytical point of departure to places on the margins, these chapters show how local social relations shape aspirations and how the social structures of peripheral places impact on young people’s plans for the future.

Materialities: spatiality and sensory embodiment Our second section explores the sensory, affective and embodied practices that produce places beyond the city. The section traces the spatialities produced through young people’s practical engagements with material places, as well as the role of politics, migration and consumption in creating a sense of embodied attachment to place. While attention to sensory embodiment 7

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is part of long-​standing approaches to place (for example Tuan, 1977), the increasing influence of non-​representational theory has led to a focus on ‘spatialities of feeling’ (Thrift, 2008), in which bodies are regarded as ontologically entangled with places, and in which spatiality is approached in terms of sensory affectivity and embodied subjectivity (Ansell and van Blerk, 2007; Thrift, 2008; Halfacree and Rivera, 2011). Our attention to the place beyond the margins develops this literature in two key ways. On the one hand, these chapters stress the relationship between the materialities of place and the rhythms of the body, showing how enduring modes of bodily place attachment are formed through the day-​to-​day practical encounters with the local environment. On the other hand, attention to the sensory experience of place also complicates notions of the local itself. Through multiple embodied attachments with place, young people produce forms of belonging and sensory embodiment that connect geographically distant places, draw sharp delineations between the experiences offered by different local environments, and register changes in the political economy of their local places through their sensory experience of the natural environment. The section begins with the work of Johanna Garnett who explores how intergenerational attachment to the natural environment produces new forms of political and environmental activism in response to the changing political economy of rural Myanmar. The young people in Garnett’s chapter describe their attachment to their locality and to the natural environment in terms of the dirt under their fingernails and the taste of water, modes of sensory embodiment produced through agricultural labour and a day-​to-​day reliance on the local environment for subsistence. As rural industrialization and deforestation for cash-​crop farming degrades the environment around them, Garnett’s participants register ecological change as a shift in their day-​to-​day embodiment as well as in the material basis for their subsistence. Political economic shifts are enacted through relationships between embodied subjectivity, sensory experiences and changing materialities of place. In this process, young people lead new forms of political and environmental activism motivated by a deep and long-​standing connection to place, showing how rural place attachment drives political organization and new forms of agriculture such as permaculture initiatives. In this, the chapter shows not only how intergenerational modes of embodied place attachment are formed and experienced over time, but also how these are mobilized into alternative visions of the local rural economy opposed to those that motivate state-​led development projects. The importance of embodied connections with the natural environment continues in the work of Caitlin Nunn, but this time articulated through experiences of displacement that produce new forms of trans-​local place attachment and sensory experience. This chapter describes displaced young people’s experiences of belonging and exclusion in rural areas of Australia and 8

Introduction

the United Kingdom, which have recently become visible as hosts for refugee flows. Critically, the chapter takes young people’s material engagement with their locality seriously as the basis for their narratives about place, thereby moving beyond approaches which understand place attachment in terms of the citation of popular discourses of rurality such as the ‘rural idyll’. In this, young refugees experience a form of ‘trans-​rural’ belonging produced through engagement with the natural environment in different spaces and places throughout their experience of displacement. Their new rural environments evoke unfamiliar and uncomfortable sensory experiences, as well as memories of ‘home’ that emerge as young people walk around their localities. Practices such as growing vegetables also create attachment to their new locality as well as continuing forms of place attachment formed prior to displacement, bringing geographically distant places together in young people’s embodied subjectivities and sensory experiences of the local. Rural places are therefore sites of exclusion and belonging, both traumatic and therapeutic in different moments. These aspects of place become visible through the affectivities of displacement and the day-​to-​day rhythms of life in new places. Approaching place in terms of affect and embodiment allows an approach to places beyond the city as fluid and mutable, shaped through the creation of embodied subjectivities rather than taken for granted geographical distinctions. This is perhaps clearest in the final chapter of this section, which draws on the concept of ‘drinkscapes’ as a way of thinking about the relationship between place, embodiment and consumption. For Laura Fenton, Claire Markham and Samantha Wilkinson, drinkscapes describe the spatialities produced through young people’s consumption practices, in this case emerging through drinking as an embodied practice taking place across public and private settings. The chapter approaches drinking in terms of the cultivation of particular atmospheres, which emerge from and act to regulate consumption practices and social relationships. Young people produce drinkscapes as they navigate commercial drinking establishments and create intimate settings for drinking with friends at home, situating the drinkscape as a fluid topological concept that captures embodied consumption and relationality across spatial boundaries. Moreover, drinkscapes are inflected by the classed dynamics of taste and consumption that shape how young people negotiate commercial venues, and by the inclusion and exclusion of queer youth in different parts of the night-​time economy. Attention to these drinkscapes thereby complicates existing conceptions of what characterizes ‘the rural’ as a site for alcohol consumption, demonstrating differences in how young people relate to the ‘village pub’ and situating rural drinking within atmospheric spatialities produced and experienced through the body. Across these three chapters, rural spaces emerge not as bounded geographical areas, but as fluid products of young people’s embodied practices. Rural drinkscapes and trans-​rural belonging both describe forms 9

YOUTH BEYOND THE CITY

of rural place attachment that go beyond and between the boundaries of the local, while young people’s environmental activism emerges from enduring modes of place attachment mobilized differently amidst changes in the rural economy. Attention to the sensory dimensions of place therefore situates ‘the margins’ as a mutable and complex spatiality produced through situated practices, experienced through affect, memory and intimate relationality, and holding political potential in times of crisis.

Identities: mobility, rootedness and belonging Our third section explores mobility, rootedness and belonging, and in the process creates a more heterogeneous approach to both the centre and the ‘beyond’ that this book is theorizing. Mobility has emerged as a key concern in the sociology of youth in recent years, in part due to the influence of the ‘mobilities paradigm’ associated with theorists such as John Urry (2000). However, notions of mobility take on a particular significance for young people beyond the city due to the way that they are positioned within education systems and labour markets. While mobility from the centre is often celebrated as a signifier of cosmopolitan distinction and privilege, youth beyond the city must form a relationship with the outside in order to access education and work, and often define their localities in relation to the ‘outside’ in a way that metropolitan youth do not (Farrugia, 2016). These mobilities mean that attachment to the local is often positioned as a problem to be overcome despite the local relational ties that support young people’s lives in these places (Ravn, 2021). Moreover, the mobilities of some are also supported by the displacement of others, as in experiences of forced migration as a result of violence. These mobilities articulate connections between the city and the ‘beyond’ as well as a more heterogeneous picture of what the spaces beyond the city consist of. The relationship between mobility, place attachment and displacement reveals the fundamental entanglement of the city and the space beyond, and also offers a new perspective on the local as a porous and constantly contested category. The section opens with a chapter from Lirio Gutiérrez Rivera, who examines the experiences of Honduran asylum seekers fleeing urban and rural areas due to gang violence. Rivera’s chapter is unique in exploring mobility in terms of both displacement and the way that movement within the local area is gendered and limited by violence. For Rivera’s participants, the local is a highly stratified place due to the activities of local gang members who limit movement and control territory. This is especially the case for young women, who are targets of sexual violence and abduction. In this sense, their day-​to-​day mobilities are heavily circumscribed by gang activity, and a (restricted) capacity for mobility constitutes the gendered dynamics of the local itself. Seeking asylum, mobility represents not freedom but 10

Introduction

rather displacement, moving from one unsafe place to a form of migration governed by often illegal facilitators and ending in uncertainty. The social networks of the local also facilitate this migration, which is experienced as both escape and empowerment. Spaces of wellbeing and safety are made available through these connections, which sketch pathways for mobility that young people can pursue in order to escape violence. In this way, Rivera’s chapter situates the local in terms of the restriction of day-​to-​day rhythms of mobility. However, this analysis also interrogates the gendered dynamics of mobility and the dynamics of violence and security that underlie experiences of forced migration. In this sense, the mobilities paradigm is developed in new directions through interrogating the gendered dynamics of displacement as well as the role of movement in structuring the rhythms of the local itself. A similar emphasis on local, social relationships in shaping orientations to mobility can be found in Aniela Wenham’s exploration of youth and place attachment in a deprived coastal town in the United Kingdom. However, Wenham’s chapter focuses in particular on the contradictions of place attachment in a town where ‘success’, or even basic material security, is dependent on out-​migration, typically to the ‘global city’ of London. Wenham’s participants are growing up in a town regarded as ‘left behind’ by economic transformations that have privileged London. They face high levels of unemployment and a contradictory set of imperatives regarding mobility. Growing up in a town with few employment options, young people devalue and stigmatize their locality as a ‘black hole’. The ‘mobility imperative’ Wenham describes here interacts with local class inequalities to produce a form of contradictory place attachment that makes young people feel ‘stuck’, while also providing the day-​to-​day social relationships they rely on for survival. However, mobilities of different kinds are intrinsic to the way in which the town’s economy operates, since the main local industry is tourism, which provides a limited amount of seasonal, precarious employment. In this sense, Wenham has uncovered a local economy of mobilities in which the holiday tourism of some reduces young people’s local opportunities and capacities for migration, situated within widening geographical inequalities that produce an ambivalent form of place attachment. The final chapter in the section is from Julia Cook, Helen Cahill and Dan Woodman, focusing on the experiences of young people in Tasmania, Australia. Tasmania is an island in Australia’s south with higher than average levels of youth unemployment and where young people’s definition of place is often constructed in relation to the ‘mainland’. In places like this, for young people with the means to migrate the decision to ‘stay’ must be justified as much as the decision to leave. In this context, Cook and her colleagues develop an ‘immobilities’ perspective to explore the way that these young people become attached to their local areas. An immobilities perspective is significant here as an approach to belonging and place attachment among 11

YOUTH BEYOND THE CITY

a group of young people who are conventionally expected to migrate, and for whom definitions of ‘success’ are typically associated with mobility. In this context, staying or ‘immobility’ is approached as an active process negotiated within young people’s immediate relational ties and connected to material and relational aspects of young people’s lives. In particular, this chapter examines housing as a process of place attachment. Young people in this area with enough resources are able to purchase property earlier than those in the large cities of the mainland, but face a higher level of risk in this decision due to the unpredictable housing market in their locality. This is nevertheless a desirable achievement, signifying success, security and the capacity to remain connected to their local area. Staying is regarded here as active, ongoing work, a practice of place attachment that shapes all aspects of young people’s lives in their local area. Across these three chapters, a focus on migration, displacement, rootedness and place attachment situates mobility as central to the lives of young people beyond the city in unique ways. The relational ties of their local areas also become visible in relation to the capacity for movement, providing the context within which mobility is negotiated and attributed with meaning. In this sense, the relationship between the centre and the space beyond, and the nature of the local itself, is articulated in the way that young people imagine and practice both mobility and immobility. Conversely, the significance of place attachment –​both for those who cannot move and for those who choose not to –​is clearest for youth beyond the city, for whom the capacity for mobility is posed as a problem in negotiating housing, employment and material safety.

Temporalities: historicizing space and place The fourth and final section of the book explores the temporalities of places beyond the city. Temporality is key to contemporary definitions of youth, and to the way that relationship between the city and the space beyond has been defined in youth studies. In the most dominant intellectual and social policy frameworks youth is defined as a time of development, a teleological process in which young people aspire to achieve universal milestones signifying successful adulthood. A similar set of assumptions underpins notions of ‘progress’ which have positioned spaces beyond the city as somehow ‘behind’ those of the urban metropole, positioning rural youth as socially, culturally and politically backward. Interrogating these temporalities therefore means historicizing space and dismantling the normative assumptions that are used to make distinctions between the urban and the rural. It means examining how processes of social change have reshaped young people’s lives beyond the city, and how differently positioned young people have negotiated transformations in the nature 12

Introduction

of the rural through strategic biographical practices and forms of identity construction. Moreover, focusing on temporality may also mean examining the way that intellectual narratives about young people have changed over time, and how these frameworks interact with changes in young people’s identities and structural opportunities. The section opens with what Kaisa Vehkalahti and Helena Ristaniemi describe as a sociologically informed cultural history of rural young women and belonging in Finland. The chapter examines rural young women’s orientation towards the histories of their local communities, including their relationship and level of commitment to their local places. It does so by comparing the experiences of young women in rural, Central Finland and Sámi young women in Northern Finland, part of an indigenous group living in a territory crossing Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. The history of these localities is situated within the Finnish context of relatively late but very rapid urbanization and industrialization, creating questions about what the authors describe as the ‘cross-​generational consciousness’ of local young people, or the way that local cultural histories interact with issues such as rural industrial transformation, economic uncertainty and youth unemployment. In this context, Vehkalahti and Ristaniemi describe three kinds of narratives about belonging. Some young people express contradictory narratives about place, both attached to their local places and the intergenerational ties that constitute the community, but intending to leave to take advantage of opportunities elsewhere. Others describe themselves as entirely detached, and see these places as ‘dying’, with nothing to offer –​a narrative of historical decline. Finally, some describe narratives of strong belonging to place, articulating multiple bonds of commitment and intergenerational attachment. For the Sámi young women in particular, generational attachments and place are regarded as mutually constituting, and place attachment reflects a desire to reproduce Sámi culture. The chapter therefore demonstrates the way that intergenerational histories of place are actively constituted through young people’s negotiation of the urban/​rural divides that structure their lives. The second chapter of the section presents another take on temporality as it examines how rural Swedish young people critically engage with urban/​ rural distinctions that position them as ‘backwards’ in relation to a progressive and cosmopolitan urban identity. Here, Susanna Areschoug innovatively suggests that rather than stemming from ignorance, her participants’ racist sentiments are part of an ironic attitude towards the supposed sophistication and cultural progressiveness of the city, and are aimed at ‘trolling’ those who position themselves as culturally superior and politically correct. In a series of interviews and ethnographic observations, Areschoug interrogates the deliberately racist provocations of rural participants, who she suggests strategically navigate in and out of racist discourses as part of a deliberate 13

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attempt to contest urban supremacy. These young people draw on contemporary forms of youth cultural expression as they ‘troll’ those who they perceive as aspiring to an urban middle-​class existence, distancing themselves from what they see as the pretentious cosmopolitanism and political correctness of their classmates, teachers and the ethnographer herself. As well as constituting an engagement with rural/​urban distinctions, this trolling is also a classed response to being positioned as valueless against the urban middle class. For this reason, it is a response to both inequality and the cultural dimensions of globalization, especially the valorization of a cosmopolitan sensibility as part of urban middle-​class identities. In this sense, the ‘trolling’ contests the cultural distinctions that devalorize long-​standing forms of rural youth culture in Sweden. The final chapter of the section and the book situates the history of place as critical to long-​standing debates in youth studies prior to more recent critiques of late modernity. In a comparative analysis of three sets of data, Rob MacDonald explores the continuities and changes in the way that local inequalities and rural/​urban distinctions are negotiated by young people. Across these data sets, the place ‘beyond’ the centre encompasses both rural young people and those growing up in deindustrialized cities that have also been made peripheral to metropolitan service economies. MacDonald’s research on rural youth unemployment conducted in the 1980s describes the contradiction between strong forms of local belonging and a ‘getting on to get out’ ethos that can still be found in contemporary rural youth research. In contrast, his work in a deindustrialized urban locality over the last two decades emphasizes the significance of local community attachments for young people to survive amidst high levels of youth unemployment, and shows that young people feel at home in these places despite a lack of opportunity to ‘get on’. His analysis of student mobility also demonstrates the uncertain rewards of higher education for disadvantaged young people and the precarious journeys that many of them must undertake after gaining a degree. Across these analyses, MacDonald’s focus on place emphasizes unpredictable relationships between long-​standing patterns of inequalities, class cultures, and local labour markets. In this context, his chapter speaks to contemporary concerns with social change in youth studies, demonstrating both changes and continuities in the relationship between place and youth biographies. Across these chapters, the space beyond the city emerges as part of shifts in the geographical distribution of work, the emergence of a post-​ industrial economy, and a space for the contestation of contemporary youth culture. They thereby explore temporality as a personal orientation towards intergenerational change, a structural process of industrial transformation over time, and the normative basis for modes of cultural distinction that shape all young people’s lives. The relationship between space and time is 14

Introduction

constituted in young people’s critical engagement with social change and with the structural conditions that shape their immediate local environments.

Conclusion In this book, the space beyond the city emerges not merely as a contemporary margin, but as a fluid and heterogeneous space with mobile connections to spaces already considered central to the sociology of youth. The processes that are made visible from the perspective of the margins include global transformations in the geographies of labour and cultural experience that have reshaped the relationship between urban and rural spaces, turning these peripheral areas into critical vantage points for understanding transformations in youth experience across existing spatial binaries. Some contributions also analyse the margins within urban spaces themselves, considering peripheries within the city and the connections between urban, rural and suburban spaces. Common to most chapters is how symbolic urban/​rural distinctions operate either in the background or explicitly in the positioning of the margins as such. The space beyond the city also crosses distinctions between the global north and south. For this reason, thinking productively about the marginality of the rural is also part of efforts to produce concepts suitable for understanding the experiences of young people in the global south, and critically interrogate the political economies and institutional interventions that shape relationships between northern and southern youth. Moving beyond the city thereby offers the opportunity to go beyond the geographies of knowledge production that currently dominate the field. In this context, the place beyond the city is made productive, demonstrating how young people engage with and contest the processes of peripheralization that position them in a space ‘beyond’. Their educational trajectories and engagement with global political economic changes are made visible as strategic and critical practices mobilizing immediate local resources and relational ties. Their efforts to reproduce local forms of belonging or create new spaces of safety and inclusion reveal their localities as porous and mobile, intertwined with the centre through both imaginative practices and established migration pathways. The place attachments that emerge from this context are complex and topological, with young people maintaining multiple embodied connections to places that do not necessarily correspond to urban/​rural distinctions or those between the global north and the global south. As our discussion of temporalities indicates, this takes place through a critical engagement with the social and economic histories that shape their localities. Their engagement with education, work and youth culture therefore produces multiple and sometimes contradictory definitions of the temporalities of youth, in which developmental trajectories connected to a progressive urbanism are contested through the active production 15

YOUTH BEYOND THE CITY

of intergenerational ties and local social connections. Importantly, these are not approaches that are of relevance only ‘beyond the city’, that is, embodied relations to place are not only important for rural youth as part of a ‘idyllic’ rural lifestyles, and temporalizing belonging is not only relevant for ‘backward’ rural spaces. Instead, these practices create new and productive conceptual agendas for thinking about youth in a global context. In this way, it becomes clear how thinking from the margins can provide new theoretical and analytical perspectives that can illuminate new aspects of young lives across spaces and places. References Allen, K. and Hollingworth, S. (2013) ‘ “Sticky subjects” or “cosmopolitan creatives”? Social class, place and urban young people’s aspirations for work in the knowledge economy’, Urban Studies, 50(3): 499–​517. Andres, L. and Wyn, J. (2010) The Making of a Generation: The Children of the 1970’s in Adulthood, Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Ansell, N. and Van Blerk, L. (2007) ‘Doing and belonging: Toward a more-​ than-​representational account of young migrant identities in Lesotho and Malawi’, in Panelli, R., Punch, S. and Robson, E. (eds) Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth, London: Routledge. Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London: Sage. Connell, R. (2007) Southern Theory, Cambridge: Polity Press. Cooper, A., Swartz, S. and Mahali, A. (2019) ‘Disentangled, decentred and democratised: Youth studies for the global south’, Journal of Youth Studies, 22(1): 29–​45. Elmhirst, R. (2002) ‘Daughters and displacement: Migration dynamics in an Indonesian transmigration area’, The Journal of Development Studies, 38(5): 143–​166. Farrugia, D. (2013) ‘Young people and structural inequality: Beyond the middle ground’, Journal of Youth Studies, 16(5): 679–​693. Farrugia, D. (2014) ‘Towards a spatialised youth sociology: The rural and the urban in times of change’, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(3): 293–​307. Farrugia, D. (2016) ‘The mobility imperative for rural youth: The structural, symbolic and non-​representational dimensions rural youth mobilities’, Journal of Youth Studies, 19, 836–​851. Farrugia, D. (2018) Spaces of Youth: Work, Citizenship and Culture in a Global Context, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Halfacree, K.H. and Rivera, M. (2011) ‘Moving to the countryside … and staying: Lives beyond representations’, Sociologia Ruralis, 52, 92–​114. Kintrea, K., St Clair, R. and Houston, M. (2015) ‘Shaped by place? Young people’s aspirations in disadvantaged neighbourhoods’, Journal of Youth Studies, 18(5): 666–​684. 16

Introduction

Koshy, P. (2014) Student Equity Performance in Australian Higher Education: 2007 to 2012, National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, Perth: Curtin University. Massey, D. (2005) For Space, London: Sage. Ni Laoire, C. (2007) ‘The “green green grass of home”? Return migration to rural Ireland’, Journal of Rural Studies, 23(3): 332–​344. Pun, N. (2005) Made in China, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Ravn, S. (2021) ‘Reframing immobility: Young women aspiring to “good enough” local futures’, Journal of Youth Studies, 10.1080/​ 13676261.2021.1948515. Ravn, S. and Demant, J. (2017) ‘Figures in space, figuring space: Towards a spatial-​symbolic framework for understanding youth cultures and identities’, Young: Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 25(3): 252–​267. Rönnlund, M. (2020) ‘ “I love this place, but I won’t stay”: Identification with place and imagined spatial futures among youth living in rural areas in Sweden’, YOUNG, 28(2): 123–​137. Sassen, S. (2012) Cities in a World Economy, Thousand Oaks: Sage. Sukarieh, M. and Tannock, S. (2014) Youth Rising? London: Routledge. Thomson, R. and Taylor, R. (2005) ‘Between cosmopolitanism and the locals’, YOUNG, 13(4): 327–​342. Thrift, N. (2008) Non-​R epresentational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect, London: Routledge. Tuan, Y. (1977) Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Urry, J. (2000) Sociology beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-​First Century, London: Routledge. Walkerdine, V., Lucey, H. and Melody, J. (2001) Growing Up Girl: Psychosocial Explorations of Gender and Class, New York: New York University Press. Wenham, A. (2020) ‘ “Wish you were here”? Geographies of exclusion: Young people, coastal towns and marginality’, Journal of Youth Studies, 23(1): 44–​60. Woodman, D. (2009) ‘The mysterious case of the pervasive choice biography: Ulrich Beck, structure/​agency, and the middling state of theory in the sociology of youth’, Journal of Youth Studies, 12(3): 243–​256.

17

PART I

Inequalities: Education and Aspiration on the Margins

1

Peripheries within the City: The Role of Place/​Space in Shaping Youth Educational Choices and Transitions Aina Tarabini, Judith Jacovkis and Alejandro Montes

Introduction Youth educational choices and transitions are socially embedded processes that reflect young people’s classed, gendered and ethnically informed identities and constrictions (Ball et al, 2000; Archer et al, 2007; Tarabini and Ingram, 2018). As so, they also entail a geographical dimension within which ‘spatial horizons’ and aspirations are created (Evans, 2016). Place and space have been signalled extensively as crucial elements in featuring young people’s identity, agency and sense of self (Hall et al, 2009). In spite of that, a spatially nuanced understanding of young people’s transitions and choices is still missing (Donnelly and Gamsu, 2018). As Raffo (2011) argues, even if this dimension is increasingly acknowledged by the literature, there continues to be a clear need for further elaboration of the key ideas associated with the ‘spatial turn’ in education. Simultaneously, specialists in the field of youth studies (Farrugia, 2015; Cuzzocrea, 2019) argue that even as spatial and mobility perspectives have gradually been incorporated to better understand childhood and youth in the contemporary era, there is still a need to reinforce ‘spatial reflexivity’ (Cairns, 2014) in order to systematically integrate these perspectives into the study of young people’s transitions and lives. We argue that what is mostly missing in the literature is an understanding of how places and spaces are lived in and experienced by young people, thus generating meanings for their educational transitions and choices. What does 21

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it mean for young people’s educational choices to live in one place or another? How do specific places generate opportunities, constraints, representations and meanings for young people to manage their educational transitions? How do these places/​spaces generate a particular perception of the self, of others and of the educational opportunities and trajectories available to them? In essence, how do the dynamics of urban inequality interact with other sources of social inequality and mediate young people’s educational experiences, transitions and choices? The objective of this chapter is to critically reflect on the role of geography and particularly on the place/​space equation in shaping youth educational choices and transitions. While these questions are often raised with rural youth in mind, we here focus on inequalities within an urban setting. Specifically, we aim to explore the relationship between urban mobility and educational transitions and to investigate the reasons for selecting a particular upper secondary school. In both cases, we first identify the general mobility and school choice patterns for different types of youth, and then focus on the experiences, logic and meanings of peripheral youth, that is, young people living in peripheral areas in the city. The analysis is focused on young people living in these urban peripheries as we want to make sense of the ways in which excluded urban neighbourhoods impact on young people’s educational choices and transitions. Accordingly, we will argue that living in an urban periphery conditions young people in material terms, through the economic, social and cultural possibilities that it prevents. Additionally, the periphery also conditions them in emotional and experiential terms by creating a sense of self that is deeply rooted in the logics of the periphery. As Wacquant (1993) brilliantly demonstrated in his research, territorial indignity affects consciousness and relationships, ‘being the symbolic dispossession of urban segregation that turns their inhabitants into veritable social outcasts’ (p 368). Following this line of research, we approach peripheries as a core part of young people’s habitus and thus as a central element in explaining their educational transitions and choices by instilling a sense of (dis)entitlement, (lack of) belonging and (dis)possession. This chapter contributes to research on educational choices and transitions by connecting the mechanisms of educational inequality with those of urban inequality. Moreover, with the notion of peripheral youth (Pilkington and Johnson, 2003) we aim to reinforce the spatial understandings of young people’s transitions and choices through an analysis of the social and mental structures of urban exclusion.

Spatializing youth educational choices and transitions Our analysis draws on an understanding of educational choices and transitions as socially embedded, and, consequently, rooted in place/​space. 22

Peripheries within the City

It also departs from a conception of youth as a social process from which youth practices and identities are constructed through complex and often contradictory relationships to others (people, institutions and places) that are deeply structured by social inequalities. There is extensive sociological literature on school choices and trajectories demonstrating that these are not an automatic product of structural constraints, nor are they the result of processes that are purely individual and agency-​based (Cuconato and Walther, 2015). In spite of the dominant rhetoric of choice as a rational and free process based on the individual responsibility of choosers as consumers, this ‘illusion of individuality’ (Furlong and Cartmel, 2007) obscures the social divisions and the objective constrains that affect choices. Choice is always a socially embedded process, explained by a situated or bounded agency (Evans, 2007). It is always informed by class, gender and ethnic identities and possibilities (Ball et al, 2000; Archer et al, 2007). It entails subjectivities, experiences and feelings that go far beyond purely rationalistic or instrumental processes (Hodkinson and Sparkes, 1997; Hollingworth and Archer, 2010). Choice is also socially constituted in relation to time, place and space. People choose one thing or another according to the opportunities, oppressions, meanings and values attributed to and derived from particular locations (Bell, 2007). On the one hand, both place and space shape educational choices in material terms. Particular urban spaces generate different choice-​sets related to the availability and features of the educational supply and to the possibility of mobilizing different forms of capital. On the other hand, geography influences choices in symbolic terms. Particular geographic locations generate cognitive structures of choice (Ball et al, 2002), related to the meanings that people assign to different spaces and their associated features (Lebfevre, 1991; Massey, 1994). Developing a systematic understanding of young people’s relationships to places and spaces is of crucial importance in overcoming dominant narratives of deficit and disadvantage in the analysis of young people’s lives (Cuervo and Wyn, 2014). It is also essential to avoid claims of universality that are often implicit in youth research in general and in research on youth transitions in particular (Farrugia, 2015). As youth research has moved away from linear, unidimensional and universalistic conceptions of transitions towards more dynamic, relational and open understandings of youth transitions, movement –​understood broadly –​comes to play a key role (Cuervo and Wyn, 2014; Cuzzocrea, 2019). So does young people’s relationships, connections and sense of belonging within their social and educational contexts. It its precisely this relational metaphor of youth that focuses on belonging and becoming as critical elements for understanding transitions that has led to approaches that are more spatiality-​and mobility-​sensitive (Brooks and Waters, 2011; Finn and Holton, 2019). 23

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Understanding young people’s educational transitions entails a deep analysis of their forms of engagement with education, and particularly of their identity as learners. And both engagement and identities are constructed through particular relationships to place and space. As established by Hollingworth and Archer (2010), materially impoverished local spaces are invested with emotional and symbolic significances that crucially impact on ways of (dis)affection felt by children and young people towards education, and more generally on the creation of particular learner identities. If working-​ class urban spaces –​in addition to the schools belonging to them –​are pathologized and demonized in public discourse, it is very difficult for young people to create a positive image of themselves as learners. In this sense, also following Rees et al (1997), we can argue that particular learner identities and patterns of educational trajectories are regionally and locally specific.

Methods and data Our analysis is developed in Barcelona, a big metropolis traversed by several forms of inequality, poverty and exclusion. As indicated by previous research (Blanco and Subirats, 2008) Barcelona is an urban setting full of contrasts, where innovation, creativity and large investments coexist with urban segregation, gentrification and deprived peripheries. The spatial dimension of poverty and social exclusion is expressed by huge inequalities between the richest and the poorest neighbourhoods of the city. These inequalities are evidenced in profound disparities in terms of income, unemployment, life expectancy and educational achievement. According to Barcelona’s City Council, the income of a family in the richest neighbourhood is seven times higher than that of a family in the poorest. In addition, unemployment in the poorest areas is three to four times higher than in the wealthiest. This demonstrates the existence of different ‘cities within the city’ (Saraví, 2015) that deeply affect the life chances and the trajectories of their inhabitants. The analysis in this chapter is based on a subset of interviews from a larger research project that included qualitative case studies in eight high schools in Barcelona, which differed in terms of their social composition, their urban location and the types of upper secondary modalities provided.1 These case studies –​developed over a period of two years2 –​included several interviews with school staff and plenty of informal meetings and observations that allowed us to build a trusting relationship within each school and to progressively negotiate and gain access to its actors. We also conducted 68 in-​depth interviews with students (34 male and 34 female) in their first year of upper secondary education. Twenty-​six of them were following the academic track and 42 were enrolled in vocational education and training (VET). Twenty-​one students had middle-​class backgrounds, while 47 were 24

Peripheries within the City

from working-​class backgrounds. Finally, 50 were born in Spain while 18 had a migrant background, either as first-​or second-​generation migrants. The interviews were conducted by a collaborative team of six researchers, including the three authors of this chapter.3 The sample of students was selected in collaboration with the teaching staff and was based on a maximum variation logic (Creswell, 2012) to capture the heterogeneity and the complexity involved in the processes of educational transitions and choices. As indicated previously, social class, gender, migrant background and upper secondary track were the four main criteria for selecting our students. All interviews were conducted in the students’ high schools and had an average length of 60 minutes. The interview guides were flexibly organized around four main topics: (1) an opening broad question designed to capture the students’ narratives about their school trajectories and experiences; (2) the processes of selecting the upper secondary track and school as well as managing of this transition; (3) the features attributed to the academic track and to VET, respectively, in terms of knowledge, prestige, future opportunities and ‘personal fit’; and (4) their experience of their recent upper secondary choice.4 In general terms, all students were very communicative during the interviews, even if initially expressing some suspicion regarding the research process. We do believe that the main purpose of doing interviews is a genuine interest in understanding other people’s stories (Seidman, 2006); an interest in understanding the meanings of the lived experiences and the perspectives of the participants (Lareau and Shultz, 1996). And it is by expressing this interest to the young participants that they become keen to be listened to, to explain their trajectories and to express the emotions, fears and hopes involved in their educational journeys. We do not have space here to delve into this idea but the interactive and generative nature of qualitative interviews facilitated a space for the young participants to think, talk and make sense of their experiences. And this, in turn, allowed ‘naming their silenced lives’ (Smyth and Hattam, 2001) and attributing credit and value to their stories. In this chapter we focus on two of the most impoverished districts in the city that are highly socially segregated and vulnerable. Specifically, we concentrate on the experiences of young people in the transition from lower to upper secondary education, as this is the key transition point in Spain that explains the (re)production of educational inequalities (Tarabini and Ingram, 2018).5 For the purposes of this chapter the analysis of the interviews followed a two-​stage strategy. First, we analysed the entire sample (across all school locations) of students, looking for different patterns of urban mobility during their upper secondary transition and for different reasons of school and track choice. This allowed us to map the most important trends regarding the role of place/​space in young people’s transitions and choices throughout the city. Second, we delved into the rationales, experiences and subjectivities of the students enrolled 25

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in two schools located in the two peripheral working-​class districts in our study (these students represent a total of 22 in our entire sample).6 This strategy allowed us to connect the overall trends with the particularities of the peripheral youth, highlighting the material and symbolic barriers they face in moving through the city, in part reflected in the reasons they give for choosing a particular school. Incorporating this double strategy brings added value to the analysis, as it allows us to approach educational choices and transitions from a spatial and relational perspective. The analysis of patterns at the level of the entire sample involved three main steps: first, we analysed mobility patterns based on place of residence and school location for each student. We distinguished between three main mobility patterns in conceptual and analytical terms (see Table 1.1). Second, we coded the students’ reasons for choosing their upper secondary school according to the following dimensions and codes, emerging from a combined deductive and inductive strategy (see Table 1.2). Third, we constructed an indicator to assess the territoriality of course supply and specifically designed this to distinguish schools by the degree of exclusivity of their educational offer. According to this logic, we distinguished between three main models (see Table 1.3). The specific analysis of ‘peripheral youth’ aims at understanding the effects of urban segregation –​in broad social terms –​on young people’s experiences of transition and choice. Following Pilkington and Johnson (2003: 264), we aim to develop ‘explicitly situated research that takes the meanings and feelings of young people seriously’. This entails understanding their choices and transitions not only as conditioned materially, but also as conditioned affectively and emotionally. It also calls for an approach that is sensitive to the voices, experiences and meanings of youth, capable of understanding ‘from below’ (MacDonald et al, 2005) how specific places/​spaces subjectively frame young people’s educational transitions and choices. Following this logic, the analysis of the interviews with the peripheral youth not only included mobility

Table 1.1: Conceptualization of mobility patterns Pattern

Description

Non-​mobility

Students living in the same district in which they attend school.

Adjacent mobility

Students living in adjacent districts or districts with similar socioeconomic characteristics to that in which their school is located.

Distant mobility

Students attending schools that are neither in adjacent nor similar districts to the one in which they live. 26

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Table 1.2: Conceptualization of reasons for school choice Dimension

Code

School location

Proximity Specific location

School characteristics

Ownership Supply Places available Social environment and intake

School references

Friends Public references Teachers’ recommendations Prestige

Table 1.3: Conceptualization of the territoriality of course supply Pattern

Description

High territorial presence

Courses provided in five or more schools around the city

Low territorial presence

Courses offered in fewer than five schools around the city

Exclusive educational supply

Courses offered in only one school in the whole city

patterns and reasons to select an upper secondary school, but also included the students’ references to emotions and feelings related to their living locations.

Results Unpacking urban mobility and educational transitions The objective of this section is to explore the patterns of urban mobility of different types of youth in their transition to upper secondary education and the specific meanings of these patterns for peripheral youth. On the one hand, we will see how these patterns relate to the students’ area of residence, to their social class and to the territorial distribution of the educational supply. On the other hand, we will deepen our understanding of the rationales and experiences to explain patterns of mobility of peripheral youth. This will prove the crucial importance of peripheries in understanding the relationship between urban mobility and educational transitions, not only as a result of the material opportunities they deny, but also as a result of the influence on the emotions and identities of these young people. 27

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When we observe the patterns of mobility of our entire sample, the most frequent one is ‘non-​mobility’, which means that upper secondary studies are carried out within the same district in which the students live. This pattern is followed by what we called ‘adjacent mobility’, where the students leave their area of residence to study in a contiguous one, both in geographical and social terms. In most cases, these students go to upper secondary schools in which the social intake is very similar to their own social profile, demonstrating the collision of processes of urban and educational segregation. The final mobility pattern seen in our students is what we termed ‘distant mobility’, in which young people go to upper secondary schools that are neither close to nor similar –​in social terms –​to their areas of residence. These overall patterns of mobility, however, are not equally distributed among the students in our sample, nor do they have the same logic, meanings and implications. In fact, of all participants from the two peripheral districts in our sample, only one presented a pattern of distant mobility with respect to his/​her upper secondary education transition. Most of the students from the two peripheral neighbourhoods present patterns of non-​mobility or adjacent mobility. In Emilio’s case we see how, after a timid attempt to be mobile in his educational transition, his negative experience influenced the decision to ‘keep it simple’ and stay in the neighbourhood: ‘I went to the open days in a school far from here, I was late … that day it was raining, I got very wet, I got lost on the way and there were many classrooms … and when I arrived they were already explaining the course. … I returned home with my mother and we decided that we would think about it. In the end I discarded it. I enrolled here, in a school next to home.’ (Emilio, 17 years old, School 7, District 2, VET) As previous research has shown (Hollingworth and Archer, 2010; Cuervo and Wyn, 2014), the inequality expressed in these patterns is not only the result of the material and economic costs related to mobility, but also of emotional ones. The following comment from Blas perfectly exemplifies this sense of shared belonging within a community that has a continuity of urban and school spaces: “Most of my classmates are from the neighbourhood, because here [in the local area] people go to a high school that’s close to their home. And here [in the school], we’re close to the neighbourhoods” (Blas, 17 years old, School 7, District 2, VET). Following the same logic, these mobility patterns vary widely depending on students’ social class. The middle-​class students in our sample do to a greater extent show patterns of distant mobility when enrolling in upper secondary education. In contrast, students from working-​class backgrounds predominantly follow patterns of non-​mobility or adjacent mobility. This is particularly pronounced in 28

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the two peripheral districts in our sample, in which all interviewees have working-​class backgrounds. And again, this is not only the result of the geographical implications of space, but also of the representations that young people attribute to them (Bell, 2007). As the following quotes demonstrate, for students such as Marcos, whose socio-​family situation requires him to combine his education with a full-​time job, a school choice that involves a high degree of mobility is simply impossible. Simultaneously, for students such as Daniel, references to the neighbourhood mostly concern the people that live there, as well as their social and cultural practices, values and norms: “I study nearby, because think about it … I’m in school from 8am to 2:45pm. Then I take the metro and go straight to work. I start at 3:30pm and work through till 11:30pm. I almost have no time to eat” (Marcos, 21 years old, School 6, District 1, VET). Interviewer: Daniel:

How would you describe your neighbourhood? I’ve got everything I want here. I’m from a Roma family and I like the atmosphere we have in the family, with the friends, in our parties. I can even leave the door of my house open when I go to sleep; the whole neighbourhood is like a big family. (Daniel, 18 years old, School 6, District 1, VET)

Mobility patterns for students in transition from lower to upper secondary education also differ according to the territorial distribution of the educational supply, especially in the case of VET. Not all VET courses are provided equally around the city and this clearly impacts on young people’s ‘decisions to be mobile’. In this sense, exclusive types of VET educational supply –​meaning those courses that are offered only in one school in the whole city –​are clear poles of attraction for patterns of distant mobility.7 In fact, none of the students in our sample who study in these types of schools live in the district in which the school is located. This generates high competitiveness for accessing this exclusive educational offer and, in turn, ends up expelling the ‘local’ students who may eventually wish to access these very studies.8 ‘There are few public schools where robotics is done, one or two, I guess. Most are private. There are many people who are interested in this, but for financial reasons they cannot do it … for this reason there are people who do not live in the area of the school that come here. I have classmates who must come from far away to study this. And that makes it difficult to access. Let’s say that studying robotics is not possible or accessible for everyone.’ (Edgar, 18 years old, School 7, District 2, VET) 29

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The territoriality of supply generates very different mobility patterns among students. And this is especially relevant for those living in urban peripheries. In fact, there is a high mobility of students between peripheral areas, even when the educational supply has a high territorial presence, that is, when a course is offered in many schools across the city. This highlights the role of urban peripheries as communicating vessels in young people’s educational transitions. For peripheral youth, specific adjoining neighbourhoods eventually become an extension of their own residential territories, thus building a symbolic educational area that goes beyond the purely geographical division. “I’m from the neighbourhood next door, but this school is where all my friends came, where my brother came, and all his friends as well. So, for me I was just following his path. Most people from my area came here” (Luis, 17 years old, School 6, District 1, Baccalaureate). Finally, it is worth mentioning that while perhaps counter-​intuitive, VET courses with low territorial presence, in the two working-​class areas in our sample, accumulate a high percentage of students showing a non-​ mobility pattern. In order to understand this phenomenon, we need to look at the distribution of VET courses across the city and, particularly, at the distribution of public and private supply. Most VET supply of traditionally working-​class courses such as hairdressing or mechanics is almost exclusively offered in working-​class neighbourhoods. This, consequently, generates a great interest in these studies among students residing in these areas. Moreover, in the case of these two courses, there is no public supply beyond the poorest neighbourhoods in the city. In the richest areas of the city, the supply of hairdressing and mechanics is completely private and with specialized training to ensure access and attendance by the upper classes. As the following comment shows, while the mechanics course offered publicly in the poorer neighbourhoods trains young people to be traditional working-​ class mechanics, the privately offered course is aimed at preparing students for elitist mechanics circuits: ‘There’re only two public schools in the city offering this course, and both are around here. If a student comes from somewhere that’s far away from these two schools, does that mean that they have to go private? I think they should give more opportunities to get into a public school. But … the private schools work with motoGP companies, they prepare you for something pretty serious. It’s just not the same here, because there aren’t as many contacts or they just don’t have the same really good image.’ (Alexia, 17 years old, School 6, District 1, VET) This situation explains why middle-​class students living in more affluent areas do not attend these kinds of VET courses, even if they have a low territorial presence. As the courses are located in working-​class areas and 30

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have a working-​class stigma, non-​working-​class students are discouraged from taking them. This stigma is made visible and internalized by the peripheral youth who feel singled out by the rest of the citizens for living there. “From the outside they see us as “the worst”. People say: they rob you there. Oops, this neighbourhood is one of the most dangerous. But it’s not true, I’ve never had any problems. Maybe it’s because I live here, but I don’t know” (Blas, 17 years old, School 7, District 2, VET). The moral representations of urban and school spaces and the stigmas associated to them explain why mobility is not always an option among students, even if it is materially possible. It also explains the creation of homogeneous spaces and experiences for young people, as Saraví’s research (2015) has already demonstrated.

Choosing upper secondary education In the previous section, we explored the mobility patterns and rationales associated with upper secondary educational transitions. We saw that students’ mobility patterns are not independent from their social class and that those from working-​class, peripheral areas tend to move less and, when they do, tend to attend schools similar to those in their neighbourhood. We also saw that this mobility pattern is not only related to the material possibilities to be mobile, but also to the emotional and experiential dimensions of living and belonging to an urban periphery. In this section we question the extended idea of the educational transitions as the result of a conscious and rational decision process that, in an allegedly well-​connected city such as Barcelona, is not affected by territorial constraints. It goes beyond the scope of this chapter to expand on this idea, but it is important to note that the policy-​makers and teachers interviewed in our research both sustain the widespread idea of the territory’s lack of relevance –​both in geographical and above all in social terms –​in explaining young people’s upper secondary choices. In spite of this, as we will show, the process through which students choose their upper secondary school is closely related to the characteristics of the place they live in, and to the place where these schools are located. As we did in the previous section, we will explore the reasons to select an upper secondary school according to the students’ social class, their mobility patterns and the territorial presence of educational supply. Simultaneously, we will delve into the emotional, symbolic and experiential dimensions of these reasons as lived by the peripheral youth. Interestingly, the reasons for and priorities when choosing schools and courses differ by social class. Middle-​class students are clearly concerned with the school’s characteristics and specifically with its prestige and whether it offers specific (attractive) courses. In contrast, working-​class students choose by proximity and ownership of the school (public/​private), thus referring 31

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more to their own capacities (economic, social) than to those of the school itself. Focusing on working-​class students’ discourse in the two selected peripheral districts, the relevance of proximity is reinforced in several ways. In fact, these students’ narratives clearly highlight the impact of territorial boundaries on their process of choice, as reflected in Manel’s words: Interviewer: Manel:

What influenced your decision? This was the only alternative I had close to home. (Manel, 17 years old, School 6, District 1, VET)

While these boundaries are administrative –​related to the neighbourhood or district in which the students live –​they are mostly symbolic –​related to the meaning attributed to a specific place or location. This means that, regardless of physical distance, there are also subjective distances that can prevent students from choosing certain schools that might otherwise suit their interests. As the following quotes illustrate, some students even chose the school before choosing their specific course and thus their available alternatives are limited by the available supply close to their homes. ‘I chose this school because it is closer than the others. I didn’t know what to do, what to study. … I was deciding what school to go to for studying, and there were some that were close, and others were a long way away. I saw this school was the closest, and I told the teacher and he told me it was ok.’ (Marcos, 21 years old, School 6, District 1, VET) ‘I don’t know what I want to do. I think I’m doing a Baccalaureate, but I’m not staying here. I’m going to that other school. As I live there, I prefer to go there, I don’t like the atmosphere here.’ (Lorena, 16 years old, School 6, District 1, VET) If we now look at students’ mobility patterns in relation to their reasons for choosing a school, we see that half of those enrolled in schools close to their residence chose them precisely for being close and, to a high extent, for being public. On the other hand, for those students moving to adjacent schools, proximity is still an important factor, but the school characteristics are increasingly relevant. While this is the general trend for all the young people interviewed, when we look at the responses of those students living in the urban peripheries, the range of reasons for their choices narrows. In particular, almost all students who followed a pattern of non-​mobility or adjacent mobility chose their school because of its proximity. The following quotations illustrate how it is not only proximity but also familiarity; knowledge that young people have acquired about the place from their relatives, that matters for their choices: 32

Peripheries within the City

Interviewer: Sonia:

What influenced you most in choosing this course and this school? My uncle studied here and he told me that it was ok, but also it was close. (Sonia, 18 years old, School 6, District 1, VET)

‘I’m 16 and I have studied here all my life. I’m from this neighbourhood, this was the closest high school and my brother also studied here.’ (Luís, 16 years old, School 6, District 1, Baccalaureate) The final element we analyse connects the reasons for choosing school with the territorial presence of educational supply. The most interesting aspect of this is the high percentage of students in what we term ‘low territorial presence courses’ that have chosen such courses on grounds of proximity and/​ or for being public and not because of the school’s characteristics. Indeed, following the assumption that students rationally choose according to their interests, one could expect that the more specific the supply, the lower the importance of geography on this choice and the higher the percentage of students choosing precisely on grounds of the school’s characteristics. However, this does not seem to be the case for our interviewees from the two peripheral areas. In fact, even exclusive courses that could attract students from other neighbourhoods are selected for being public or for proximity rather than for their particular characteristics. Thus, as we have seen in the previous parts of the analysis, place matters. This is especially relevant in the case of students from the periphery of the city, inasmuch as their decisions are guided by principles of pragmatism and security or confidence rather than by their expectations of the distinction that such courses could provide them. At the same time, schools with a low territorial presence supply located in the peripheral neighbourhoods hardly attract any students from other areas. Hence, above and beyond attractive course specializations, schools are chosen by their location rather than by their characteristics. Eliana’s comments on the reasons for choosing the school in which she is enrolled, and to follow a course which is offered in only three schools of the city, illustrate this issue: “I chose this one because it is one of the closest and also because a friend of mine came here” (Eliana, 17 years old, School 7, District 2, VET).

Conclusion We started this chapter by arguing that even when educational and youth research is attributing growing importance to geography in their respective analyses, there is still a need to reinforce the spatial understandings of young people’s lives (Raffo, 2011; Farrugia, 2015; Cuzzocrea, 2019). Educational choices and transitions are socially embedded processes, in which young 33

YOUTH BEYOND THE CITY

people’s agency is always bound and informed by the social dimensions of inequality (Tarabini and Ingram, 2018). Consequently, this agency is also space/​place configured. Geography configures people’s lives, not only through the material and objective constrictions and opportunities that it generates but also through the subjective images and representations that it provides (Bell, 2007). It is not only a physical, but also –​and above all –​a social, interactive and relational space (Lefebvre, 1991). Geography also articulates belongings and identities (Cuervo and Wyn, 2014). It is, then, of critical importance to systematically integrate these perspectives into the study of young people’s educational choices and transitions. Even more so when the dominant discourses of our times attribute a key role to individual and rational choices in explaining different trajectories within the educational system in particular, and throughout life generally. Hegemonic discourses conceive both social and educational inequalities as the result of distinct aspirations, preferences and choices, thus neglecting the multiple ways in which social divisions and exclusions intersect young people’s opportunities and lives (Ball et al, 2000; Archer et al, 2007). The objective of our chapter has been to spatialize youth educational choices and transitions, incorporating the role of geography and particularly that of the place/​space equation in our analysis. We particularly explored the relationship between urban mobility and educational transitions and the process of school choice in upper secondary education. In both cases, we investigated the patterns for different types of youth and, specifically, the rationales and experiences of the peripheral youth. The main conclusions of the analysis are summarized in the following. First, the analysis of the students’ mobility patterns in their transition to upper secondary education has demonstrated the critical relevance of place in young people’s educational trajectories. Place generates not only material constraints on student choices –​mostly direct, indirect and opportunity costs related to mobility –​but also emotional costs related to young people’s subjective experiencing of ‘their own place’. As the empirical analysis has shown, places are intersected by symbolic meanings and attributions that generate both belongings and exclusions. Moreover, our analysis has shown the importance of moving away from a binary and simple understanding of (im)mobilities, as Finn and Holton (2019) have already suggested in their research. Our students not only move (or not) through the territory when making their upper secondary choices; they also have very different patterns of mobility that are deeply mediated by their social class. In fact, those living in the urban working-​class peripheries are not only inclined to move less than others but, when they do move, they tend to attend schools similar to those in their own neighbourhood. This means that their (im)mobility is socially embedded in the broader dynamics of the city’s urban segregation and that 34

Peripheries within the City

they, as well as the rest of the students, tend to reproduce their patterns of social relationships within their own neighbourhood or in equivalent ones. Second, we have shown that place is also critical for properly understanding the impact of educational supply on young people’s educational transitions and choices. Our analysis has demonstrated that the supply of upper secondary education in Barcelona is clearly territorialized, above all in its vocational track. This means that the provision of VET courses is not equally distributed around the city, with a clear impact on young people’s ‘decisions to be mobile’. Specifically, we have identified three types of supply, according to their territoriality: ‘high territorial presence’; ‘low territorial presence’; and ‘exclusive educational supply’. These types are not randomly distributed through the city but, instead, are traversed by the complex social, economic and symbolic factors that shape particular geographical spaces and locations. In the two working-​class peripheries in our sample, for example, none of the upper secondary schools provide ‘exclusive educational supply’. Understanding the territoriality of the supply, then, is crucial in properly assessing the dynamics of competition, rejection, self-​exclusion and mobility in the processes of young people’s educational transitions. Third, we have shown how the reasons for young people’s school choice differ by both space and class. We have seen how the reasons for selecting an upper secondary school clearly differ between middle-​class and working-​class students. For the former, school characteristics and, particularly, prestige and the specific supply in the upper secondary school are all critical elements. In contrast to this, proximity and the ownership of the school (mainly, being public) are central elements in working-​class students’ upper secondary choices. Differences in the cultural, economic and social capital of families and students explain why some choices are more ‘informed’ than others and, above all, why some of these choices are more available, feasible or even thinkable. And this is why, in the words of Riddell (2005, in Raffo, 2011), quasi-​markets in education always favour the middle classes, particularly in urban contexts. In fact, the narratives of ‘peripheral youth’ clearly highlight the impact of territorial boundaries –​both material and symbolic –​in their process of school choice. And this is not independent of the mobility patterns or the territoriality of supply that we have previously highlighted. Patterns of mobility, features of educational supply and reasons for school choice are therefore three elements that entirely overlap with one another and that are intensely mediated by the physical, economic, social and symbolic characteristics of the geography in question. And all this, in complex and often contradictory ways, explains young people’s transitions within the education system. That is why spatial justice, as formulated by Saraví (2015), is profoundly relevant in guaranteeing equality of conditions for young people’s educational choices and transitions. Unless a broad notion of geography is incorporated into the political, school-​based and academic understandings 35

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of young people’s lives, we will continue to maintain a biased and simplistic understanding of educational transitions and choices, and, consequently, will continue to reproduce social inequalities. Our chapter has shown that the notion of urban periphery goes beyond the description of the geographical location of specific neighbourhoods. It has both relational and symbolic dimensions and is incorporated into the young people’s subjectivities and dispositions as an inherent part of their habitus. Living in a urban periphery not only affects young people’s educational choices and transitions by means of the material constrictions associated with their mobility patterns. It also generates a ‘practical sense’ of what is perceived as appropriate and adequate for ‘people like us’ (Bourdieu, 1990), expressed through a shared self-​perception, self-​classification and self-​ exclusion. That is why being or not being mobile in the transition to upper secondary education goes far beyond the rational, instrumental and even material aspects of choice. Leaving your neighbourhood to enrol in upper secondary education entails a feeling of entitlement, privilege and liberty that is severely compromised by the impacts of the urban peripheries in terms of symbolic indignity and dispossession. And this is why urban peripheries act as communicating vessels in young people’s educational transitions. Because they generate a sense of symbolic continuity and belonging in young people’s minds; and because they are perceived as acceptable and appropriate for ‘people like them’: peripheral youth, those constantly excluded from the material, relational and subjective conditions to be labelled as proper choosers in the competitive and positional game of education. Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

The fieldwork of the EDUPOST16 Project in Barcelona includes 28 in-​depth interviews with policy-​makers; 37 interviews with principals and coordination staff in the selected schools; 35 interviews with teachers and tutors at the same schools; 25 observations on school open days and 1,319 questionnaires with young people in their first year of Baccalaureate and VET. The first contact with the schools was initiated in February 2018 and the meetings to share the final reports of the project were conducted between February and March 2020. The analysis of the interviews for the purposes of this chapter has been exclusively developed by the signing authors. All the students were interviewed during the first six months of their first year in upper secondary school. In Spain, the structure of the education system is as follows: 10 years of compulsory and formally comprehensive schooling (6–​12 primary education, ISCED 1 and 12–​16 lower-​secondary education, ISCED 2), followed by two years of non-​compulsory and tracked upper secondary education, organized into two tracks: academic (ISCED 3A) and vocational (ISCED 3B). As indicated, our sample has a total of seven schools, where schools 6 and 7 represent those located in the working-​class peripheral areas. It is worth noting that there are no schools with exclusive educational supply in the two peripheral working-​class districts in our sample. 36

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8

When availability of places in each VET course is less than demand, students with higher marks from lower-​secondary education are given priority.

Acknowledgements This chapter has been written within the Spanish National R+​D Project ‘EDUPOST16’, developed in Barcelona and Madrid for the 2016–​2020 period. (Ref. CSO2016-​80004P. PI Aina Tarabini. Further information: http://​www.edupos​t16.es/​en). References Archer, L., Halsall, A. and Hollingworth, S. (2007) ‘Class, gender, (hetero) sexuality and schooling: Paradoxes within working class girls’ engagement with education and post-​16 aspirations’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(2): 165–​180. Ball, S., Maguire, M. and Macrae, S. (2000) Choice, Pathways and Transitions Post-​16: New Youth, New Economics in the Global City, London: Routledge. Ball, S., Davies, J., David, M. and Reay, D. (2002) ‘ “Classification” and “judgement”: Social class and the “cognitive structures” of choice of higher education’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23(1): 51–​72. Bell, C.A. (2007) ‘Space and place: Urban parents’ geographical preferences for schools’, The Urban Review, 39(4): 375–​404. Blanco, I. and Subirats, J. (2008) ‘Social exclusion, area effects and metropolitan governance: A comparative analysis of five large Spanish cities’, Urban Research & Practice, 1(2): 130–​148. Bourdieu, P. (1990) In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Brooks, R. and Waters, J. (2011) Student Mobilities, Migration, and the Internationalization of Higher Education, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Cairns, D. (2014) Youth Transitions, International Student Mobility and Spatial Reflexivity: Being Mobile? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Creswell, J.W. (2012) Educational Research: Planning, Conducting and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research, Boston: Pearson. Cuconato, M. and Walther, A. (2015) ‘ “Doing transitions” in education’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 28(3): 283–​296. Cuervo, H. and Wyn, J. (2014) ‘Reflections on the use of spatial and relational metaphors in youth studies’, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(7): 901–​915. Cuzzocrea, V. (2019) ‘A place for mobility in metaphors of youth transitions’, Journal of Youth Studies, 23(1): 61–​75. Donnelly, M. and Gamsu, S. (2018) ‘Regional structures of feeling? A spatially and socially differentiated analysis of UK student im/​mobility’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39(7): 961–​981.

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Evans, C. (2016) ‘Moving away or staying local: The role of locality in young people’s “spatial horizons” and career aspirations’, Journal of Youth Studies, 19(4): 501–​516. Evans, K. (2007) ‘Concepts of bounded agency in education, work, and the personal lives of young adults’, International Journal of Psychology, 42(2): 85–​93. Farrugia, D. (2015) ‘Space and place in studies of childhood and youth’, in J. Wyn and H. Cahill (eds) Handbook of Children and Youth Studies, Singapore: Springer, pp 609–​624. Finn, K. and Holton, M. (2019) Everyday Mobile Belonging: Theorising Higher Education Student Mobilities, London: Bloomsbury. Furlong, A. and Cartmel, F. (2007) Young People and Social Change: New Perspectives, Maidenhead: Open University Press. Hall, T., Coffey, A. and Lashua, B. (2009) ‘Steps and stages: Rethinking transitions in youth and place’, Journal of Youth Studies, 12(5): 547–​561. Hodkinson, P. and Sparkes, A.C. (1997) ‘Careership: A sociological theory of career decision making’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 18(1): 29–​44. Hollingworth, S. and Archer, L. (2010) ‘Urban schools as urban places: School reputation, children’s identities and engagement with education in London’, Urban Studies, 47(3): 584–​603. Lareau, A. and Shultz, J. (1996) Journeys Through Ethnography: Realistic Accounts of Fieldwork, Oxford: Westview Press. Lefebvre, H.D. (1991) The Production of Space, Oxford: Blackwell. MacDonald, R., Shildrick, T., Webster, C. and Simpson, D. (2005) ‘Growing up in poor neighbourhoods: The significance of class and place in the extended transitions of “socially excluded” young adults’, Sociology, 39(5): 873–​891. Massey, D. (1994) Space, Place, and Gender, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Pilkington, H. and Johnson, R. (2003) ‘Peripheral youth: Relations of identity and power in global/​local context’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 6(3): 259–​283. Raffo, C. (2011) ‘Educational equity in poor urban contexts: Exploring issues of place/​space and young people’s identity and agency’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 59(1): 1–​19. Rees, G., Fevre, R., Furlong, C.J. and Gorard, S. (1997) ‘History, place and the learning society: Towards a sociology of lifetime learning’, Journal of Education Policy, 12(6): 485–​497. Saraví, G. (2015) ‘Youth experience of urban inequality: Space, class, and gender in Mexico’, in J. Wyn and H. Cahill (eds) Handbook of Children and Youth Studies, Singapore: Springer, pp 503–​515.

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Seidman, I. (2006) Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences, New York and London: Teachers College Press. Smyth, J. and Hattam, R. (2001) ‘Voiced research as a sociology for understanding dropping out of school’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 22(3): 401–​415. Tarabini, A. and Ingram, N. (2018) Educational Choices, Transitions and Aspirations in Europe: Systemic, Institutional and Subjective Challenges, London: Routledge. Wacquant, L. (1993) ‘Urban outcasts: Stigma and division in the black American ghetto and the French urban periphery’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 17(3): 366–​383.

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Disrupting the Discourse of Under-​representation: The Place of Rural Students in Australian Higher Education Equity Policy Sally Patfield, Jennifer Gore and Leanne Fray

Introduction Australians living in regional and remote areas have been designated as a key higher education equity target group for more than 30 years. Yet despite ongoing efforts to seek parity and alter ‘the balance of the student population to reflect more closely the composition of society as a whole’ (Department of Employment, Education and Training, 1990, p 2), very little has changed. Given historically low rates of university participation for rural students and stagnant enrolment patterns even since the massification of higher education (Burnheim and Harvey, 2016), there is no question that Australians from regional and remote areas remain under-​represented. Indeed, rural Australians have been characterized as particularly difficult subjects of the government’s equity agenda. As a result, it is commonplace for policy-​makers and scholars to refer to the challenge of improving university access as an intractable problem. A major review of Australian higher education in 2008, for example, targets three groups most under-​ represented in higher education –​rural Australians, Indigenous Australians and people from low socioeconomic backgrounds –​yet declares there is no easy or obvious solution to resolve this ‘challenge’ (Bradley et al, 2008, p 27). Elsewhere, regionality has been labelled the ‘hardest’ equity challenge to confront (Burnheim and Harvey, 2016), singling out regional and remote Australians as an especially intransigent equity group relative to all other targets of higher education policy. 40

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This persistent under-​representation is usually attributed to lower school completion rates, lower academic achievement and poorer employment options than their metropolitan peers (Burnheim and Harvey, 2016; Halsey, 2017). In this chapter, we adopt a different stance by interrogating the discourse of ‘under-​representation’ itself. While ensuring better access to university is a key social justice concern, ‘under-​representation’ is also tied to broader political and economic concerns that are often overlooked. Widening the participation of under-​represented groups is a strategy for expansion (Sellar and Gale, 2011), with continued growth of the higher education sector heavily dependent on diversifying the student body. Relatedly, ‘under-​representation’, as a marker of collective disadvantage in equity policy, positions certain kinds of youth against normative, idealized student subjectivities (Burke, 2012). Consequently, rural and remote Australians are largely seen as different and ‘Other’ in relation to higher education, shaped through the lens of the traditional metropolitan university student. Contentiously, then, we posit that the discourse of under-​representation stems primarily from the imagined futures of institutions and government. A key implication is that rural students should desire higher education for the human capital benefits they will bring to their communities and the nation (Department of Employment, Education and Training, 1990). And the policy solution, rather simplistically, is to focus on ‘raising aspirations’ via funding initiatives designed to fuel desire for higher education –​thereby changing the individual rather than the system (Whitty and Clement, 2015). This pathologizing perspective has also underpinned much research on rural and remote education, seeking to pinpoint ‘barriers’ and ‘enablers’ to higher education (Fray et al, 2019). The premise here is that by removing barriers and investing in enablers university enrolment will be stimulated and become more representative (Sellar and Gale, 2011). This way of understanding the problems of, and solutions to, ‘under-​ representation’ discursively positions rural youth at an impasse. As Corbett and Forsey (2017) succinctly put it, they are ‘simultaneously encouraged and blamed’ (p 430). They need to be more aspirational, more mobile and more credentialed. Such a view not only normalizes aspirations for higher education, but if –​and potentially when –​rural youth choose not to pursue university, they are judged to be not ‘aspirational enough’ and in need of fixing (Kenway and Hickey-​Moody, 2011; Southgate and Bennett, 2016). This view pathologizes rural youth when they construct their identities in relation to their community, lifestyle or history, so much so that ‘place attachment’ and the ‘desire to return home’ are often presented as crude barriers to getting more rural students into higher education (Alloway et al, 2004; Alloway and Dalley-​Trim, 2009). In this chapter, we interrogate the prevailing discourse of under-​ representation by exploring how imagined futures are actually constructed 41

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in one rural Australian community, Oldfields (pseudonym). Specifically, we tease out the everyday aspirational strategies residents use as they speak about and navigate changing conditions. We use the term ‘aspirational strategy’ (see Kenway and Hickey-​Moody, 2011) to draw attention to the situated knowledges and tactics that inform and shape imagined futures, in contrast to the narrower focus on ‘aspiration’ as an educational or occupational destination. In this way, our critical examination of rural youth makes a contribution that has largely been absent in the quest to achieve wider participation in Australian higher education (Corbett and Forsey, 2017). We begin by outlining our theoretical lens for analysing aspirational strategies, before setting the scene for our case study of the regional township of Oldfields.

Investigating the aspirational strategies of rural youth: habitus as a theory of action We conceptualize aspirational strategies as an aspect of habitus, drawing on Bourdieu’s theorization of habitus. Using habitus as both concept and methodological tool (Reay, 2004), we examine the intricate ways that social circumstances play out within perceptions, feelings and actions. In this light, habitus is a deeply internalized set of socialized dispositions –​or what Bourdieu (1977) describes as a ‘structuring structure’. That is, habitus is shaped by one’s past and present circumstances whereby the social world becomes embodied and thus influences how the young people in our research see their place in the world, including how they imagine and work towards particular futures. We work with a specific interpretation of habitus that takes into account both individual and collective elements. Because habitus connects the individual with the social (or social structure), people from similar backgrounds –​such as class, gender, race or geographical location –​can be seen as possessing similarities in habitus. For example, it has been theorized that people living in regional and remote areas possess a ‘rural habitus’ (Funnell, 2008), characterized by homologies in dispositions towards work and lifestyle which are manifest in components of the self, such as the embodiment of rural history, mannerisms, language and ‘ways of being’. Given that rural youth share similar kinds of life experiences, despite diversity across rural locations, they acquire dispositions akin to those who share a similar structural position in society. Habitus is also cumulative. Initially formed through early socialization within the home and family unit (what Bourdieu terms the ‘primary habitus’), habitus is continually moulded through other life experiences, such as engagement with schooling (the ‘secondary habitus’). This means that habitus is malleable and permeable, continually re-​restructured as one adapts 42

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to, and engages in, the social world. As Reay (2004) explains, while habitus is reflective of the social position in which it was acquired, subsequent life experiences continue to be internalized, thus generating additional layers of habitus. Nonetheless, rather than lending itself to radical conversion, habitus is durable (Bourdieu, 1993), which is why social actors tend to behave in particular ways and make certain choices rather than others. The notion of durability encompassed in Bourdieu’s work has often been criticized as overly deterministic. In particular, critics maintain that he presents a social world where ‘things [just] happen to people, rather than a world in which they can intervene in their individual and collective destinies’ (Jenkins, 2002, p 91). However, we argue that such a view overlooks the role of agency at the heart of Bourdieu’s work; the idea that everyone is able to exercise agency even though it is circumscribed by one’s social position at a given point in time (Archer et al, 2012). Social actors do not simply accept their destiny based on their position in society but, rather, make their way through a complex web of opportunities and constraints that are contingent on their past and present circumstances (Swartz, 1997; Reay, 2004; Archer et al, 2012). Thus, instead of seeing habitus as merely determining one’s actions, we see it as a generative force, a predisposition that shapes how an individual feels able to act. In this way, social actors can be thought of as perceiving, negotiating and navigating through different possibilities and perceived impossibilities (Bourdieu, 1977) whereby their habitus sets the ‘boundaries within which [they] are “free” to adopt strategic practices’ (Mills, 2008, p 82). Of course, habitus only ‘realises itself in relation to a field’ (Lingard et al, 2015, p 30), meaning that any analysis using the concept of habitus also needs to take into account the contexts in which social actors live and operate (the ‘field’), rather than just their dispositions towards the world. We read field as having an underlying temporal dimension; it is neither a fixed nor static entity but, rather, evolves over time and has a history. However, the relationship between habitus and field is dynamic, given that a field can change. The field of higher education in Australia, for example, has shifted from an elite sector open only to a privileged few, to one ostensibly committed to ‘education for the masses’. Associated with this change, political and popular rhetoric expecting young people to aspire to higher education has grown exponentially, leading young people from regional and remote areas to be continuously framed as ‘under-​represented’ and the rural habitus positioned at the periphery.

The study In this chapter, we utilize data drawn from a longitudinal programme of research investigating young people’s educational and occupational aspirations 43

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in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, conducted over a period of seven years, from 2012 to 2018. This research examined the complex processes of aspiration formation among young people, using surveys, focus groups and interviews with school students as well as key adults, including parents/​carers, teachers, principals and relevant community members. The analysis in this chapter is anchored in data from two studies that specifically focus on regional and remote contexts. The first study, Locating Aspirations (2017), examined the formation of educational and occupational aspirations among school students enrolled in Years 3–​12 (approximately aged 8–​18 years) at 33 government schools located in regional, remote and very remote areas of the state. Schools were recruited based on their geographic location, according to definitions provided by the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Remoteness Structure, which uses five classes of remoteness: Major Cities, Inner Regional, Outer Regional, Remote and Very Remote. Due to the sheer size of Australia, these classifications represent a measure of relative access to services, with each category geospatially comparable based on common characteristics associated with level of remoteness. We draw on the qualitative strand of this study which consisted of focus groups and interviews with 144 school students, 46 parents/​carers and 49 teachers and principals. Young people participated in focus groups with one or two other students, while adults were primarily interviewed one-​on-​one. Focus groups and interviews were semi-​structured and addressed the broad topics of: schooling; community; the formation of educational and occupational aspirations; careers activities in school; and, perceptions of, and experiences with, higher education and vocational education. Parents/​carers, teachers and principals were asked about their own educational experiences (including formal schooling and tertiary education), expectations for young people and careers-​ related advice. All sessions were audio-​recorded and transcribed verbatim. The second study, Community Influence on University Aspirations (2018), extended this research with additional interviews involving key community members in a sub-​sample of eight diverse communities. The specific aim of this study was to investigate how post-​school aspirations are formed within, and shaped by, the communities in which young people live. Using purposive sampling, we sought key community members who have a significant relationship with young people and the local school, such as members of the parents and citizens (P&C) association,1 local business owners, government officials and sporting coaches. In-​depth interviews with each community member focused on: historical and contemporary perspectives on the community; local employment; trends in post-​school transitions and destinations; and attitudes towards schooling, employment and tertiary education. All sessions were audio-​recorded and transcribed verbatim.

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The remainder of this chapter centres on one community, Oldfields, using the focus group and interview data from both studies. Our intent is to foreground Oldfields’ uniqueness, while also acknowledging the diversity among rural and remote locations. In addressing the problematic nature of the discourse of under-​representation, we offer a contextualized analysis of events, stories and experiences described by participants, bringing together the voices of the young people we interviewed in Oldfields (n =​7) with those of parents/​carers (n =​3), teachers (n =​3) and community members (n =​2). This approach aims to make visible the everyday aspirational strategies of residents in one rural context, rather than simplistically positioning them in relation to the normative values and ideals underpinning the discourse of ‘under-​representation’.

Oldfields: the changing face of a rural community Oldfields is a regional township home to approximately 1,700 residents. The town itself is relatively small, with the immediate surrounding area containing many family-​run and corporately owned farms. At a greater distance, a vast number of coal mines dominate the physical landscape. Unsurprisingly, the main industries of employment in the town are farming and coal mining. Located approximately 2.5 hours’ drive from the eastern seaboard of NSW, both the young people and adults we interviewed describe the community as isolated, due in large part to limited access to essential services and an absence of public transport both within the town and to communities nearby. The community is also perceived as ‘close-​knit’, with residents of all ages reporting that they ‘know everyone’. While rural communities are often portrayed by policy-​makers as relatively static spaces (Corbett and Forsey, 2017), the community of Oldfields has experienced significant environmental and economic change in recent decades. Rapid technological developments and fluctuations in the economy have dramatically reshaped the town, particularly manifest in the agricultural landscape and related employment opportunities: ‘Instead of having one man who can do all of that [work], you have a machine now. The truck that they call a grouper, that you fill with seed, fertilizer –​that has an auger on the side and it will automatically fill the thing in bulk. Well, all of it, at one time, was in bags. You had to lift them up manually. So you had to have somebody there to do it. Another reason a lot of the labour part has been cut, economically, is because you can’t survive on the prices that you had of yesteryear. … Instead of having five people, now you’ll have two. So that means that three jobs have gone.’ (Peter, farmer)

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Automation and market pressures have coalesced to diminish the number of employees needed in the local farming industry. Typical of many productivist communities that rely on the production and extraction of natural resources (Corbett and Forsey, 2017), Peter details a momentous shift in farming –​from being a manual process requiring a degree of human labour (you had to have somebody there to do it), to one that requires minimal human assistance. Peter’s rural habitus is evident in language that would not be instantly recognizable to those unfamiliar with groupers (a large bin for seed or fertilizer) or augers (used for drilling or digging). However, the move from manual to autonomous processing also reveals adaptability embedded within his habitus –​having to make adjustments in the face of external forces for the very survival of his business and livelihood. Significant changes to the town have been compounded by climate change and drought. These insidious events have transformed the local environment, while also engendering harsh social impacts on the community: ‘I find it quite sad, the impact of the drought. You know, it is just desperate around here. The kids would feel that. There’s been quite a few suicides in the last couple of years, younger people, rural people. You just think, “Where’s it coming from?” See last year alone, in the last 18 months, three local women committed suicide, all involved with the primary industries. Oh, I’ve got the goose bumps.’ (Michelle, P&C representative) Michelle lays bare the vulnerability of rural Australians to climate change. While ‘the drought’ often looms large but somewhat abstractly in popular commentary, it is part of everyday life in Oldfields. As Michelle recounts, the drought now even forms a critical layer of the community’s collective habitus (Connolly and Healy, 2004). She conveys the desperation and hopelessness enveloping the town, clearly impacting young people –​the kids would feel that. Michelle’s goose bumps evoke the bodily inscription and emotional impact of the drought, apparent in the terrible suicide rate. These are her people –​ younger people, rural people –​on whom the drought has taken its toll. At the same time, a sense of hope pervades the town. Climate change and drought have severe consequences, but have also sparked a strategic mentality: ‘Everybody talks about climate change. The climate is changing, it’s getting warmer. … See, what’s happening now though, with the changes in technology, we are now growing more on less rain, or growing as much on less rain. Not because we’re doing things that we did 50 years ago, because all the soil would be dried out. But because we changed the way in which we do it, and that’s what we’ve got to continue to do. You’ve got to be an innovator.’ (Peter, farmer) 46

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The impact of drought on life in Oldfields is unmistakable in Peter’s account; something everybody is talking about. What stands out, however, is Peter’s relatively positive mindset in the face of so much change: first, the change in climate, second, changes in technology, and third, the changes to people’s routines and practices –​we’ve changed the way we do it. In this way, Peter’s reflections on past, present and future capture the dynamic relationship between habitus and field, recognizing opportunities for improvisation while ‘coping with unforeseen and ever-​changing situations’ (Bourdieu, 1977, p 72). Against this backdrop, the motifs of strategy and innovation consistently arose in the interviews when talk focused on young people’s futures in Oldfields. In what follows, we consider how these motifs shape the aspirational strategies of residents, teasing out two key themes: ‘strategic innovation’ and ‘strategic compromise’.

Strategic innovation: grasping at opportunities ‘Strategic innovation’ encompasses both the adaptability and struggle embedded within the everyday practices of Oldfields, with ongoing efforts to innovate against a backdrop of substantial and ongoing change. While the discourse of under-​representation focuses on overall university participation, we found agriculture to be a popular higher education trajectory among Oldfields’ young people, clearly reflective of the community’s habitus. Such a choice, however, is not simply a form of reproduction or familial inheritance. Rather, interest in agriculture is both founded in, and a foundation for, innovation: ‘With all of the technology you’ve got now, all the systems you’ve got, there’s no guesswork anymore [in agriculture]. It’s precise, it’s scientific.’ (Lars, teacher) ‘[It’s] sort of different to what I grew up around because it’s all technology now. We’ve actually got to take photos of the grass and all that which is really weird before the cattle go in and when they come out of the paddock. So, then we send the photos off to the mines and they check to make sure we’re not overrunning it and the impact and all that that it has on it. It’s all done with GPS tracking so they can literally pinpoint exactly where you took it in the paddock.’ (Tanja, parent) ‘There are many places, larger corporations that really won’t have people on unless they’ve got those [agronomy] degrees.’ (Peter, farmer) In Oldfields, the lure of an agricultural credential has strengthened as farming has transformed. Tanja conveys just how much contemporary farming 47

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practices differ from previous generations, seen by some older residents as really weird. Being a farmer requires a different skillset in the present day, with science and technology generating new forms of surveillance and accountability. Although rurality is often associated with a relative lack of ‘knowledge work’ (Corbett and Forsey, 2017), this is clearly not the case in contemporary rural communities like Oldfields, where residents have adapted to technology and an upsurge in corporately run farms. With some family farms being purchased by mining corporations and then leased back to locals, a higher education credential has increasingly become prerequisite to even gaining employment in farming. In order to support young people to gain work in the agricultural industry, the school and community have joined forces to establish a number of relevant initiatives. Through a programme known as Agribusiness Careers and Professions (AGCAP), young people in the town can complete an industry-​endorsed qualification while still enrolled at school, combining critical links to local employers and the capacity to learn skills on the job: ‘I’ve got an apprenticeship. [I’m a] farm hand in Castletown. … It’s through AGCAP, which is like sort of a fast track way to get your Certificate III in Agriculture.’ (Emil, Year 12 student) In Australia, a Certificate III in Agriculture encompasses topics relating to livestock, cropping, biosecurity, machinery operation and irrigation, among others. While usually undertaken on-​site at an institute of Technical and Further Education (TAFE), the nearest TAFE is situated approximately 50 minutes’ drive from Oldfields. The accessibility of AGCAP to school students in Oldfields is particularly important for young people like Emil, seeking a fast track to a credential and a career. Notwithstanding the convenience of AGCAP, it still requires a formal learning component at an agricultural college. Given the remoteness of Oldfields, parents have had to develop innovative ways to facilitate access for students: ‘Usually we get [our son] to Merryville or Correa [larger towns nearby] and usually there’s kids from [another school] as well. Usually they head down on a bus and we meet –​because David’s there and Emil as well –​and we sort of pop the boys on the bus with them. Dylan Grant who’s from Castletown oversees all that. So, he’s taken them down to [the agricultural college].’ (Tanja, parent) Tanja’s description of getting her son to college reveals how aspirations are negotiated within everyday life experiences (Stahl, 2018). What stands out here is the sheer effort required to fuel ‘traditional’ agricultural pathways 48

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within a credentialed, technologically driven market. Because the closest college specializing in agriculture is located approximately two hours away, the community’s approach is highly orchestrated and synchronized with a nearby community and it even has an overseer; a central figure in the community and former agriculture teacher who helps cultivate vocational and university pathways. In this regard, the residents of Oldfields can be seen as acting innovatively within the constraints of their structural position. They facilitate agricultural futures with a high degree of psychic and physical labour (Reay, 2017), taken up as a collective responsibility to ensure a positive outcome for their young people. An innovative disposition also emerged in relation to mining, the other main industry in the town. Given the realities of the local agricultural labour market and the growing importance of mining in the community, some young people now see more opportunity in the mines: ‘I’ll probably go on to do my apprenticeship for a couple of years, half a year or something like that, and then maybe go to the mines and do a boiler making apprenticeship, or something like that. We had a mine talk where mines came into the school and spoke to us about it and then I spoke to them a little bit and yeah, I was sort of set on going into farming, but I like the more machinery side of things and mines is a lot of machinery.’ (Emil, Year 12 student) A number of local mining corporations have formed relationships with Oldfields Central School, promoting mining directly to students as an attractive career option. Through this initiative, Emil has learned that his interest in machinery can be satisfied by a career in mining, rather than the farming career initially set on. There is clear alignment in Emil’s dual aspirations as both are connected to his rural biography, available and conceivable within his perceived framework of options. Arguably, then, despite climate change and depressions in the agricultural market, Emil actually displays a practical sense of how to grasp opportunities presented to him; that is, mining not only satisfies his personal interests, but is more readily available as a form of employment in Oldfields at this point in time.

Strategic compromise: opportunities within limits ‘Strategic compromise’ highlights a sense of possibilities within limits also entrenched within the Oldfields community. Here, aspirational strategies involve a recognition of what is possible within the community and making strategic and deliberate compromises based on perceived limitations. With agriculture and mining dominating local employment options in Oldfields, the residents we spoke to indicated that professional and 49

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business-​related roles are severely limited. The main options are confined to the local shire council, base hospital, school and a small number of businesses dotting the main street. As a consequence, there is little connection between further education and job availability in the town: ‘Because there’s so few professional roles within the town, depending on what they’re studying, there may not be the opportunity to return to the town.’ (Robert, teacher) ‘The problem then is when they come home, if they get a university degree, they really have to go somewhere else, because there are not the facilities here.’ (Peter, farmer) Robert and Peter highlight how difficult it can be for a young person from Oldfields to use a qualification in the town. The overwhelming absence of professional and business-​related roles, likely due to size and rurality, constructs a problematic relationship between a desire for tertiary education, on one hand, and the desire to come home, on the other. The tension between the rootedness of one’s identity (with home in this case being the community) and the very real possibility of having to move limits educational and career pathways perceived to be desirable and possible given that, within the collective habitus of Oldfields, the ‘norm’ is for people not to work in professional roles. As a result, young people in Oldfields must take a strategic approach if they want to go to university and return to work in the town, particularly if they do not wish to pursue a career in the dominant industries of agriculture or mining. This stance is evident as Heike, a Year 11 student, describes her decision to become a teacher: ‘I did my work experience at the local base hospital, and a lot of them told me if I wanted to move away, because I’d move to Newberry and go to university there, working in a bigger hospital I’d be able to do midwifery just as midwifery. But, if I want to come back here, I have to be a nurse as well; I’ll have to do nurs[ing] and midwifery because there’s not enough births here to just be a midwife. I wasn’t interested in being a nurse, I just wanted to do midwifery. … That helped me actually make the decision to be a primary teacher, because … I love babies and that’s something I’ve always wanted to do. But, then again, I didn’t want to be a nurse, so, it kind of weighed itself out.’ (Heike, Year 11 student) Here we see habitus manifest in the decisions that individuals make within their social context. While popular culture celebrates mobility over the idea of ‘the local’ (Webb et al, 2015), for rural youth like Heike, who wants a 50

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future in her community, a tactical and measured approach to career planning is required. The local economy has already shaped her thoughts, with staff at the nearby hospital exposing the realities of work in the local area: you can’t just be a midwife here. In her assessment, it’s only the bigger, better hospital in the nearest city that provides the possibility of solely focusing on midwifery. Having carefully considered the pros and cons, teaching materializes as a more appropriate choice that can be taken up locally –​a compromise that shifts her aspirations and fortifies her rural habitus. Other students who expressed interest in professional or business-​related roles in Oldfields also demonstrated the impact of the local economy on aspirational strategies: ‘I think I want to be either a vet nurse or a hairdresser. … [Because I like] animals for vet nursing, and I think hairdressing comes from horses as well, from like plaiting their tails and stuff like that, from since I was little. … But I probably want to be vet nurse more than a hairdresser, because there’s already two hairdressers around here.’ (Marie, Year 10 student) From Marie’s perspective, Oldfields is unlikely to need, or have enough clientele to warrant, another hairdresser (there are already two hairdressers around here) but potentially the town will need a vet nurse, prompting her to favour this pathway. In this way, she makes visible how the community provides a structure that guides students’ horizons of action. Her own survey of the local economy provides a clear rationale for two occupational futures, both related to her identity (from since I was little). Thus her focus appears to be on opportunities available in Oldfields, rather than limitations; that is, the likelihood of being able to achieve her aspirations drives her decision-​making –​ what Bourdieu (1977) refers to as ‘strategy imposed by necessity’. Ultimately, many of the young people we interviewed in Oldfields negotiated their post-​school futures by anchoring their aspirational strategies in this idea of the ‘local’. Students repeatedly mentioned ‘home’ as they discussed their post-​school futures, balancing a sense of belonging with the opportunities available in the town: ‘Yes, definitely [I want to work in Oldfields]. It’s just home. I get homesick pretty easily.’ (Anton, Year 8 student) ‘I don’t really want to leave Oldfields, I want to stay here and see how much the school changes and everything. … I’d probably get homesick [if I went to university]. Like when I’d be up there, I’d probably get homesick.’ (Thalia, Year 6 student) 51

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A deep attachment to Oldfields is evident in these excerpts from Anton and Thalia, palpable in the longing, or homesickness, they would feel if they were to relocate for work or study. The very thought of the future evokes an affective response to place (Cuervo and Wyn, 2017) and a sense of rootedness in Oldfields: it is their home and they belong there. There is almost an imaginary border between Oldfields and the outside world (Haartsen and Stockdale, 2018) and their thoughts about the future focus on the town. Anton hopes to become a police officer and is decisive in his view that this pathway will ultimately be pursued locally –​yes, definitely. Similarly, Thalia wants to become a disability support worker at the local school, eager to see how much the school changes, not missing out on what the future has in store for her community. The aspirational strategy of ‘strategic compromise’ can therefore also be read as an active rejection of what is outside of Oldfields, with the desire to stay home, or at the very least come home, paramount, and underpinned by an inextricable connection between place and identity (Cuervo and Wyn, 2017).

Conclusion In this chapter, we have documented everyday aspirational strategies in one rural Australian community, Oldfields. By layering the voices of young people, parents/​carers, teachers and community members, we have offered a spatialized picture of aspiration formation and negotiation –​a perspective that is too often neglected in the quest to achieve quantitative gains in university participation rates. Our analysis shows how aspirational strategies are rooted in specific life-​worlds that shape perceptions, feelings and ways of being –​the ‘lived experience’ of aspiration (Zipin et al, 2015). In the township of Oldfields, we identified how the motifs of strategy and innovation are key dispositional features at both the individual and collective level of habitus, providing a foundation for the knowledges and tactics bound up in the pursuit of post-​ school futures. We argue, then, that when framed by time and place –​with immense changes to the environment, technology and the employment market –​these aspirational strategies stand in stark contrast to the way rural Australians have long been positioned in relation to higher education, and particularly within the discourse of under-​representation. With the term ‘under-​representation’ arguably reflecting institutional and political interests, the push to increase university access has overshadowed the realities of rural communities like Oldfields, where viable futures are navigated outside of dominant policy narratives. While concern for under-​representation has worthy equity and social justice intent, there is an underlying pathologizing of social groups who have been marked by the term (Burke, 2012). Our analysis therefore challenges the discourse of 52

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‘under-​representation’ that too readily deems rural youth to be ‘Other’, positioning them as collectively disadvantaged and lacking in aspiration. Counter to the view that their potential as human capital depends on taking up the responsibility to be more aspirational, mobile and credentialed (Corbett and Forsey, 2017), our case study demonstrates a highly strategic and meaningful approach to post-​school futures which does not necessarily depend on university education. Our central argument, then, is that the aspirational strategies of rural youth are marginalized and misrecognized in the discourse of under-​representation. The policy goal of proportional representation not only positions certain aspirations as legitimate –​ thereby delegitimizing any other kind of aspiration –​but devalues the different knowledges and tactics embedded within these aspirations. For example, the desire to live in a rural community tends to be constructed as a simplistic ‘barrier’ to be overcome in increasing university enrolment (Alloway et al, 2004; Webb et al, 2015), disregarding the strategic compromises some young people make as they imagine, and attempt to navigate, a viable future in their local communities. In this way, the strategic manner in which some young people in rural communities tactically shift their aspirations depending on the local employment landscape goes unnoticed. The discourse of under-​representation also works to individualize aspiration, misrecognizing the immense effort that residents in rural communities like Oldfields exert. While habitus is a product of history (Bourdieu, 1977), it is constructed and reconstructed in response to the present, with the contemporary rural field of Oldfields framing strategies not only for success, but for survival (Mills, 2008). Simply focusing on the end-​goal of increased access to higher education overall disregards the popularity of agricultural study in towns like Oldfields. While at face value this pursuit may be emblematic of a rural habitus, we interpret this decision as a fundamentally innovative move; a viable solution to secure employment given the local job market. School–​community initiatives such as the AGCAP programme and the collective responsibility inherent in getting young people to the ‘local’ agricultural college also demonstrate that there is no ‘lack of motivation’ here. However, because these are different kinds of desirable futures, they are usually not seen as contributing to widening university participation. Our analysis of the everyday aspirational strategies of rural Australians calls into question the long-​standing discourse of under-​representation, neither assuming that rural students should desire higher education nor framing our analysis with an end-​goal of university access. Rather, we have sought to sketch out how imagined futures are constructed and navigated beyond the metropolis. Our analysis challenges the view that rural Australians are the ‘problem’ they have been made out to be in too much policy and research 53

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(Bradley et al, 2008). Rather, the problem is the way rural Australians –​and the dispositions embodied within their habitus –​have been marginalized, with no symbolic recognition of their aspirational strategies outside of the rural field. We argue, therefore, that parity of participation is too blunt a measure, focused more on institutional metrics than the emotional and material realities of rural life (Corbett and Forsey, 2017; Gibson et al, 2021). We have demonstrated that this common target for all equity groups misrecognizes the strategic and innovative capacities of rural youth, their families and communities. By devaluing the rural habitus and simply imploring young people to ‘choose’ higher education, current policy discourse risks causing more harm than good. Note 1

Parents and citizens association –​a school-​based organisation including parents, teachers and interested community members.

References Alloway, N. and Dalley-​Trim, L. (2009) ‘ “High and dry” in rural Australia: Obstacles to student aspirations and expectations’, Rural Society, 19(1): 49–​59. Alloway, N., Gilbert, P., Gilbert, R. and Muspratt, S. (2004) Factors Impacting on Student Aspirations and Expectations in Regional Australia. Available from: https://​www.voced.edu.au/​content/​ngv%3A37399 Archer, L., DeWitt, J., Osborne, J., Dillon, J., Willis, B. and Wong, B. (2012) ‘Science aspirations, capital, and family habitus: How families shape children’s engagement and identification with science’, American Educational Research Journal, 49(5): 881–​908. Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, translated by R. Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1993) Sociology in Question, translated by R. Nice. London: Sage. Bradley, D., Noonan, P., Nugent, H. and Scales, B. (2008) Review of Australian Higher Education: Final Report. Available from: https://w ​ ww.voced.edu.au/​ content/​ngv%3A32134 Burke, P.J. (2012) The Right to Higher Education: Beyond Widening Participation. Abingdon: Routledge. Burnheim, C. and Harvey, A. (2016) ‘Far from the studying crowd? Regional and remote students in higher education’, in A. Harvey, C. Burnheim and M. Brett (eds) Student Equity in Australian Higher Education: Twenty-​five Years of a Fair Chance for All. Singapore: Springer, pp 143–​162. Connolly, P. and Healy, J. (2004) ‘Symbolic violence, locality and social class: The educational and career aspirations of 10–​11 year old boys in Belfast’, Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 12(1): 15–​34.

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Corbett, M. and Forsey, M. (2017) ‘Rural youth out-​migration and education: Challenges to aspirations discourse in mobile modernity’, Discourse, 38(3): 429–​444. Cuervo, H. and Wyn, J. (2017) ‘A longitudinal analysis of belonging: Temporal, performative and relational practices by young people in rural Australia’, Young, 25(3): 219–​234. Department of Employment, Education and Training (1990) A Fair Chance for All: National and Institutional Planning for Equity in Higher Education: A Discussion Paper. Available from: http://​www.voced.edu.au/​ content/​ngv%3A2270 Fray, L., Gore, J.M., Harris, J. and North, B. (2019) ‘Key influences on aspirations for higher education of Australian school students in regional and remote locations: A scoping review of empirical research, 1991–​2016’, Australian Educational Researcher, 47(1): 61–​93. Funnell, R. (2008) ‘Tracing variations within “rural habitus”: An explanation of why young men stay or leave isolated rural towns in southwest Queensland’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(1): 15–​24. Gibson, S., Patfield, S., Gore, J.M. and Fray, L. (2021) ‘Aspiring to higher education in regional and remote Australia: The diverse emotional and material realities shaping young people’s futures’, Australian Educational Researcher. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s13384-​021-​00463-​7 Haartsen, T. and Stockdale, A. (2018) ‘S/​elective belonging: How rural newcomer families with children become stayers’, Population, Space and Place, 24(4): 2137–​2147. Halsey, J. (2017) Independent Review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education. Available from: https:// ​ w ww.education.gov.au/​ independent-​review-​regional-​rural-​and-​remote-​education Jenkins, R. (2002) Pierre Bourdieu. London: Routledge. Kenway, J. and Hickey-​Moody, A. (2011) ‘Life chances, lifestyle and everyday aspirational strategies and tactics’, Critical Studies in Education, 52(2): 151–​163. Lingard, B., Sellar, S. and Baroutsis, A. (2015) ‘Researching the habitus of global policy actors in education’, Cambridge Journal of Education, 45(1): 25–​42. Mills, C. (2008) ‘Reproduction and transformation of inequalities in schooling: The transformative potential of the theoretical constructs of Bourdieu’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(1): 79–​89. Reay, D. (2004) ‘ “It’s all becoming a habitus”: Beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(4): 431–​444. Reay, D. (2017) Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes. Bristol: Policy Press.

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Sellar, S. and Gale, T. (2011) ‘Mobility, aspiration, voice: A new structure of feeling for student equity in higher education’, Critical Studies in Education, 52(2): 115–​134. Southgate, E. and Bennett, A. (2016) ‘University choosers and refusers: Social theory, ideas of “choice” and implications for widening participation’, in M. Shah, A. Bennett and E. Southgate (eds) Widening Higher Education Participation: A Global Perspective. Waltham, MA: Elsevier, pp 225–​240. Stahl, G. (2018) ‘Putting habitus to work: Habitus clivé, negotiated aspirations and a counter-​habitus?’ in G. Stahl, D. Wallace, C. Burke and S. Threadgold (eds) International Perspectives on Theorizing Aspirations: Applying Bourdieu’s Tools. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp 68–​80. Swartz, D. (1997) Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Webb, S., Black, R., Morton, R., Plowright, S. and Roy, R. (2015) Geographical and Place Dimensions of Post-​school Participation in Education and Work. Available from: https://w ​ ww.ncver.edu.au/_​ _​ d​ ata/a​ ssets/fi ​ le/0​ 026/​ 9908/​geographical-​and-​place-​dimensions-​2776.pdf Whitty, G. and Clement, N. (2015) ‘Getting into uni in England and Australia: Who you know, what you know or knowing the ropes?’ International Studies in Widening Participation, 2(2): 44–​55. Zipin, L., Sellar, S., Brennan, M. and Gale, T. (2015) ‘Educating for futures in marginalized regions: A sociological framework for rethinking and researching aspirations’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(3): 227–​246.

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Becoming a Young Organic Farmer in the Indian Punjab Trent Brown

Introduction A 2019 article in The Independent reported on a group of young farmers in Ghana who call themselves the ‘agripreneurs’. Most of these youth had high levels of education but limited prior experience in agriculture. They sought to mobilize what they had gained through education –​knowledge and business acumen –​in scientific, high-​tech agricultural ventures with profitable business models. These youth emphasized the need to attract other young people to agriculture, given the country’s dependence on imported food, its ageing farmers and problems of youth unemployment –​and they believed their model of farming could show others the way. ‘We have to show people farming is bling!’ one of the ‘agripreneurs’ told the reporter (Nir, 2019). The views of the ‘agripreneurs’ reflect an emerging discourse on youth in agriculture in the global south, articulated by governments, business, the media, transnational institutions and civil society. Over the last decade, a suite of government schemes in countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean have sought to enlist youth as active participants in the agricultural sector. Often mobilizing positive images of the personal and economic benefits of agricultural entrepreneurship, such programmes encourage youth to become leaders in agricultural innovation and sustainability and seek to stem social problems such as the ageing of farmers, rural youth unemployment and unsustainable rates of rural–​urban migration (see Rigg et al, 2020). International donors such as USAID (2019) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development have sought to sponsor projects to harness young people’s supposed disposition towards entrepreneurship and high-​tech farming by removing obstacles to accessing land, technology and credit. Multinational agribusiness has also been involved 57

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in constructing this ‘youth in agriculture’ discourse: Bayer’s biennial ‘Youth Ag Summit’, held in locations across the world, showcases youth working on global agricultural challenges. Yet, these programmes face a problem –​ often framed in terms of ‘aspiration’. In short, young people do not want to become farmers. An emerging body of research suggests that youth are leaving agriculture due to the low social status and poor economic returns that accrue to farming (Tadele and Gella, 2010) and a sense of disempowerment resulting from their lack of control over the means of agricultural production (White, 2012). The emerging ‘youth in agriculture’ discourse described in the previous paragraph assumes this situation might be reversed if rural youth would only shift their aspirations and think of agriculture as an innovative, dynamic and potentially lucrative profession. If farming could become ‘bling’, youth might return. In this chapter, I argue that such efforts to reshape youth aspirations in favour of agriculture rest on individualist conceptions of agency that are not suitable in the global south (if anywhere). The ‘youth in agriculture’ discourse and programmes resemble, in many respects, neoliberal ‘youth entrepreneurship education’ initiatives which have neglected the social determinants of poverty, marginalization and empowerment (DeJaeghere and Baxter, 2014). Understanding rural youth aspirations and trajectories requires greater sensitivity to the materialities of place –​including access to local and distant job markets, structural inequalities, ecological conditions and family structures –​and the regionally specific cultural esteem invested in different forms of labour. Through a focus on young people enrolled in organic farming training programmes in the state of Punjab in north India, I show how youth who choose to become farmers and develop agricultural skills do so not only because their individual aspirations align with agriculture. Their involvement is also strongly shaped by the place-​specific social relations in which they are embedded, including their relations to communities, peer groups and families. Within these social systems, perceptions of what is appropriate for a person of one’s social position –​including their class, caste, gender or position within the family –​impinge upon rural youths’ decisions in ways that are often outside of their control. The material situation of families –​including their long-​term mobility trajectories –​are especially important in shaping these youths’ involvement in agricultural education and entrepreneurship. This poses a stark contrast to the aspirational and individualist construction of rural youth entrepreneurship that informs much global discourse.

Young people’s agricultural aspirations in the global south Across the world, farmers are ageing. While this is a long-​term trajectory in the global north, recent decades have seen sharp increases in the average 58

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age of farmers in the global south, raising concerns about agricultural productivity and the future of farming (Rigg et al, 2020). In India, even among farming families, most rural youth are not engaged in agricultural activities, particularly youth with relative economic privilege and higher caste status (Vijayabaskar et al, 2018). This exodus of youth from agriculture can partly be explained by rural youth’s desire or need to engage in rural–​urban migration. Farrugia (2016) describes how rural youth –​in both the global north and south –​are subject to a ‘mobility imperative’, which encourages or compels rural-​to-​urban migration. The social drivers of this imperative include the material inequalities between rural and urban areas and prevailing representations of urban culture as aspirational and rural culture as ‘backward’. In the global south, research suggests urban migration, particularly to large metropolitan cities, features strongly in rural and regional youth aspirations (Srivastava, 1996; Brown et al, 2017). Such aspirations are grounded in hopes for more remunerative livelihoods in urban areas, preferences for urban lifestyles, desires for the autonomy granted by escaping parental supervision, and for greater exposure to the outside world (Brown et al, 2017). If leaving rural areas is an imperative for many rural youth, leaving agriculture is even more so. Studies over the last decade have found youth in the global south reluctant to see agriculture as part of their long-​term futures, given its associations with economic hardship, poor social status and being bound to the village and hence sheltered from the outside world (Tadele and Gella, 2010). Moreover, a lack of succession planning means that young people do not see immediate pathways to their having executive control over land (White, 2012). Concerns about the exodus of youth from agriculture have led to a flurry of recent research seeking to understand the situations and outlooks of those youth who do remain in agriculture in the global south –​and those who choose to shift to agriculture from other sectors. Some studies suggest that such youth intend to be involved in agriculture for only short periods of time –​as a way of saving money to invest in other businesses or funding future periods of education or job-​seeking (Okali and Sumberg, 2012; Mwaura, 2017b). Yet, other studies suggest that under certain conditions, agriculture can have more aspirational status. Mwaura’s (2017a) study of educated young farmers in Kenya found that agriculture could be seen as a desirable career choice when framed as an ‘entrepreneurial’ venture or when use of science and technology in farming could enable educated youth to signal their ‘elite’ status relative to other farmers. Other studies suggest that youth are primarily interested in agriculture when it is imagined as large-​scale, capital-​intensive and diversified (Anyidoho et al, 2012). Such findings have been taken as evidence that in order to attract more youth to agriculture, states should provide more resources to youth to start capital-​and knowledge-​intensive agricultural ventures (Salvago et al, 2019). 59

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A limitation in much of this research is the assumption that young people’s decisions to become farmers or involve themselves in agriculture are direct reflections of their individual aspirations or more-​or-​less rational, strategic responses to economic circumstances. This chapter shows that although these individualized and economistic factors do feature in some ways in rural youths’ decision-​making, this is not the complete picture. Across many regions in the global south, individualist conceptions of agency cannot be taken for granted. In India, for example, individual decision-​making is strongly informed by (gender-​, class-​and caste-​specific) social duties and obligations and the agency of individual youth is often circumscribed by the authority of elders within the family (Uberoi, 1993). These social influences may prove at least as decisive in whether youth choose to become farmers as their personal views on the desirability of farming or whether agriculture aligns with their individual aspirations. Whatever aspirations youth may have, their decisions hinge on a broader suite of contingent factors that are largely beyond their control. Seen from this perspective, what remains of ‘aspiration’ is a more socially mediated and institutionally embedded phenomenon, informed by local perceptions of possible and desirable futures for a person occupying one’s social position (Bennike et al, 2020). While recent research examining youth who leave rural areas has encouraged shifting the focus from ‘individual aspirations’ to more structural and contextual factors (for example Corbett and Forsey, 2017), this chapter argues for a similar shift in perspective in understanding youth who remain.

Background to the study: regional context and research methods This chapter is informed by a study of two agricultural training programmes that took place in the largely rural state of Punjab, in north India. Punjab was once the model of ‘Green Revolution’ agriculture, which saw use of chemical inputs and high-​yielding variety crops generate high levels of rural prosperity (Randhawa, 1974). Yet, from the late 1970s onwards, yield increases from the Green Revolution levelled out, agriculture became less profitable and farmer indebtedness rose (Sidhu, 2002; Singh, 2009). At the same time, the excessive use of chemical inputs associated with the Green Revolution appears to have led to increases in cancer and other diseases leading to widespread public concern regarding an ecological and public health crisis (Brown, 2013). In this context, it is perhaps not surprising that youth in Punjab rarely see futures for themselves in agriculture. Although the region experiences seasonal labour shortages, young people face social stigma if working on another family’s farm and, given a lack of growth in job opportunities in the non-​farm sector, youth unemployment is a chronic problem (Chand, 60

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1999). Moral panics have emerged concerning youth drug use in the state, often attributed to the lack of attractive livelihood prospects (Verma, 2017). As is the case across much of north India, young people are turning away from agriculture and pinning their hopes on urban employment, but the scarcity of urban jobs leads many youths to lives characterized by chronic waiting (Jeffrey, 2010). The training programmes explored in this chapter aimed to address both youth unemployment and the broader social, economic and ecological challenges facing Punjab agriculture. They focused on developing skills in organic farming and targeted young people. The first was an initiative of a government department –​a one-​month training programme administered by an agricultural training provider. The programme was initially open only to young people under the age of 35 but due to difficulties recruiting trainees, two people in their 40s were also allowed to enrol. Twelve of the 20 trainees enrolled in the programme were interviewed for this study. The second programme was a two-​year Bachelor of Vocations programme in organic farming, conducted at a college in a small town.1 It combined agriculture-​relevant science courses (such as botany and zoology) with more practice-​oriented courses related to organic agriculture. Five of those enrolled in this programme were interviewed for this study. Interviews were semi-​structured and explored the nature of participants’ livelihoods, how and why they enrolled in the training programme, their evaluation of the programme, their views on the agricultural sector in Punjab, and the attitudes of family and peers towards their involvement in agriculture. Participants also completed a survey, which identified basic demographic details (caste, size of landholdings, parents’ occupation, etc.). Six of the 17 participants were also visited at their homes and farms, which provided an opportunity to meet their families, develop a deeper understanding of their social background, and observe how they were applying the skills they had developed. Survey data was analysed to produce descriptive statistics of trainee characteristics. Qualitative data pertaining to (1) the background of trainees, including family structure, employment history, livelihoods and socioeconomic status; (2) their stated reasons for enrolling; and (3) their plans after completing the course were drawn upon to develop a profile of each of the trainees in terms of the factors that led them to develop their skills in agriculture, and organic agriculture in particular. The data material was coded with reference to these factors. As there was rarely a single causal factor that could explain why an individual chose to develop their agricultural skills, multiple factors were identified for each participant. Common themes were identified between codes and some were combined into larger categories. Differences between trainees –​in terms of gender, class, family background, previous work and education experience –​were considered in making sense of their pathways to developing their farming skills. 61

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Of the 17 trainees who participated in the study, the average age was 28.7 years. Ages ranged from 19 to 44 years. Only one of the participants interviewed was female; the rest were male. The female participant was enrolled in the modular training programme, within which there were three other female trainees enrolled. There were no women enrolled in the Bachelor of Vocations course. The withdrawal of women from publicly visible agricultural labour is a marker of status across north India and, even in families in which women do undertake tasks such as kitchen gardening and animal husbandry, men are recognized as owners of land and play most executive roles. This, along with rural Punjabi women’s limited involvement in public life and the demands of household labour, may explain the low female enrolment. The majority of trainees were from relatively privileged backgrounds. The average landholdings of participants, at 17.9 acres, was well above the Punjab average of 8.9 acres. Acreage ranged from 1 to 50 acres. No participants were landless. Fourteen of the 17 participants belonged to the General (high) caste category; one belonged to the ‘Other Backward Castes’ (middle caste) category; one listed their caste as ‘other’; and one opted not to list their caste. It is unclear whether there were any trainees enrolled in the courses who belonged to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes category (castes thought to experience the most significant forms of social and economic deprivation), but the fact that none participated in the study suggests they were under-​represented. This may reflect recruitment biases on the part of training organizations, or that members of these castes are less likely to have land or time to participate in training.

Situating the decision to farm in social context Contrary to the subject-​driven, active, passionate locus of decision-​making implied by the term ‘aspiration’, participants mostly spoke of their choices to become involved in farming and develop agricultural skills in more flatly descriptive terms. They would detail how their choice was informed by a series of life circumstances, rather than forming part of a long-​term personal aspiration or goal. While there were five trainees who referred to a passion or interest in agriculture, they described these proclivities alongside other factors that influenced their decisions. Moreover, two of these participants noted that their interest in agriculture was contingent upon having large amounts of land: one noted that for anyone with less than ten acres, farming was not enjoyable, but a constant struggle. Prospects for non-​agricultural jobs strongly influenced decisions to develop agricultural skills, but the way it informed decisions varied according to class position. Youth from relatively wealthy families had an interest in agriculture as self-​employment. This was rarely framed as a positive aspiration, but rather through contrast to their distaste for working under someone else. 62

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“I had this thing in my mind”, said one man who had spent years working for a private marketing firm. “I don’t want to be doing [a]‌job working for somebody else all my life. I want to start something of my own.” Participants’ distaste for having a boss was congruent with local, class-​and caste-​specific perceptions of respectability. For members of the middle-​to-​upper Punjabi peasantry, conforming to the authority of a boss (except in the context of government employment) is regarded as somewhat degrading –​a sign one lacks better options. This distaste for wage labour, however, was not universal. Five trainees, all from families possessing more modest landholdings, participated in training hoping that it may open opportunities for white-​collar, urban employment. This was particularly the case for youth enrolled in the Bachelor of Vocations programme, for whom training appeared to be a form of hedging. On the one hand, they believed that learning about organic farming might open opportunities for remunerative jobs in organic certification agencies, organic procurement or processing plants, sustainable farming non-​governmental organizations (NGOs) or agricultural extension services. On the other hand, if they were unable to find such employment after completing their degree, at least they would have gained knowledge and skills they could apply on their home farms. Because of this dual utility, they believed a degree with a strong focus on agricultural skills was better than an academic degree such as a Bachelor of Arts, which was equally unlikely to improve job prospects, but also lacked practical value at home. These youths were aware of the lack of opportunities for urban employment and chose to develop skills that would keep open their options for both rural and urban futures (see also Huijsmans et al, 2021). This strategic hedging was at least partially made possible by the social and discursive context in which youth formulated their decisions. While previous studies on youth in rural and regional north India have observed young people overaccumulating educational qualifications and engaging in perpetual waiting for salaried positions (Jeffrey, 2010), the participants exhibited more critical awareness of the realities of weak job prospects and the need to be strategic. Moreover, where studies elsewhere in India have suggested that youth face pressure from parents to strive for salaried employment even when their chances are slim (Brown et al, 2017), the participants indicated their parents were supportive of their choices to pursue agricultural education rather than more academically prestigious qualifications because “they know the situation”. News outlets across India regularly report on unemployment among India’s educated youth, shaping perceptions of possible futures. This seems to have become reflexively encoded in the decision-​making of young people and their families: salaried, white-​collar employment might remain aspirational, but aspirations are adjusted based on approximations of realistic, available options.2 63

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‘Adjusted aspirations’ were also evident in three trainees for whom developing agricultural skills was part of long-​term strategies for migration. Take for example Gurpreet and Harmanjot.3 Friends since childhood, these men had completed tertiary studies but found few employment opportunities in their fields of expertise. Although there may have been jobs available in India’s larger cities, they did not believe the remuneration would outweigh the expenses incurred living outside of home. They had, therefore, opted to remain, at least temporarily, in their home villages managing their families’ farms, both of which were large by Punjab standards. They continued to aspire to upward mobility, however, and both men had applied for foreign work visas. Both had friends and relatives living abroad; among their siblings, they were the only ones remaining in India. Previous research suggests that peers moving abroad can exert pressure on youth to do likewise, as migration becomes a marker of status (Qureshi et al, 2013). This was certainly true for these two men, both of whom spoke with admiration and longing for what relatives and friends were doing internationally. Believing there would be too much competition in their fields of study, they opted to apply for visas as agricultural labourers. In the initial visa application process, they encountered resistance from migration authorities, who did not believe that two well-​spoken, highly educated young men without dirt under their fingernails could be skilled agriculturalists. Undertaking certified agricultural training, they hoped, would give them some prospects of convincing migration authorities that they could be effective farm workers in Canada, the United States or Australia. If one could speak of agriculture as aligning with Gurpreet and Harmanjot’s ‘aspirations’, these were aspirations strongly informed by peer-​g roup dynamics and adjusted after lived experience with constrained job and migration markets. Individual aspirations were also powerfully shaped by family dynamics. For some trainees, developing agricultural skills was part of efforts to negotiate greater recognition and authority within their own families. As young people who had often spent years off the family farm pursuing higher education, participants often faced challenges convincing their families that they could play executive roles on the family farm. They hoped training would help with persuasion. Take, for example, 26-​year-​old Narwinder. Narwinder’s family were the largest landholders in the village, with some 50 acres. They were also a mobile family –​many of Narwinder’s cousins had been successful in their studies and almost all were now living abroad. By comparison, Narwinder had been less successful in his studies, but had managed to accumulate savings while working for several years in Dubai. However, with his cousins living abroad, his ageing uncles, who until then had managed the family farm, suggested he should come back to the village to work with them. With little prior agricultural experience, Narwinder enrolled in the Bachelor of Vocations programme in organic farming to 64

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bolster his skills. When we visited Narwinder’s household, it seemed that his uncles still held most decision-​making power regarding agriculture. Although in the longer term Narwinder wished to migrate abroad, it was important to him to also prove to his elders that he would be capable of taking over the family farm. Gaining knowledge related to agriculture was part of this process of persuasion. It was a delicate balancing act, however, since if the knowledge he gained were too ‘vocational’ it may further undermine his status in the family. He had falsely told his family he was enrolled in a Bachelor of Science programme, majoring in agriculture, rather than a Bachelor of Vocations. He needed to simultaneously demonstrate to them his active involvement in education and that he was gaining knowledge that would be useful in the fields. The need to persuade family was even more pronounced when other structural forces were stacked against trainees. Twenty-​seven-​year-​old Navleen, one of the few young women enrolled in either of the training programmes, had a personal interest in agriculture that extended back to her childhood. Yet, patriarchal attitudes within her extended family repeatedly prevented her from gaining recognition as a farmer. While her parents were supportive, her cousins and uncles discouraged her both from participating in agriculture –​seen to be improper for a woman of her social status –​and specifically organic farming, which they were convinced was unprofitable. Despite this discouragement, Navleen went to great efforts to develop her skills and reputation as a farmer. She attended not only the organic farming course, but multiple courses on farming, often travelling great distances to connect with learned faculty, rather than relying on local agricultural extension officers. She had also developed her own personalized brand, which she used on packaged foods which she sold directly to consumers, claiming her identity as an educated female farmer in a context in which women’s involvement in agriculture is seen as a sign of low status. She also sought to join local farmers’ clubs and attain positions of status within them. Attending training and these other achievements helped to develop Navleen’s skills as a farmer, but also helped to prove a point to her extended family: that she had a legitimate place in the family and community as a farmer –​and an innovative farmer, at that. Young people’s agricultural proclivities were also shaped by broader developments at the regional level and discourses circulating about the condition of their state. It was very common for participants to list a desire to do something positive for Punjab among their reasons for developing skills in organic farming. These desires were informed by broader narratives of social decline in the state. Punjab has long been described in terms of ‘crisis’ (Jodhka, 2006) and a major component of this is a health crisis. There is regular media coverage in Punjab about the prevalence of various diseases and local NGOs and social movements have emphasized possible 65

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links between this and the excessive use of agricultural chemicals (Brown, 2013). Eleven trainees expressed concerns about the condition of their state, having been regularly presented with evidence of Punjab’s deteriorating ecology and public health. Although in some cases, the concern was self-​ interested –​a desire to shelter themselves and their family from a toxic environment –​participants mostly expressed desires to be part of an effort to fundamentally change Punjab agriculture. Some spoke of wanting to not only master organic farming themselves, but to persuade others to do likewise. They believed having a certificate of training would enable them to do so with authority. One trainee expressed specific plans to work with a local organization to help organize organic farming training camps. While a desire to be of service could be described as an individual ‘aspiration’, the form that service takes is shaped by regionally circulating discourses –​both on the nature of society’s most pressing problems and suitable modalities of public action. This overview of the individual motivations of these young farmers shows that their interest in agriculture could not be attributed to a shift in perceptions about agriculture –​as a profitable, exciting enterprise –​as many ‘young farmer’ programmes around the world assume. Only peripherally could they be explained in terms of deep personal interest in agriculture. More often, they were the product of dynamics within families, peer groups or communities, or of regionally circulating discourses about available opportunities or pressing regional needs. Moreover, they could not be disentangled from social expectations of appropriate behaviour and livelihood for persons of their age, gender and class position. Insofar as one could speak of ‘individual aspirations’ as a factor in the decision to become a young farmer, these aspirations were socially inflected in multiple ways.

Aspirations of the family While youths’ individual intentions, interests, goals and plans had in some ways guided their decisions to become involved in farming and develop agricultural skills, seen from another perspective their individual dispositions were, at best, a secondary factor. There is a need to question the naturalized assumption that the individual young person is the most appropriate scale of analysis in considering the ‘young farmer problem’. For many of the youths interviewed it was apparent that although they had personal narratives to explain their interest in farming, deeper inquiry into their situation revealed that a key reason they were involved in farming was because their families wanted or needed them to be. In India –​as across much of the global south –​farming is generally a family enterprise. For upwardly mobile sections of the middle peasantry, farming is part of intergenerational projects of accumulation –​of families, castes and 66

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communities. Farming can relate to families’ efforts to gain social, cultural and political influence.4 When the family becomes the unit of analysis, the individual young person’s interests appear to be subsumed within the duties and compulsions the family enforces. Of course, the individual is not passive in this process –​their service to the objectives of their family or community are animated by both self-​interest and emotional bonds –​of duty, solidarity, care, belonging, love –​which are sources of deep personal meaning. There can be religious significance to these attachments, as expressed by one trainee who invoked a trope of Sikhism, ‘the land is our mother’, to emphasize his duty to maintain intergenerational connections to the land. It is noteworthy, however, that when trainees spoke of their familial obligations, these bonds were rarely discussed. The fact that their involvement in agriculture was inseparable from their families’ agricultural enterprise was taken as a ‘given’. Most trainees’ involvement in agriculture appeared to support their families in maintaining their economic, social and political standing within the village. The young people enrolled in these training programmes were mostly from relatively privileged families with above-​average landholdings. Though their individual situations were diverse, their families could mostly be described as ‘upwardly mobile’, with diversified rural livelihoods and sources of non-​agricultural income, including foreign remittances. These families are part of the upper peasantry who have occupied positions of political leadership in north India since the 1970s (Byres, 1981). Yet, when discussing the situation of trainees’ families, it became clear that although they have all enjoyed relative privilege within their villages historically, the nature of this privilege is changing. For various reasons –​mostly attributable to upward mobility –​other members of their families had withdrawn from farm work, having found white-​c ollar employment or more lucrative investments in other sectors. Their families’ direct involvement in agricultural production had thereby diminished –​and this had implications for their control over land and authority within the village. To varying extents, the involvement of these youth in their family’s farm was integral to the family maintaining direct involvement in agricultural production. Had they withdrawn, their ageing parents would have eventually been forced to lease out or sell their land. In some cases, young people had been enlisted by elders in their family to introduce commercial dynamism. For example, 27-​year-​old Pritpal was jointly managing his 40-​acre farm with his father. Although he had undergraduate qualifications in engineering, Pritpal felt a strong obligation to maintain some involvement on the farm, as his other siblings already had jobs in other sectors. He articulated a strong sense of family identification with farming when describing his reasons for becoming involved. “Agriculture is an ancestral thing that we are practising, [for] generations”, he explained, “there is no gap”. Although his father had 67

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seen substantial profits from chemically intensive agriculture and was unconvinced that organic could match chemical farming in terms of yields, he saw value in venturing into the organic market, which was growing as consumers became more concerned about the health impacts of chemical farming. He thus encouraged Pritpal to learn about how they might cultivate a portion of their land using organic techniques and sell to markets in Punjab’s larger cities where, Pritpal explained, middle-​class consumers “are willing to pay double or even triple” for organic produce. Having recently completed his studies in one of these cities, Pritpal had connections to urban consumers, and as a young man could act as the ‘fresh face’ of his family’s new organic venture. There were also instances where young people planned to draw on their knowledge of organic farming in ways that would consolidate their families’ social and political capital. Given widespread narratives of ecological and social crises resulting from chemical agriculture, adopting organic farming practices could enable families to assume positions of moral leadership. Jastej was a 28-​year-​old farmer whose family owned 15 acres of land and a relatively large and lucrative dairy. Drawing on his postgraduate qualifications in agricultural science, Jastej had obtained a part-​time job at the state Agriculture Department promoting organic farming, even though he and his family were only practising organic farming on a small scale. Having gained this position, he enrolled in the course so that he could speak with authority about a variety of organic techniques. Jastej saw opportunities to produce organic inputs from the large volume of dung and urine coming from his family’s dairy, and use this to establish the family as ‘model’ organic farmers. Research has shown how ‘model farmers’ of this kind are able to establish themselves as people of influence –​as trusted local advisors and brokers for state resources (Taylor and Bhasme, 2018). Jastej and his family could thereby position themselves as local innovators with deep concerns for the health of their community. Gaining this reputation could enhance their social and political capital. Using organic farming to consolidate political authority was not a merely hypothetical prospect. This was apparent for the eldest of the trainees, 44-​ year-​old Prabhjinder. Prabhjinder was serving as sarpanch (elected head) of his village. Despite previously working as an agri-​chemical retailer, he expressed concerns about the chemical contamination of the environment and subsequent effects on soils and human health and wanted to assist residents in his village to adopt organic practices. He was mindful that those in the training programme –​including himself –​were either large landholders or had other sources of non-​agricultural income which made a transition to organic farming relatively easy. Yet, as sarpanch, he believed it was his responsibility to bring the benefits of organic farming to the majority of farmers in his village, who possessed only modest landholdings. 68

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To make organic farming more attractive to smallholders, he planned to work on overcoming some of its risks and the costs associated with organic certification. Prabhjinder’s own involvement in agriculture was largely managerial –​most of his time was spent on his other businesses, in brick kilns and construction. Yet, he planned to convert half of his 14 acres to organic. This gave him reason to regularly visit his fields to instruct his workers on organic techniques, increasing his visibility in the village and positioning his farm as an ‘organic model’ at a time when elections for village council were approaching. These acts of ‘service’ positioned Prabhjinder as someone concerned with major issues affecting his village and helped to legitimize his political position. Younger trainees expressed similar plans to become politically active by promoting organic farming –​indeed, their expressed concerns for environmental deterioration were often inalienable from such plans. Prabhjinder’s case illustrates how such plans may mature across the life course. This is not to suggest that trainees’ environmental concerns were not genuine but rather that the articulation of these concerns in public fora and positioning themselves as having ‘solutions’ also served to reproduce the political salience of their families. The involvement of youth in agriculture could also serve families in political struggles at smaller scales. The story of Navleen, the female trainee mentioned earlier, is incomplete without adding that her father was the youngest of five sons of one of the most economically and politically influential men in their district. Upon the death of Navleen’s grandfather, his 200 acres of land was subdivided unevenly between the brothers, giving rise to rivalries and resentments. Navleen’s uncles had prospered to a greater extent than her father, and keeping at least some family members actively involved in farming seemed to be part of a politics of presence on her father’s part, asserting his right to the land he had received. Navleen’s growing prominence as an organic farmer added to their legitimacy as farmers within the wider family. In other cases, young people’s involvement in organic farming related to micro-​struggles with labour. Some participants complained that their families did not enjoy the same command over labour that they had in the past –​that labourers had become too assertive about wages and working conditions. When youth instructed their labourers on new techniques in organic farming, this may have been a means of asserting authority. Family imperatives for youth to become involved in farming were not always about politics and power, however. There were some cases when they were more self-​evidently expressions of care. A small number of trainees, for example, spoke of how family members had become ill with cancer, which they attributed to excess chemical use on the family farm. Learning new skills in organic farming was, in these cases, motivated by a sense of obligation to improve the family’s health and wellbeing. 69

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Conclusion Governments in the global south have shown concern for the exodus of youth from farming. Yet, policy interventions that seek to shift young people’s perspectives to make agriculture more ‘aspirational’ risk individualizing the problem while neglecting to address the structural factors that condition aspirations and life choices (Corbett and Forsey, 2017; Bennike et al, 2020). Attention to the attitudes of young people who choose to remain in agriculture and develop agricultural skills shows that whether farming is seen as a desirable source of livelihood is only a minor factor in their decision-​ making. While some of the young people interviewed in this study showed an intrinsic interest in agriculture, in other ways, their choices to become farmers were guided by other considerations and strongly influenced by their social environment. As others have suggested (for example Mwaura, 2017b), agriculture was often taken up by these youth as a fall-​back option –​perhaps imagined as a temporary engagement –​when other pathways to upward mobility were blocked. Despite the potential for this to result in negative self-​perception (where involvement in agriculture is positioned as a sign of having ‘failed’ in other pursuits) youth in various ways signified that their agricultural activities had value. Expressing how practising organic farming enables one to improve the social and environmental condition of their state was an important source of personal meaning. Where dominant approaches to motivate youth to become farmers have focused on the potential for entrepreneurship and individual advancement through farming, these findings suggest it may be equally productive to focus on how agriculture enables youth to play meaningful roles in their communities and demonstrate status to family and peers. Individual aspirations also differed as a function of social position. The kinds of futures young people could imagine in agriculture varied according to their class, caste, gender and position within the family, as did the ways in which they made meaning of their decisions to develop their agricultural skills. Relatively privileged youth saw agriculture as a way of retaining respectability by avoiding wage labour or developing their reputation as farmers within their families so they might eventually take over the family farm. Youth whose families had smaller landholdings saw agricultural training in more instrumental terms, being useful on the family farm but also potentially opening opportunities for urban employment. Youth in more marginal positions had to struggle just to be recognized as legitimate players in the agricultural sector. In many instances, however, youths’ individual interests were only a secondary factor when seen against the backdrop of their family situation. In short, a major reason why youth ‘chose’ to be involved 70

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in agriculture was because their families wanted or needed them to be. This may have been to support an emerging economic venture the family was undertaking or to shore up social and political capital. The ways in which strong family ties shape young people’s decision-​making in the global south have been largely overlooked in recent research on youth in agriculture. While this study has shown how families shape the decisions of relatively privileged rural youth, this is no doubt also true of youth from less privileged families who may have lacked the resources or social connections to participate in agricultural training. In the quest to understand agriculture’s ‘generation problem’ it may be more appropriate to analyse the dynamics of farming families with young members, rather than attempting to understand the aspirations of individual young farmers in isolation. Acknowledgements The research presented in this chapter was sponsored by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (ARC DECRA) project titled ‘Agricultural Skill Development in India: Assessing Acquisition and Impact’ (Project ID: DE180100901). I am grateful to Syed Shoaib Ali and Gagandeep Brar for assistance during data collection. I would also like to thank Febe De Geest, Wolfram Dressler, Jane Dyson, Craig Jeffrey, Anna Pradhan and Nilanjana Sen for helpful suggestions on earlier drafts and presentations. Notes 1

2

3

4

Colleges in India are the primary institutions through which undergraduate degrees are imparted. The teaching of vocational degrees at colleges is a new development –​part of the Skill India initiative of the central government. Yet, the normativity of white-​collar employment and associations of agricultural work with low status remained evident in other respects, including participants’ efforts to manage the perceptions of peers. Some indicated friends would ridicule them for having pursued agricultural jobs and were embarrassed to let them know they were enrolled in these courses. One trainee indicated that he would tell his friends he is studying for a ‘degree’ but not that it was a vocational degree related to agriculture. All names used to describe research participants in this chapter are pseudonyms. Minor biographical details may have been changed to protect their anonymity. At least since the 1970s, rural politicians have projected themselves as rustic ‘sons-​of-​the-​ soil’, actively engaged in agriculture as a populist display of solidarity with the farming community (Gupta, 1998).

References Anyidoho, N.A., Leavy, J. and Asenso-​Okyere, K. (2012) ‘Perceptions and aspirations: A case study of young people in Ghana’s cocoa sector’, IDS Bulletin, 43(6): 20–​32. 71

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Bennike, R.B., Rasmussen, M.B. and Nielsen, K.B. (2020) ‘Agrarian crossroads: Rural aspirations and capitalist transformation’, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 41(1): 40–​56. Brown, T. (2013) ‘Agrarian crisis in Punjab and “natural farming” as a response’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 36(2): 229–​242. Brown, T., Scrase, T. and Ganguly-​Scrase, R. (2017) ‘Globalised dreams, local constraints: Migration and youth aspirations in an Indian regional town’, Children’s Geographies, 15(5): 531–​544. Byres, T.J. (1981) ‘The new technology, class formation and class action in the Indian countryside’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 8(4): 405–​454. Chand, R. (1999) ‘Emerging crisis in Punjab agriculture: Severity and options for future’, Economic and Political Weekly, 34(13): A2–​A10. Corbett, M. and Forsey, M. (2017) ‘Rural youth out-​migration and education: Challenges to aspirations discourse in mobile modernity’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 38(3): 429–​444. DeJaeghere, J. and Baxter, A. (2014) ‘Entrepreneurship education for youth in sub-​Saharan Africa: A capabilities approach as an alternative framework to neoliberalism’s individualizing risks’, Progress in Development Studies, 14(1): 61–​76. Farrugia, D. (2016) ‘The mobility imperative for rural youth: The structural, symbolic and non-​representational dimensions rural youth mobilities’, Journal of Youth Studies, 19(6): 836–​851. Gupta, A. (1998) Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Huijsmans, R., Ambarwati, A., Chazali, C. and Vijayabaskar, M. (2021) ‘Farming, gender and aspirations across young people’s life course: Attempting to keep things open while becoming a farmer’, The European Journal of Development Research, 33(1): 71–​88. Jeffrey, C. (2010) Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Jodhka, S.S. (2006) ‘Beyond “crises”: Rethinking contemporary Punjab agriculture’, Economic and Political Weekly, 41(16): 1530–​1537. Mwaura, G.M. (2017a) ‘Just farming? Neoliberal subjectivities and agricultural livelihoods among educated youth in Kenya’, Development and Change, 48(6): 1310–​1335. Mwaura, G.M. (2017b) ‘The side-​hustle: Diversified livelihoods of Kenyan educated young farmers’, IDS Bulletin, 48(3): 51–​66. Nir, S.M. (2019) ‘Millennials in Ghana are working hard to “make farming sexy” ’, The Independent, 4 June. Available from: https://​www.independent. co.uk/​news/​long_​reads/​millennials-​in-​ghana-​change-​stigma-​around-​ farming-​a8942036.html Okali, C. and Sumberg, J. (2012) ‘Quick money and power: Tomatoes and livelihood building in rural Brong Ahafo, Ghana’, IDS Bulletin, 43(6): 44–​57. 72

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Qureshi, K., Varghese, V.J. and Osella, F. (2013) ‘Indian Punjabi skilled migrants in Britain: Of brain drain and underdevelopment’, Journal of Management Development, 32(2): 182–​192. Randhawa, M.S. (1974) Green Revolution: A Case Study of Punjab, Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Rigg, J., Phongsiri, M., Promphakping, B., Salamanca, A. and Sripun, M. (2020) ‘Who will tend the farm? Interrogating the ageing Asian farmer’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 47(2): 306–​325. Salvago, M.R., Phiboon, K., Faysse, N. and Nguyen, T.P.L. (2019) ‘Young people’s willingness to farm under present and improved conditions in Thailand’, Outlook on Agriculture, 48(4): 282–​291. Sidhu, H.S. (2002) ‘Crisis in agrarian economy in Punjab: Some urgent steps’, Economic and Political Weekly, 37(30): 3132–​3138. Singh, K. (2009) ‘Agrarian crisis in Punjab: High indebtedness, low returns and farmers’ suicides’, in D.N. Reddy and S. Mishra (eds) Agrarian Crisis in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp 261–​284. Srivastava, S. (1996) ‘Modernity and post-​coloniality: The metropolis as a metaphor’, Economic and Political Weekly, 31(7): 407–​412. Tadele, G. and Gella, A.A. (2010) ‘ “A last resort and often not an option at all”: Farming and young people in Ethiopia’, IDS Bulletin, 43(6): 33–​43. Taylor, M. and Bhasme, S. (2018) ‘Model farmers, extension networks and the politics of agricultural knowledge transfer’, Journal of Rural Studies, 64: 1–​10. Uberoi, P. (1993) Family, Kinship, and Marriage in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press. USAID (2019) Engaging Youth in Agriculture through Information and Communication Technologies. Available from: https://​www.usaid.gov/​sites/​ default/​files/​documents/​15396/​Feed-​the-​Future-​CaseStudy-​Youth-​Ag-​ ICT.pdf Verma, P.S. (2017) ‘Punjab’s drug problem: Contours and characteristics’, Economic and Political Weekly, 52(3): 40–​43. Vijayabaskar, M., Narayanan, S. and Srinivasan, S. (2018) ‘Agricultural revival and reaping the youth dividend’, Economic and Political Weekly, 53(26–​27): 8–​16. White, B. (2012) ‘Agriculture and the generation problem: Rural youth, employment and the future of farming’, IDS Bulletin, 43(6): 9–​19.

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PART II

Materialities: Spatiality and Sensory Embodiment

4

Reimagining Space, Reorganizing Lives: Environmental Activism in Myanmar Johanna Garnett

Introduction This chapter discusses the significance of place for young people from marginalized, agrarian populations in the nascent democracy of Myanmar (formerly Burma)1 in South-​East Asia, and makes visible new social practices based on material factors of land, labour and food. It provides examples of embodied activism emanating from young adults throughout the country, highlighting the local, emplaced ways in which they are responding to the macro-​level processes shaping their young lives. The insecurities within global capitalism faced by all contemporary young people are magnified for these youth, who are positioned in declining agricultural communities and degraded environments. The young people in this study are being affected by spaces of extreme poverty and violence (structural, cultural and direct), but also ones of unprecedented opportunity and social and political capital. Determined to protect their land and communities, they are engaged in alternative development practices embedded in the ecologically sustainable practices of permaculture2 and organic agriculture, together with environmental adult education (EAE) and activities relating to social and environmental justice. Now part of global communities of interest, they are forming new relationships and mobility. This chapter argues that, through their political and social agency, these young people in Myanmar (like others around the world) are vanguards of new forms of social life and connection to place, providing key signposts for global social transformations.

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Background Myanmar is home to a deeply traditional, primarily rural, ethnically diverse and relatively young population of around 53 million. Young people aged 15 to 35 comprise nearly 40 per cent of the population, with the average national age around 27–​28 years of age. Within the country there are 135 officially recognized ethnic groups falling under eight major categories and this diversity has resulted in decades of inter-​ethnic and centre/​periphery conflict (Fink, 2001; Callahan, 2003) which continues in some areas today (Subedi and Garnett, 2020). Myanmar has a dynastic history and is socially hierarchical and stratified with very clear class cultures located in geographical spaces. Social division and relationships of domination and subordination are evident, and overall rural populations are marginalized and weakened due to their peripheral geography, distance from the ‘state’, and social status (Jones, 2014). Theravada Buddhism is integral to its society and culture, permeating the government and the majority of people’s lives and values (Schober, 2010).3 Until 1 February 2021 when the military illegally seized power in a coup d’état, Myanmar was governed by the National League for Democracy (NLD) under the leadership of the charismatic State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi.4 The NLD took power in April 2016 after a landslide victory in the November 2015 elections; an outcome of political reforms in 2011. Prior to this, following a coup in 1962, the country was governed by a military junta (in various guises) (see Fink, 2001, pp 4, 31, 135; Thant Myint U, 2011, p 20). The military –​Tatmadaw –​ruled with an iron fist, allowing dehumanization and the violation of human rights,5 including impoverishment of the vast majority of the population. Myanmar was once the wealthiest nation in South-​East Asia but is now one of the world’s least developed countries6 despite being rich in natural resources; a result of the highly instrumental nature of capitalist control of state power by the oligarchs –​military elite and ‘crony capitalists’ (Jones, 2014, p 148). For many decades, the state failed to deliver political ‘goods’ to the people, but unprecedented political, social and economic opportunities have opened up since 2011, and the country is now engaging with global trade and business as it embraces an industrialized modernization programme. As a result, the spatial shape of production is changing; agriculture and service sectors are contracting and the industrial sector is expanding. Despite moves towards democracy, the Tatmadaw remains the most deeply embedded institution in Myanmar’s politics, economy and society (Griffiths, 2019; Yamahata, 2020). In this rapidly changing political and economic landscape, life for those on the land is increasingly precarious (Griffiths, 2019), and political activism operates in a continued state of centralized oppression. 78

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Youth in Myanmar are a heterogeneous group, but while their locally specific conditions vary geographically, culturally and economically, they share common experiences of disruption due to this rapid social and economic transformation. They are also the first generation with access to unprecedented social capital and mobility: particularly connectivity such as electricity, the internet, mobile phones and social media, as well as the ability to travel inter-​state and even internationally, opening up cross-​cultural exchange with foreigners and new forms of networking. Young people from rural communities traditionally engage in agricultural and domestic labouring practices, and there are expectations that they fulfil certain duties and responsibilities; filial, village, but also monastic (or the church) (Griffiths, 2019). A traditional civil society comprising mostly informal apolitical groups such as religious and ethnic organizations is quite strong in Myanmar (James, 2005; Schober, 2010), and civil society actors have been providing valuable makeshift solutions to specific local problems, in lieu of the state, for decades (Jones, 2014, p 152; Griffiths, 2019). As a result, youth civic participation, particularly at the local level, is higher than the global average, and young people are viewed as playing a vital role in the country’s development (Griffiths, 2019). However, despite the development rhetoric, positing new opportunities and advantages for young people, youth from the rural classes are primarily viewed as a cheap labour force for the modernization programme.7 Rural youth in particular straddle two worlds; their traditional cultures based on the land, and their modernizing state. Further, their land, and their connection to place, is under threat.

Methods and data This chapter is based on seven years of qualitative fieldwork (2013 to 2020). I have a research focus on youth as social change agents, and first travelled to Myanmar in October 2013 to live and work with a civil society organization, the Network for Environment and Economic Development (NEED) –​Myanmar, for five months for my PhD research. I met the young people discussed in this chapter between 2013 and 2015 –​the majority of them were students at NEED.8 I have visited the country five times, establishing a network of civil society actors, political and environmental activists, conservationists, and students, conducting longitudinal research. Deleuze and Guattari (1988, p 372) urge researchers to ‘take a boat and become part of the flow of what we fully want to understand’, and that is what I have attempted, travelling extensively throughout the country, visiting people’s homes, workplaces and places of worship, sharing and observing the day-​to-​day practices of local Myanmar life, and investigating people’s deep attachment to place.9 Empirical data has been gathered through questionnaires, interviews (in English or through a translator), written essays 79

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(again either in English or translated), participant observation as a teacher and informal discussions. The 56 participants (23 women and 33 men), who are the focus of this chapter, were all interviewed between 2013 and 2015, with some follow-​up interviews since then. These participants are aged between 24 and 37, and come from five states and varying geographical locations. They grew up and/​ or reside in villages or small townships including in the mountains in Rakhine and Chin State, the banks of Inle Lake, in southern Shan State, and in the surrounding verdant hills; by the rivers of the Irrawaddy Delta in the south of the country, and on the coast in Mon and Rakhine States. These young people are part of the ‘meta-​industrial class’ –​the peasantry (Salleh, 2000), and very aware of their position of disadvantage from the state, as noted by a farmer from northern Rakhine State who told the author “we are all poor, we are poor together”. Some live in war-​torn environments, others in areas hit by natural disasters; all are vulnerable to external factors. They come from a number of ethnic groups including Arakan, Karen, Shan, Chin and Intha (from Inle Lake). The majority are Buddhists, while some identify as Christian and nearly all are attached to a religious or community organization. Most completed high school, graduating at 16 or 17, and a number have gone on to study at university or undertake vocational training.10 The participants have key, shared concerns about the environmental impacts emanating from global capital expansion that are disrupting their traditional livelihoods and resulting in the breakdown of their communities. The participants have given their permission for the author to recount their ‘village stories’, giving voice to the materiality of their everyday lived realities.11 Of course, an individual’s perspective is shaped by his/​her social and political experiences, and any predominant culture, or situation, is not similarly experienced by all people (Massey, 1991, 1994, p 146). But, through the participants’ stories, common threads have emerged which, woven together, create a rich tapestry; one of landscape, community, love and loss, but also hope for a more socio-​ecologically sound and just future.

Theoretical framework In line with Cote (2014, 2016), Sukarieh and Tannock (2016) and Kelly (2018), this ethnographic study takes a political economy lens in order to understand the spatial dimension of the social processes constructing the youth period, as well as how some young people are responding in the development of potentially radical solutions to their subjugation. A political economy analysis that looks beyond youth and young people in and of themselves, and considers structural and material issues, is vital in understanding the positioning of youth (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2016, pp 1282–​1283; Kelly, 2018, p 1293). Further, as Cooper et al (2019, p 80

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30) note, in the global South where inequality is rampant on a daily basis, a political economy lens is far more urgent. Capital is necessarily schematic, making active use of the forms of geographical variation and inequality which are presented to it (Massey, 1994, p 23; Tsing, 2015, pp 62–​64), riding roughshod over informal (local) processes, epistemologies and expert knowledge (Connell, 2007). This centralization of material wealth results in unequal power relations, exploitation and disconnection (Cote, 2014, 2016; Kelly, 2018). A political economy lens enables comprehension of the repercussions of contemporary global capitalism and the ways young people cope under a market mentality in conditions of extreme precarity (Cooper et al, 2019, p 39). Myanmar is a highly stratified, primarily pre-​modern society, and these young people exist primarily on the margins of society, geographically, politically and socially, while occupying the lowest positions economically. An appreciation of class is therefore important in understanding the positioning of youth in this type of society, one in which ‘government policies are unsupportive of youth interest, leaving youth cohorts open to exploitation by dominant economic interests’ (Cote, 2014, p 528). Youth from the global south overall have strong collective orientations, and choices and individualization are dampened by cultural and structural factors (Nilan, 2011). Therefore, ‘family’, ‘community’ and ‘place’ must also be taken seriously as analytical categories (Nilan, 2011, p 22). Space and place are fundamental dimensions of lived experience, and relationship to place is constitutive of young ‘people’s identities and biographical trajectories’ (Farrugia, 2014, pp 295–​296). Physical space becomes ‘place’ as we get to know it better and endow it with value (Tuan, 1977, p 6). Accordingly, places acquire deep meaning through the accumulation of sentiment and experience (Tuan, 1977). It is also important to consider the material, physical landscape, and how it might contribute to a sense of place (Stedman, 2003, p 672; Coole and Frost, 2010). For the meta-​industrial class this involves the means of production and embodied materiality of labour, resulting in a close attachment to land and place. Place matters, and significance of place, and ‘place attachment’, is reiterated throughout the stories presented in this study. Place attachment as a concept is a complex phenomenon that incorporates several aspects of the bonding of people to places (Low and Altman, 1992; Stedman, 2003), shaping identity and value systems. The resulting significant lived experiences, both positive and negative, often lead to motivation to protect (Chawla, 1998). Strong attachment to place is known to influence pro-​environmental behaviour (Vaske and Kobrin, 2001). Further, there are a variety of collective group or cultural place attachments that (may) transcend the unique experience of individuals, and that are especially salient during times of relocation, upheaval and environmental disasters (Low and Altman, 1992, p 6). Finally, capital has not only resulted in ecological rift, disruption from place, and nature (Foster et al, 2010; Tsing, 2015, p 17), but also in assaults 81

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on narrative knowledge (Connell, 2007, p 7). The author has entered into this study in a joint process of enquiry with the participants, moving beyond discursive construction, to take an ontological perspective that privileges the material (as discussed by Connell, 2007; Coole and Frost, 2010; Salleh, 2015). This study aims to break the Eurocentric theoretical base by promoting insights from and about the global south, by taking seriously what young people say about their own lives and the sociopolitical contexts in which they live (see Cooper et al, 2019). Rather than viewing the global south as a deficit idea of southern spaces and people, this study views it instead as a space constitutive of different, possibly more ecologically sound and just practices and ways of being, in this case, embedded in the materiality of life on the ground in Myanmar.

Life on the ground in Myanmar The sheer diversity of rural living in Myanmar prevents generalization, but there are a number of common features of rural communities, particularly in terms of spatial, social and cultural organization (Griffiths, 2019, p 55). Traditional agrarian livelihoods are centred around wet-​ rice cultivation, or upland ‘dry’ rice farming, seasonal crops, fishing and livestock. Supplementary livelihoods, such as weaving or sewing, are largely home-​based, and are frequently undertaken by women (Griffiths, 2019, p 57). Villagers live frugally in order to make efficient use of their space and labour (Thawnghmung, 2011, pp 646–​649), and community life revolves around a main livelihood, and frequently, one or two main crops for market. Agricultural production in Myanmar has been controlled through state directives telling people what to plant and grow, and the state has traditionally provided the markets and set the prices (Simpson, 2015, p 154). This centralized economic control has impacted negatively on rural populations as noted by one of the older male participants from Chin State, one of the poorest regions in the far north of the country: ‘Long, long ago, my village had big forests and good natural resources. During these years they grew many vegetables using natural fertilizer and made an income by selling food. It could secure their life and they got a healthy life … so we can say their life was good and perfect. But the country was becoming the poorest situation in the world … therefore the villagers were having difficulties meeting their needs; their livelihoods were suffering.’ Religious buildings in or near the village, typically a Buddhist monastery, function as a community centre and meeting place (Griffiths, 2019, p 56). A female farmer from northern Rakhine State describes her village: 82

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‘My village has 100 houses and 700 people. The area of my village is about 30 acres. My village is near the Mayu Mountain and Mayu River. My village and other villages grow seasonal crops and some plants. The Mayu Mountain has so many elephants and other wild animals. It has big forests and medicine plants. My villagers are farmers. They depend on the mountain and river.’ The experience of a male farmer in Mon State, in the far south of the country, is not dissimilar: ‘The population of my village is about 500. Most of my villagers are Myanmar Buddhists –​some are Christians. There are more poor people than rich; most of my villagers are farmers and also fishermen, hunters, wood or bamboo cutters. We get seasonal fruits every year, and fish and prawns are very plentiful in the rainy season. There are a lot of forests and mountains around my village. That’s why my village is very beautiful and pleasant. Also, my villagers are very kind and hospitable.’ A female participant’s village in the Irrawaddy region differs slightly in that it is predominately Christian: ‘There are about 600 people in my village, it is surrounded by stream and field so their livelihoods are agriculture, livestock, shopping and fisherman. But they are not usually educated people … they are living their lives happily with their traditional culture.’ This traditional, communitarian culture is closely integrated with the natural surrounds, both as sites of labour, culture and community, and for food. This is a sensuous world, shaped by the embodied activity of a close connection to the materiality of the natural environment. Babies are rocked in hammocks in the cool breeze, children play in the dirt in the shade of their rattan houses and, when old enough, work in the fields or mind the animals. They feel the soil under their nails, it gets in their skin and when they come home at the end of a long day their bodies ache with the effort. As such, place is deeply significant to these young people; exemplified by a slogan developed by a cohort of environmental education students: Our land is our heart Our forest is our soul Our water is our blood Thus, we hold in our future. (NEED –​Myanmar, 2014) 83

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The students’ connection to land and place is also articulated by a project coordinator from northern Rakhine State, when asked about what the environment means to people in Myanmar: ‘They [people] generally view the natural environment as being the mountains, ocean, forests, wild animals and other natural things around them. They know, exactly, that these all are significant for their livelihoods, culture, intellectual nutrients and the development for the local community. Most of their knowledge to be adept with their social environment, comes from nature by learning the things they see when they are working, relying on nature. For example, some experienced fishermen know the time by looking at the tide, whether it is up or down. They don’t need clocks and watches, they can guess just very near the exact time. In previous years, they don’t know about globalization and climate change, but they just simply know the weather is getting hotter or has been colder than usual, and from noting the scarcity of water and natural resources.’ From my observations and discussions with the participants, they are often homesick when away from their villages and townships, describing their homes with a sense of longing, like one male participant from northern Rakhine State who told me: ‘My village is surrounded by stream, mountains and we also have many beautiful beaches. The volcano is near a very beautiful beach. There is some pagoda on the mountain in my village. My village is very beautiful and has a special ecosystem. I would like to live always in my village.’ And these sentiments were repeated by the students who came from Inle Lake in Shan State, a particularly beautiful part of Myanmar and one I have visited a number of times. One of the students at NEED was a passionate and active environmentalist and nostalgically described the area to me in 2013: ‘Inle Lake is very beautiful and has a special ecosystem. The Intha [the people of the lake] have developed a singular form of aquaculture. A network of interwoven seaweed and hyacinths creates a thick layer of humus over the years, and this is attached to the bottom of the lake with bamboo poles, and then planted with tomatoes, cauliflower and flower … I would like to always live in my village.’ The special ecosystem of Inle Lake comprises protected wetland areas, and is recognized internationally. Out on the water one day, I was told that the Intha people once could drink the water from the lake, as it was 84

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pure. According to this story, if someone had been away, on returning to the lake they would go to the foreshore and drink the water, saying ‘I am home’. Now the water is polluted by run-​off from chemical pesticides and fertilizers and from the impacts of tourism, and it makes people sick. This is a common story of disruption.

Disruption Environmental degradation –​primarily deforestation and polluted and depleted soils and river systems –​is noted repeatedly by the participants as impacting on their localities, regardless of their geographical positioning. For example, a female student from northern Rakhine State, who now lives in the city with her husband and young son, reflects that “where there was once very beautiful forest and many wild animals, extensive deforestation is resulting in soil erosion, landslides and decreased soil fertility”. Much of this environmental degradation is a result of poorly managed local practices, and these practices are identified by all these young people, such as a female student, who farms with her family on their eight acres of land near to the previous participant’s village, who noted: ‘Ten years ago, the farmers were working successfully on their farms … their families were happy. Their education and health was not difficult and they had work all the time. Now, their cultivation is not successful because they lose land and soil. Their land hasn’t got a green environment. The farmers use chemical fertilizers which are expensive and the farmers have to go in debt to afford them. The farmers are poorer and poorer.’ Increasingly notable, however, are the macro-​level processes of global capital that are playing out throughout the country, key to which are land and labour. Following years of international isolation, Myanmar is liberalizing its economy and seeking to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) as rapidly as possible; this includes more extractive resources for export, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, infrastructure building such as roads, rail, dams and sea-​ ports, and the construction of special economic zones (SEZs) (see Subedi and Garnett, 2020). Myanmar is becoming one of the new manufacturing centres of the global economy with garment manufacturers relocating from Bangladesh and China to take advantage of cheaper labour (Ng, 2018). Already disadvantaged communities are increasingly vulnerable to development programmes that, as is seen globally (Borras and Franco, 2012), continue to follow the positivist and mechanistic trajectory of patriarchal capitalism. Overall, wealth is failing to trickle down to those on the ground who are in danger of losing their land; the extent of land-​g rabbing in 85

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Myanmar over the last 40 years is vast, most of it by the armed forces and people connected to them (see Woods, 2013; Simpson, 2015; Garnett, 2017; Suhardiman et al, 2019; Subedi and Garnett, 2020). The following, from a male participant in Mon State, is a common story: ‘In 2010, a big company came to my village and bought a lot of land and forests around my village because they wanted to grow a lot of rubber plants. And then they were cutting down all of the forest and they burned it. After burning it, they started to grow rubber plants. Now, the forests in my village have been degrading since the big company came into my village.’ A female participant, from Inle Lake, also notes a shift in local practices: ‘A long time ago, the farmers used very simple methods in agriculture. Nowadays, some greedy people are changing to new methods of industrial agriculture and grow one kind of crop on many acres of land –​monoculture. By growing one kind of crop, they just try to produce more and more.’ One respondent noted that “the farmers haven’t land enough for agriculture because business, company and local government have confiscated the land”, and another, who now works with a community service organization addressing some of these issues, noted that “some of the rich people are making large scale agriculture. They plant rubber, teak and other plants. They need a lot of land to plant that”. A male farmer, from southern Rakhine, notes a similar situation in his region: “Some business men have bought the lands from farmers with little money. So, some farmers are jobless.” Overarching all of these concerns are global warming and climate change, direct outcomes of productive processes embedded in globalization. This was noted by an older male student from northern Rakhine State: “Nowadays we are facing climate change, global warming and other environmental problem such as late rain, storming and flooding water. So, people cannot run their farm well.” Climate change is a pressing issue, noted repeatedly and articulated by a female farmer, also from Mon State: ‘Human beings depend heavily on the environment as it supports our life in an array of ways. … Now, we might say, “our environment is on fire”. Summers are hotter, some seasons are drier with little rain and then we have flooding in the raining season.’ A previous respondent expands on this, noting that “Climate change is a major challenge. It is okay for the middle class and above, but it does more 86

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harm to the grassroots”. A very active, female community development worker from Inle Lake described the impact of changing weather patterns on farming in detail, concluding that: ‘I was raised in a farmer family … and I can describe different comparisons of farming today and in my childhood time. … I notice that it makes the farmers’ life more difficult, and risky for paddy plantation when we face water scarcity in summer and cold season.’ With the loss of land and labour opportunities, the rural youth population faces high levels of unemployment and displacement; many migrate intra-​ state to work in factories in the large cities or to nearby Thailand and Malaysia. Another female participant, from northern Rakhine State, in a discussion about livelihood prospects, particularly for women, notes that: ‘Many young people graduate but there are no jobs so they have to migrate. There are no more young people in the villages due to migration, including my friends. It is good to make money to support the family but leaving your homeland makes you homesick. My friends go to Thailand, Korea and Japan, sewing in factories … they go for a few years, get money and come back. Some people sell their land for their children to travel.’ Overall, women have limited opportunities in this largely patriarchal society and, as one female participant told me, “young women like herself, are particularly vulnerable with regards to ethnic conflict and environmental and food security”. She went on to add that “many women are forced to migrate for work, and may be confronted by trafficking and exploitation”. Determined to protect what they value, and to prevent this disembedding from their land and communities, as well as exploitation and continued disadvantage within a weak state, these young people are fighting back. These socio-​ecological threats are material threats, and they are acting in recognition that collective action, based on land, labour and food, represents their best strategy for improving their situation.

Reimagining space, reorganizing lives The rural youth in this study have a strong ‘common sense’ or ‘folk’ wisdom of their local environments. They are also generally knowledgeable about local political and social issues, having been involved in civil society organizations, community groups and informal education programmes. They, like others who have been talking back to power in Myanmar (Cheesman, 2015, pp 226–​227), are eager for new opportunities to participate in public 87

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life, encouraging the emergence of a new lexicon of leadership. Together with many others from environmental, conservation, social justice and community-​based organizations they are working to assist smallholder farmers and agrarian communities in addressing localized environmental degradation and food security issues identified in the discussion of life on the ground in Myanmar. The aim is to enhance traditional, cultural, practical skills and knowledge with new, more environmentally or ecologically sustainable, community-​friendly agricultural techniques, practices and processes, to resist environmentally degrading and exploitative mainstream development in the future. This environmental citizenship is articulated by one of the female participants from Inle Lake: ‘We need to save our environment. We will maintain and reforest. We can change our environment but we will not get it naturally. I want to make my region a very beautiful region with a lot of forests and a lot of trees. So, if we reforest, we can change our environment.’ These grassroots initiatives are vital because, as another young woman reminds us, the country has poor environmental governance and laws and legislations: ‘Myanmar is rich in natural resources but, at the same time, Myanmar is a poor country. The government sells resources abroad and has no interest in the environment. The Myanmar government does not talk about the environment with the public.’ Taking advantage of new spaces of enquiry and resources, these youth are talking about the environment, responding to this disruption of their lives through informal EAE and alternative development initiatives and projects, embedded in permaculture and organic agriculture. EAE is a collective and social action that emerged out of Freirean popular education in the 1970s as an aspect of the environmental movement (Clover and Hill, 2013). It is seen as a transformative education for resistance and renewal and is being utilized by a growing number of civil society organizations in Myanmar as political action.12 The central motivation for informal education, and a sentiment I have observed repeatedly when visiting environmental and conservation groups, is utilizing new skills and knowledge for assisting their communities, as stated by one participant: ‘I will be sharing all of my knowledge to my villagers. And then I will discuss with stakeholders. Now, my villagers are hoping to get help 88

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from me … Whatever, I will be working hard for my villagers and others living in nearby villages.’ Similarly, the environmental activist from Inle Lake said: “I will share knowledge and skills with his community through his organization”. He also noted the need to provide more education for his community, “on human rights, and how to manage our local, natural resources and deal with local problems”. A growing network of educators and mentors around Myanmar is forming spaces of enquiry and providing material resources as well as social capital for agrarian youth. The result of this is noted by one of the female participants: ‘I don’t think that I am powerful but other people feel that I am –​ my village is very proud of me and look up to me. Because of my skills I am able to help others. My goal is to be a leader. I now feel confident personally but not confident yet professionally. I think that I am successful because of my hard work.’ Utilizing their training and new skills and knowledge these young people are engaged in proactive measures aimed at improving environmental and agricultural practices and addressing food insecurity and food sovereignty (see Patel, 2009). These practices include farmers’ workshops and training along the lines of the Campesino-​to-​Campesino agroecology movement (see Rosset et al, 2011), alternative livelihood programmes for women including mushroom-​growing, small livestock and craft activities to supplement farm income, aquaculture, small-​scale organic vegetable gardening, re-​forestation and mangrove conservation programmes, small-​scale research projects, and education programmes aimed at raising awareness of climate change and issues associated with industrialization, including land laws and political activism. Their traditional systems are centred around integrated farming systems, and ‘permaculture’ and organic agriculture are viewed as solutions. Permaculture is a ‘consciously designed low-​energy, high-​yielding organic agriculture system’ for regenerating intensive, subsistence farming on small-​ scale holdings to enable sustainable food production and lifestyle (Mollison and Holmgren, 1987, p 6; Holmgren, 2002; Mollison, 2005). Permaculture processes are adaptable to differing geographical locations and agricultural practices, such as those of smallholder farmers in Myanmar. As a development worker noted, “we are happy in our local areas because we are from there. It is important because we understand the context”. Permaculture principles align with the argument that we need a shift in the social relations of production and society as a whole (Hathaway, 2015), and advocates view permaculture and community food systems as a non-​ violent political statement. In a country where political activism has been 89

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repressed and penalized, and stepping outside mainstream thinking still attracts penalty, the practice of permaculture and organic agriculture, as a means for developing grassroots autonomy, is a form of everyday politics contributing to food security and food sovereignty for local communities, and is a practice being led by many of the participants in this study. Their activities are embedded in subaltern politics (see Guha and Martinez-​Atelier, 1997; Rosset et al, 2011); informal adaptive strategies, which can be seen as ‘examples of citizens’ attempts to reconstruct the world around them to the best of their ability to suit their needs’ (as discussed by Thawnghmung, 2011, p 642). Finally, young people like those in this study are engaging with global communities, which share an interest in permaculture, alternative development and environmentalism and have similar values. This engagement is resulting in a myriad of programmes, including this activist research project. After years of working together, I and two employees from NEED are in the process of establishing Myanmar’s first Permaculture Institute on nine acres of land in southern Rakhine State. This site will be home to a demonstration farm and school, a space for exchange of knowledge with international activists and educators. I last visited with local conservation groups and village heads in November 2019 to gauge the interest in such a venture. I was told at the time that local markets were being undercut by regional trade (that is, cheap imports from Thailand) and there were concerns about environmental degradation and the need for conservation, particularly of local mangroves. Any new initiatives that could empower locals were very welcome, and the young people would be supported by the villagers in leading them in sustainable development. I have found this response reiterated increasingly over the years throughout the country.

Conclusion This chapter has made visible new environmental, economic and cultural processes that are being shaped by rural youth from differing ethnic groups and varying geographical locations in contemporary Myanmar. It has highlighted the significance of place for these young people, their concerns for the flows of everyday life, in particular the relationship between the provision of human needs and the environment in which those needs are met. They, like millions of others in the meta-​industrial class, are in complex and disadvantaged situations, in contexts of rampant inequality, poverty, systemic violence and environmental degradation, all resulting in food insecurity, a lack of food sovereignty and loss of livelihoods, and the breakdown of traditional, long-​established agrarian communities (Woods, 2013; Garnett, 2017). The participants are the generation of disruption in Myanmar, born into political turmoil, and growing up in a period of rapid 90

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social and economic change within which they are navigating their present, while imagining their futures. Confronted with the invasion of life by the logic of the market, as their country embraces an industrialized modernization programme, together with the impacts of global warming and climate change, all of which are impacting their valued and special places, the young people in this study, like many from the grassroots, are responding by building spaces of experience; informal participatory forms which are ‘sufficiently autonomous and distant from capitalist society permitting actors to live according to their own principles/​values’ (Pleyers, 2010, p 39). In the global south resistance often relates to survival (Cooper et al, 2019, p 33) and the participants’ praxis, which aims to disturb the flows of industrialized food and production, and moves beyond critique to creation. Their utilization of informal education, particularly EAE, and alternative development practices embedded in the ecologically sustainable practices of permaculture and organic agriculture is challenging the status quo, and indicates the emergence of a new materialist social movement (as described by Schlosberg and Coles, 2016). From struggle the youth in this study are positing new ways of being and living together in late modernity; in connection and continuing community. There is no drive for separation in these young people. They are forming horizontal networks within their country and engaging with global communities of interest that are focusing on changing the material relationship between humans and the non-​human realm and engaging in new places that contain different worldviews, historical circumstances and subjectivities (Schlosberg and Coles, 2016; Cooper et al, 2019). This is a global project led by those in the social classes hitherto marginalized by global capitalism. The embodied activism of these Myanmar youth from agrarian communities may be local and small-​scale but it has global considerations, and through their political and social agency, they can be viewed as vanguards of new forms of social life and connection to place, providing key signposts for global social transformations. Notes 1

2

3

4

The country of Burma was given the more formal and indigenous name of Myanmar in 1989. I have adopted the name Myanmar for this chapter as it has become almost universally adopted internationally, and this is approved by the participants in this study. Permaculture was developed in Australia in the 1970s as a community-​led approach to (more) sustainable development. Myanmar is often referred to as ‘The Golden Land’, for the thousands of glittering pagoda and stupa that dot the landscape. This chapter was written well before the military takeover, an event that surprised me as it did the vast majority of Myanmar analysts and anyone involved in business, development and politics in the country. 91

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5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

These have included rape, torture, assassination, bayoneting, land confiscation, burning of villages, displacement of whole villages, use of child soldiers and arbitrary detention (Fink, 2001, p 78; Callahan, 2003). Ranked 145th out of 189 countries in the 2019 UN’s Human Development Index concerning health, education and income, and 123rd globally according to the 2016 Commonwealth Youth Development Index with regards to education, health and wellbeing, employment, and political and civic participation. Young women (and men) can go to the factories and take advantage of these new spaces for economic advantage but the work is hard and keeps them in poverty. One female student, who moved to the city of Yangon with her mother and some of her seven siblings in 2012 in search of work, told the author about her experience working in a garment factory: “We started at 7am, finish at 7pm, 12 hours every day. Sunday is holiday but I’m working, overtime, for 9 months, 50,000 kyat per month (around USD35). … It is hard work and I cried a lot”. During this time I assisted in the development of an EAE programme and demonstration farm. Here, on the ground, the poverty and suffering is palpable, but the spirit of community endures. While conscious of the fact not to romanticize village life per se, visiting these villages in Myanmar not only gives one a sense of stepping back in time, but also provides a sense of how localized, ecologically sound, community-​based alternative development models just could work. This is quite an achievement. Universities were closed by the military junta in an attempt to silence critique (Fink, 2001, pp 181–​185), and university is studied by distance learning, online education and regional colleges. Reforms were enacted in 2015 but education continues to be poorly supported by the state. The participants had given permission for me to use their real names but, given the changing political situation in Myanmar, these have been changed to protect their anonymity. Education is highly valued but the standard of state education is abysmal, attracting only 2 per cent of public expenditure. Formal education consists of rote memorization, with no room for critical thinking, reinforcing submission to all authority; a message students receive in virtually every dimension of their lives (Fink, 2001, p 177).

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Coole, D. and Frost, S. (2010) ‘Introducing the new materialisms’, in D. Coole and S. Frost (eds) New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, pp 1–​46. Cooper, A., Swartz, S. and Mahali, A. (2019) ‘Disentangled, decentred and democratised: Youth studies for the global south’, Journal of Youth Studies, 22(1): 29–​45. Cote, J.E. (2014) ‘Towards a new political economy of youth’, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(4): 527–​543. Cote, J.E. (2016) ‘A new political economy of youth reprised: Rejoinder to France and Threadgold’, Journal of Youth Studies, 19(6): 852–​868. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1988) A Thousand Plateaus, London: Athlone. Farrugia, D. (2014) ‘Towards a spatialised youth sociology: The rural and the urban in times of change’, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(3): 293–​307. Fink, C. (2001) Living Silence: Burma under Military Rule, Bangkok: White Lotus. Foster, J.B., Clark, B. and York, R. (2010) The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth, New York: Monthly Review Press. Garnett, J. (2017) Saving the World with Organic Agriculture: Environmental Peacebuilding in the Nascent Democracy of Myanmar, PhD thesis, University of New England, Armidale. Griffiths, M.P. (2019) Community Welfare Organisations in Myanmar, Precarity and Parahita, London: Routledge. Guha, R. and Martinez-​Alier, J. (1997) Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South, London: Earthscan. Hathaway, M. (2015) ‘Agroecology and permaculture: Addressing key ecological problems by rethinking and redesigning agricultural systems’, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6: 239–​250. Holmg ren, D. (2002) ‘Ethical pr inciples of per maculture’, in Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, Hepburn: Holmgren Design Services, pp 1–​11. James, H. (2005) Governance and Civil Society in Myanmar: Education, Health and Environment, Abingdon: Routledge. Jones, L. (2014) ‘The political economy of Myanmar’s transition’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 44(1): 144–​170. Kelly, P. (2018) ‘Three notes on a political economy of youth’, Journal of Youth Studies, 21(10): 1283–​1304. Low, S.M. and Altman, I. (1992) Place Attachment, New York and London: Plenum Press. Massey, D. (1991) ‘A global sense of place’, Marxism Today, 38: 24–​29. Massey, D. (1994) Space, Place and Gender, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mollison, B. (2005) Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution –​An Interview with Bill Mollison. Available from: http://​www.scottlondon.com/​interviews/​ mollison.html 93

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Mollison, B. and Holmgren, D. (1987) Permaculture One, 2nd edition, Tyalgum: Tagari Publications. Network for Environment and Economic Development (NEED) –​Myanmar (2014 Available from: https://​www.need-​myanmar.org/​en Ng, D. (2018) ‘Uphill battle to curb child labour in Myanmar, where 13-​year-​olds work in construction’, CNA Insider, 16 January. Available from: https://​www.channelnewsasia.com/​news/​cnainsider/​ illegal-​child-​labour-​underage-​myanmar-​laws-​9864272 Nilan, P. (2011) ‘Youth sociology must cross cultures’, Youth Studies Australia, 30(3): 20–​26. Patel, R. (2009) ‘Food sovereignty’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(3): 663–​706. Pleyers, G. (2010) Alter-​Globalization, Cambridge: Polity Press. Rosset, P.M., Sosa, B.M., Roque-​Jaime, A.M. and Avila-​Lozano, D.R. (2011) ‘The Campesino-​to-​Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: Social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(1): 161–​191. Salleh, A. (2000) ‘The meta-​industrial class and why we need it’, Democracy & Nature, 6(1): 27–​36. Salleh, A. (2015) ‘Listening to ecological voices from the global south’, Journal of Environmental Thought and Education, 8: 64–​71. Schober, J. (2010) Modern Buddhist Conjectures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, Colonial Legacies and Civil Society, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Schlosberg, D. and Coles, R. (2016) ‘The new environmentalism of everyday life: Sustainability, material flows and movements’, Contemporary Political Theory, 15: 160–​181. Simpson, A. (2015) ‘Starting from year zero: Environmental governance in Myanmar’, in S Mukherjee and D Chakraborty (eds) Environmental Challenges and Governance: Diverse Perspectives from Asia, Abingdon: Routledge, pp 152–​165. Stedman, R.C. (2003) ‘Is it really just a social construction? The contribution of the physical environment to sense of place’, Society and Natural Resources, 16(8): 671–​685. Subedi, D.B. and Garnett, J. (2020) ‘De-​mystifying Buddhist religious extremism in Myanmar: Confrontation and contestation around religion, development and statebuilding’, Conflict, Security & Development, 20(2): 223–​246. Suhardiman, S., Kenney-​Lazar, M. and Meinzen-​Dick, R. (2019) ‘The contested terrain of land governance reform in Myanmar’, Critical Asian Studies, 51(3): 368–​385. Sukarieh, M. and Tannock, S. (2016) ‘On the political economy of youth: A comment’, Journal of Youth Studies, 19(9): 1–​9. 94

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Thant Myint-​U. (2011) Where China Meets India; Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia, London: Faber and Faber. Thawnghmung, A.M. (2011) ‘The politics of everyday life in twenty-​first century Myanmar’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 70(3): 641–​656. Tsing, A.L. (2015) The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tuan, Y.F. (1977) Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Vaske, J.J. and Kobrin, K.C. (2001) ‘Place attachment and environmentally responsible behavior’, The Journal of Environmental Education, 32(4): 16–​21. Woods, K. (2013) ‘The politics of the emerging agro-​industrial complex in Asia’s “final frontier”: The war on food sovereignty in Burma’, Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue, Yale University, 14–​15 September. Yamahata, Y. (2020) ‘The entrenched Tatmadaw: Explaining the dominant elite in Myanmar’s political landscape’, Tea Circle, May 13. Available from: https://​teac​ircl​eoxf​ord.com/​essay/​the-​ent​renc​hed-​tatma​daw-​exp​ lain​ing-​the-​domin​ant-​elite-​in-​myanm​ars-​politi​cal-​landsc​ape/​

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‘A Quiet Place’: The Natural Environment as a Sphere of (Non)Belonging for Refugee-​background Young People in Regional Resettlement Locations Caitlin Nunn

Introduction Refugee-​receiving countries in the global north are increasingly settling people in rural and regional locations beyond the traditional metropolitan sites of refugee arrival and settlement. This is in part driven by policies that, in different countries, variously seek to lessen the perceived burden on metropolitan centres, fill labour shortages, and address rural population decline (Schech, 2014). These regional resettlement locations, while not necessarily the homogenous, White spaces they are imagined to be, are often new to refugee resettlement, consequently lacking –​at least initially –​the resources, knowledge and infrastructure to support refugee-​background communities. For young people, the already challenging process of settlement and integration, exacerbated by this nascent service provision, intersects with broader challenges facing rural young people, and risks compounding barriers to pursuing hoped-​for futures (Major et al, 2013; Joyce and Liamputtong, 2017). At the same time, regional resettlement locations promise a safer, quieter alternative to urban centres, with less risk of young people being exposed to danger or engaging in dangerous activities (Krivokapic-​Skoko and Collins, 2016; Gilhooly and Lee, 2017). This chapter draws on a cross-​national, participatory arts-​based study to explore an under-​researched benefit of regional resettlement: engagement with the natural environment. Focused on the (non)belongings of 96

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refugee-​background young people in regional resettlement locations in the UK and Australia, Dispersed Belongings utilized a creative, relational research approach that, in attending to affective and embodied dimensions of experience, surfaced the importance of the natural environment as a sphere of (non)belonging. In both research sites and cohorts –​Syrian and Kurdish Syrian young people in North East England and Karen young people in Central Victoria, Australia –​the natural environment provided young people with a connection to the past, a contemporary space of sanctuary, and a foundation for the future. While the role of the natural environment is not necessarily unique to rural and regional places, it is an aspect of experience generally obscured by the density and complexity of urban settings. By no means a panacea for the myriad challenges of resettlement, it is nonetheless an underexplored resource for refugee-​background young people –​in rural, regional and urban settings.

Refugee youth in regional resettlement locations The dispersal and resettlement of asylum seekers and refugees to rural and regional locations has been increasingly prominent in policy and practice over the past 20 years in refugee-​receiving countries including the United Kingdom and Australia, as well as in North America and Western Europe (Schech, 2014; Hudson and Sandberg, 2021). In the UK, this commenced in 2000 with the mandatory dispersal of asylum seekers across the UK on a ‘no choice’ basis while their claims are processed, driven by factors such as cheap housing and reducing the perceived burden on London and the South East (Stewart, 2012). More recently, from 2015 to 2020, the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme has involved local councils nominating to resettle Syrians and Kurdish Syrians via an offshore resettlement programme (Home Office, 2017).1 In neither of these programmes is dispersal and settlement primarily focused on rural and regional locations, however, both include them –​in many cases for the first time –​in hosting refugees and asylum seekers. In Australia, rural and regional resettlement of offshore humanitarian migrants has, since 2004, been actively encouraged, in part as a response to population decline in regional areas (McDonald et al, 2008; Joyce and Liamputtong, 2017). In addition, from 2014, the Safe Haven Enterprise Visa Scheme has entitled onshore asylum seekers to a five-​year visa with limited pathways to permanent residency if they work or study in a specified rural or regional area (Australian Government, 2020). The growing literature on rural and regional resettlement –​especially in the Australian context –​has highlighted the diversity of experiences and outcomes for refugee-​background settlers, mediated by place characteristics, settler characteristics, and policy and practice (McDonald et al, 2008). Common challenges –​especially in new resettlement locations –​include 97

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lack of or limited access to specialist services such as torture and trauma counselling and English language support, mainstream services inexperienced in dealing with refugee-​background communities, lack of access to ethno-​ specific goods and services, and pervasive rural imaginaries that mark non-​ White settlers as out of place and compound experiences of interpersonal and institutional discrimination (McDonald et al, 2008; Major et al, 2013; Edgeworth, 2015; Butler, 2020). Moreover, challenges facing rural and regional communities more generally, including limited education and employment opportunities, insufficient health and transport infrastructure, and issues of isolation, are exacerbated for people with refugee-​backgrounds. At the same time, rural and regional areas are often more affordable, and are generally perceived to be safe and quiet, with smaller communities and a spirit of ‘countrymindedness’ that encourages, in some places, high levels of informal support (Wilding and Nunn, 2018). While in the United Kingdom, austerity and deindustrialization of regional centres has severely impacted employment, many Australian resettlement sites additionally offer opportunities for unskilled work (Schech, 2014). The specific experiences of young people in rural and regional resettlement locations are under-​researched, impeding our ability to understand how refugee-​background and life stage intersect to present a distinct set of opportunities and challenges in these settings. With their propensity to more quickly adapt to the new cultural and linguistic context, and their compulsory engagement with the education system, young people are on the frontline of resettlement, often taking on additional responsibilities in their families and ethnic and wider communities as translators, educators and brokers (Correa-​Velez et al, 2010). This cultural and linguistic dexterity opens up opportunities for building social capital (Joyce and Liamputtong, 2017), but also exposes young people to structural and interpersonal discrimination, which Edgeworth (2015) suggests is exacerbated in rural settings by exclusionary discourses of rural Whiteness. Existing research –​primarily from Australia –​also highlights the education challenges facing young people. Educational and occupational trajectories –​ already affected by disrupted education, a new language and learning environment, health and wellbeing issues, and family responsibilities –​can be further hampered by under-​resourced rural education providers lacking experience in supporting refugee-​background students (Major et al, 2013; Joyce and Liamputtong, 2017). Moreover, the lack of skilled employment opportunities that drive youth outward migration from regional areas more generally (Cuervo, 2014) also impacts refugee-​background young people, who share with their non-​refugee-​background peers the additional challenges of limited and expensive transport, and limits to (some forms of) cultural and recreational access (Farrugia, 2014; Wernesjö, 2015; Sørensen and Pless, 2017). 98

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Refugee-​background youth and the natural environment Given that the natural environment is a distinguishing feature of the rural (Askins, 2009), its relative absence from the literature on rural and regional refugee resettlement is noteworthy. It is not, however, surprising given that the physical environment more generally is largely absent from most resettlement research and integration frameworks; concerns with place tending to focus on more obviously instrumental factors such as housing, safety and social connections (Ndofor-​Tar et al, 2019). This lack of attention to the physical environment generally, and the natural environment specifically, is comprehensible in the context of the significant structural, social and policy issues at play in refugee resettlement, as well as the dual imperative of refugee research to be both academically sound and policy relevant (Jacobsen and Landau, 2003). Yet we cannot underestimate the importance of place for those who have been forcibly displaced (Sampson and Gifford, 2010; Rishbeth et al, 2019). More than just a site of settlement, it is a ‘mutually constitutive relationship’ (Askins, 2009, p 369) with the capacity to either exaggerate or mitigate experiences of social exclusion (Spicer, 2008; Biglin, 2020). In this context, the role of the natural environment warrants further attention. A small but growing body of research is providing new insights into the roles that the natural environment can and does play in resettlement and asylum contexts (for example Rishbeth and Finney, 2006; Hurly and Walker, 2019; Kale, 2019; Rishbeth et al, 2019; Biglin, 2020). Primarily emerging out of studies of urban green space and visits to rural/​natural sites in the UK, it attends to affective, embodied, practical, historical and sociocultural engagements with place, and focuses in particular on the two interrelated dimensions of health and wellbeing and connections to the past. The health and wellbeing benefits of the natural environment are well established, including in relation to psychological wellbeing, cognitive function and physical health, as well as social and spiritual affordances (Keniger et al, 2013) –​benefits that are highly relevant to refugee-​background populations. Across a range of intensities of engagement, from one-​off touristic encounters to ongoing participation in activities such as walking and gardening, natural environments are experienced by many refugee-​background and asylum-​ seeking people as offering a sense of peace, happiness, relaxation, freedom and safety (Coughlan and Hermes, 2016; Hurly and Walker, 2019; Kale, 2019). An important aspect of this is how the natural environment can evoke memories and affects of past places (Rishbeth and Finney, 2006). This may reflect specific similarities between places, or a more general sensory and aesthetic resonance, such as through the ‘natural attributes’ of ‘fresh air, less development, fewer people, beautiful scenery, and peace and 99

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quiet’ (Askins, 2009, p 371). Rishbeth and Finney (2006) draw on Boym’s concept of restorative nostalgia to explore how these resonances can help people to integrate their past into the present and future, creating a sense of connectedness and continuity across time and place. Combined with other positive affects, these memories can additionally offer respite from the challenges of resettlement, providing ‘temporary relief from the unfamiliar and overwhelming places in which [refugee-​background settlers] may find themselves’ (Kale, 2019, p 5). For those with rural backgrounds, these natural environments can also provide the opportunity to re-​establish practical, sensuous, embodied and sociocultural connections through activities such as gardening and fishing (Coughlan and Hermes, 2016; Biglin, 2020). However, as relations to nature are mediated by personal experience, intersectional identities and cultural norms, not all individuals and communities establish these positive relations (Rishbeth and Finney, 2006; Hurly and Walker, 2019). Moreover, refugee-​background groups can experience barriers to accessing the natural environment including lack of time and resources, lack of knowledge, and lack of confidence and energy to travel (Rishbeth and Finney, 2006). In rural areas, there are also significant challenges relating to how refugee-​background and other minority populations are perceived; positive affective, embodied experiences of nature standing in tension with social constructions of the rural and the natural environment that situate (non-​indigenous) diversity as out of place (Askins, 2009; Edgeworth, 2015). Research on engagement with the natural environment among people with refugee backgrounds focuses overwhelmingly on adults, raising questions about how engagement with place generally, and the natural environment in particular, differs for refuge-​background young people. Sampson and Gifford (2010) suggest that a relationship to place is particularly important for these young people, many of whom have never visited –​or no longer remember –​their family’s homeland, having been born in exile or displaced as children. These young people are likely to have spent formative years in displacement in camps or urban settings in which they may have experienced a sense of belonging, but which often lack safety and security (Denov and Akesson, 2013). In their research on resettled young people in urban Australia, Sampson and Gifford draw attention to the value of green spaces and spaces of relaxation and restoration as ‘therapeutic landscapes’ that support the wellbeing of refugee background young people and aid recovery from the traumas of displacement. Safety is an important place quality identified by these young people (also in Denov and Akesson, 2013), along with the aesthetics of greenness, cleanliness, comfort, tranquillity and beauty (Sampson and Gifford, 2010). The forward-​looking orientation of young migrants (Rumbaut, 2004) may also mediate refugee background young people’s relationship with the natural 100

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environment, encouraging engagement with new and novel dimensions such as different aesthetics, scales, resources and practices (Rishbeth and Finney, 2006; Hurly and Walker, 2019). Additionally, their life stage as adolescents and young adults, with the concomitant processes of identity formation, opens up possibilities for establishing meaningful and ongoing relations to place (Denov and Akesson, 2013; Farrugia et al, 2016). There is little, if any, research on this process for refugee-​background young people in rural and regional settings. However, an emerging focus on place in rural youth studies demonstrates the relational, affective and embodied significance of rural places for young people’s recreational practices, aesthetics, feelings of comfort, peace and freedom, and embodied ‘proximities, speeds and spatio-​ temporal relations’ (Farrugia et al, 2016, p 129; also Cuervo and Wyn, 2017; Sørensen and Pless, 2017). Further, Keniger et al (2013, p 929) suggest that interactions with nature can ‘positively influence behaviour, academic performance and social skills in children’. These dimensions of the rural and natural environment offer additional benefits to refugee-​background young people during the resettlement process.

The Dispersed Belongings study: context and approach Dispersed Belongings is a cross-​national, participatory arts-​based study that explored (non)belonging among refugee-​background young people in regional resettlement sites in the United Kingdom and Australia. Conducted in 2016–2​ 017, Dispersed Belongings comprised two case studies: Karen young people settling in the Central Victorian city of Bendigo, Australia, and Syrian and Kurdish Syrian young people settling in the North East England local authority district of Gateshead. Bendigo is a regional city in Victoria, South East Australia, located within the local government area (LGA) of Greater Bendigo on the traditional lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungarong peoples, 150 kilometres north of Melbourne. The city of Bendigo is an important regional service and commercial centre and is surrounded by smaller towns, agricultural land and bushland. The 2019 population estimate for the LGA was just over 118,000. At the 2016 census, 8 per cent of the population were born overseas, compared to 26 per cent nationally (.idcommunity, 2021). Bendigo began settling Karen refugees in 2007, and the Karen population has since risen to approximately 2,500, with refugees from countries including Afghanistan and Sudan also increasingly resettled in the region. Karen refugees are originally from Burma,2 where they are a persecuted minority, and are resettled from refugee camps on Thailand’s border with Burma via Australia’s offshore refugee and humanitarian visa scheme. In Bendigo, eight young people (five female, three male) were recruited to the Dispersed Belongings project with support from the Karen Organisation of Bendigo and Bendigo Community 101

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Health Services. They were aged between 15 and 24 years and had lived in Australia for between one and nine years, arriving aged between seven and 20 years. Gateshead is a large town and borough in North East England. While the town of Gateshead is located just across the river from the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, the borough is part of the Tyne and Wear greenbelt and two thirds of it is rural, including agricultural land and woodlands (CPRE, 2018). The population at the 2011 census was just over 200,000, with almost 5 per cent born outside the United Kingdom, compared to almost 14 per cent nationally (Gateshead Council, 2021). From 2015 to 2020, the borough of Gateshead participated in the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, pledging to settle 550 Syrians and Kurdish Syrians. Gateshead Council Resettlement Team and GemArts, a culturally diverse arts organization, supported the recruitment of 16 Syrian and Kurdish Syrian young people (four female, 12 male) for the research project. They were aged between 15 and 24 and had lived in Gateshead for between three and 15 months, having been resettled from displaced populations in Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt. The project utilized the conceptual framework of (non)belonging to explore young people’s experiences of regional resettlement. (Non)belonging is an enabling concept within and across youth studies and refugee studies (Cuervo and Wyn, 2017; Nunn, 2017) that captures the ‘dynamic process of establishing, maintaining, and transforming relations with and attachments to people, places, activities, and institutions’ (Nunn, 2018, p 5). As a relational concept, it attends to multidirectional processes of engagement and exclusion –​and the politics that govern them –​across multiple, intersecting scales and contexts (Antonsich, 2010; Yuval-​Davis, 2011). Further, it enables us to explore different modes of (non)belonging, including formal, practical, affective, embodied, historical, sociocultural and ethical attachments (Nunn, 2014). While the concept is most often utilized to address positive belongings, the ‘non’ applied in this chapter is critical to acknowledging the spectrum of positive and negative relations –​both chosen (or rejected) and imposed (or withheld) –​and their variations in intensity (Nunn, 2017). Participatory arts-​based research is an apt approach for studying (non) belonging –​the participatory ethos supporting youth-​led articulation and exploration of ideas and experiences, and artistic forms of inquiry providing sensitive tools for engaging with affective and embodied experience: critical dimensions of (non)belonging (O’Neill, 2010; Nunn, 2014). In both Bendigo and Gateshead, youth artist-​researchers worked with local artists to produce artworks that engaged with their sense of (non)belonging in and beyond their resettlement location. Art forms were selected based on young people’s interests, and resulting artworks were presented at local events attended by leaders and members of local, ethnic, artistic and 102

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academic communities. Additional qualitative data about (non)belonging was generated through participatory reflective circles, researcher observations, artist diaries and interviews with youth artist-​researchers pre-​and post-​ art project. In Gateshead, given the recent arrival of many young people, communication throughout the project was supported by interpreters. Inductive and deductive analysis of data using NVivo software revealed the following broad spheres of refugee-​background youth (non)belonging: family, ethnic community and culture; religion; friendship and recreation; local community and place; education and employment; homeland and countries of asylum; and resettlement country. In relation to local communities and places, while discrimination and exclusion were common, home and neighbourhood, shopping precincts, educational and recreational settings, and cultural and religious venues were identified by some as spheres of belonging. Significantly, while the role of the natural environment was not explicitly addressed in the research, it emerged widely, and repeatedly, in the data, and featured in several artworks.

(Non)belonging in the natural environment First encounters For newly arrived refugee-​b ackground young people, the physical environment is one of the first spheres of engagement with their new home. While relations with people, activities and institutions are often initially impeded by linguistic and cultural barriers, visual, auditory, olfactory and somatosensory encounters with the natural environment can elicit sensuous, embodied and affective experiences of (non)belonging. These encounters can be both alienating and comforting. For many of the Syrian and Kurdish Syrian young people in the Dispersed Belongings study, their first impression of North East England related to the weather: “Cold. It was so cold” (Aman3). For some, the weather was perceived to negatively affect –​or perhaps reflect –​their emotions. “I felt uncomfortable”, Karam confessed. “[C]‌oming to a new place, and the rain, and missing my friends.” The environment can also contribute to a more general sense of alienation. As Lah Htoo said of her arrival in Bendigo: “at first I feel really depressed because the weather, and then the country, the situation, and the environment is very changed for us. … At that time I don’t know how to adapt [to] the culture or environment and everything in Australia.” For others, aspects of the natural environment facilitated a sense of connection. Amira arrived in Gateshead in Spring, a time when the towns and countryside of North East England are covered in flowers: in fields and parks, on verges, and in baskets and boxes on high streets. Amira, who loves watching nature, and particularly flowers, was struck by the variety 103

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and colour. With her mother, she immediately began planning to research and grow some. While the specific flowers in Gateshead were different to those that Amira had previously encountered, they nonetheless provided her with a sense of continuity, facilitating a sensuous connection and enabling her to engage in familiar practices. We can understand this experience as trans-​rural belonging. Trans-​rurality, as conceived by Askins (2009), recognizes that rural places are located within ‘multicultural, multiethnic, transnational and mobile social Imaginaries’ (Askins, 2009, p 366). It situates specific rural and natural places as ‘part of a range of networks –​one “nature site” in a web of national “nature places”, as well as one rural in an international chain of rurals –​specifically via values attached to notions of nature’ (Askins, 2009, p 366). While place belonging is often understood as the product of autochthonous or long-​term residence (Yuval-​Davis, 2011), trans-​rural belonging enables us to attend to transnational, mobile connections to the natural environment that exceed the duration of settlement. Prior belonging to other rural and natural places can facilitate practical, sociocultural, affective, sensuous and embodied connections to new rural and natural places, providing valuable resources for establishing a sense of belonging. For refugee-​background young people, for whom social exclusion commonly presents a barrier to belonging (Correa-​ Velez et al, 2010), trans-​rural belonging provides a resource for establishing a meaningful connection to their new home.

‘A quiet place’ Dispersed Belongings youth artist-​researchers described their resettlement locations as quiet, safe, clean and beautiful. While such descriptions evoke naïve images of the rural idyll, there are several reasons why we should regard these as more than direct reproductions of Western discourses. Crucially –​ especially in early resettlement –​these places are experienced in relation to the places young people lived pre-​migration; camps and urban settings that in many cases were busy and dangerous, and in contrast to which regional settings in the UK and Australia might well be viewed as idyllic. Moreover, as Sampson and Gifford (2010) found, place characteristics such as quiet, safe, clean and beautiful are experienced by refugee-​background young people as more than just aesthetic; providing therapeutic landscapes that support wellbeing. Additionally, according to Farrugia et al (2016), such discursive tropes are deployed by young people more generally as resources for expressing hard-​to-​describe affective and embodied relations to rural places. The most common descriptor for both Bendigo and Gateshead –​ overwhelmingly viewed as a positive –​was ‘quiet’ and ‘peaceful’. Reflecting a tendency among the young people in this study to draw connections between the features of the natural environment and of the rural more 104

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generally, this peace and quiet was understood as both an aural quality of place and a related absence of busyness and drama. Fifteen-​year-​old Wah Poe articulated these multiple resonances: “Bendigo is a quiet place, there’s not much going on. I like that … I like quiet places because it doesn’t give me headaches.” “I sound old!” she joked, though this joke belies the significance of peace and quiet for young people growing up in conflict and displacement. In Gateshead, Majid similarly stated: “I like the quiet”, recalling how his hometown in Syria “was noisy because of the war”. A second widely valued characteristic of both Bendigo and Gateshead was the aesthetics of the landscape. Of Gateshead, Aman commented: “It’s beautiful here: the nature, the green spaces”, while in relation to Bendigo, Wah Poe said “I like the environment and the scenery around”. More than just a pleasant backdrop and aesthetic preference, even indirect and incidental engagement with such landscapes can have therapeutic benefits (Sampson and Gifford, 2010; Keniger et al, 2013). For refugee-​background young people, they can provide a reprieve not only from past experiences of forced migration and displacement, but also from the stresses and challenges of resettlement. This was the case for Ishaq. Ishaq was 14 when he arrived in Gateshead with his family. Prior to that he had spent around three years displaced in Lebanon. He is an optimistic young man who, less than two years into settlement, could already communicate in English and was eager to build his future. However, the social context of resettlement presented many challenges. He attended a school where racism was endemic and where teachers had little control over students. And even on his street he faced hostility: “the people around in that area, you know, who are the same age of mine, they are not friendly. They spit, so I ignore them”. Ishaq’s street runs along the side of a hill, with views across the suburbs to rolling green farmland. This landscape, viewed from the safety of his home, provided a respite from the challenges of settlement: “When I come back at the evening, I stand at my window. I like to watch the nice views … because we do have nice views in our house where we live. It seems to me we have the same views [of a mountain] in Syria.” This moment of evening stillness is a sharp contrast to the intensity and unpredictability of social relations that Ishaq experienced in his daily life. Its resonance with a remembered view provided a sense of restorative nostalgia (Rishbeth and Finney, 2006); an affective connection to the natural environment that was also a reprieve from the sociocultural complexities of place.

Trans-​rural belonging In Bendigo, N.C. similarly articulated the resonance of the past in the present, expressing the affective experience of embodied presence in nature. Standing by a lake in Bendigo, N.C. captured this feeling in a video diary: 105

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‘When I feel the wind, or the fresh air, hitting my face, I feel like this takes me back many, many, years ago to my home country … I mean, we don’t see a lot of birds and ducks [in my country] because a lot of people will kill it, but all the trees, all the water, and fresh air … it just feels really peaceful and calm. … I can really feel a connection here.’ In Dispersed Belongings, N.C. worked with local artist Julie Andrews to express this trans-​rural connection to the natural world –​of Bendigo and his homelands –​through an installation/​projection piece entitled ‘Wings, Tethers and Anchors’ (Figure 5.1). The artwork was inspired by N.C.’s memories of making and flying kites in the refugee camp where he grew up, and by the role the natural environment plays in connecting Karen people to Bendigo. The work consisted of three kites made using the same technique N.C. used in the camp as a child. Projected onto one of the kites were photographs N.C. had taken in Bendigo and on a recent return visit to Thailand and Burma, interspersed with video of N.C. flying the kites around the Bendigo area. The sense of belonging that N.C. invests in the kites both transcends and traverses Bendigo, the tails of the kites trailing photographs of multiple places, united for N.C. in their natural beauty (see Figure 5.1). N.C. was born in Burma and grew up in a camp on the Thai–​Burma border. At the time of the project, he had lived in Bendigo for around five years. He had a positive settlement experience there after comparatively difficult experiences living in the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne; places which, significantly, are absent from the artwork. For N.C., rural Burma, the camp on the Thai–​Burma border and Bendigo constitute an imaginary of trans-​rural continuity, the ruptures of multiple migrations and transitions smoothed over by the affective and aesthetic circulation of air, water, trees and sunsets. Unlike those who are displaced as adults, refugee-​background young people like N.C. have not necessarily experienced unconditional belonging in a place. This is especially true for Karen young people, many of whom were born in refugee camps or left Burma as infants. A sense of trans-​rural belonging in the natural environment can provide a valuable sense of continuity, and lay the foundation for a more generalized sense of belonging in their new home.

Practising belonging In addition to affective and sensuous engagements with place, some young people in the study –​and especially those from rural backgrounds –​highlighted the importance of practical engagement with the natural environment, particularly through subsistence activities such as growing vegetables and fishing. In addition to the practical benefit of producing food –​including particular fruits and vegetables that are difficult to obtain outside of culturally 106

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Figure 5.1: Wings, tethers and anchors (detail), N.C.

diverse urban settings –​such practices support a sense of belonging to the resettlement site by ‘re-​creating and re-​experiencing rhythms of the past through an embodied and sensory engagement with material objects and social activity’ (Ho et al, 2011, p 711; see also Coughlan and Hermes, 2016; Biglin, 2020). Many Karen people in Bendigo, including young people, produce food such as fruit and vegetables, eggs and chicken. The Karen Youth Organization of Bendigo have put this to wider use, partly funding their activities by growing vegetables and selling them in the community; a continuation of practices of self-​sufficiency from refugee camps in Thailand, where vegetable plots were used to augment donated food. In both Bendigo and Gateshead, fishing was also practised by some young people. Ishaq never used to fish in Syria –​they lived too far from the coast –​but he did hunt: “I was hunting birds … I was the one who was building the trap … And always 107

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succeeded.” In Gateshead, he adapted his practice to fishing, travelling to the nearby seaside town of South Shields to fish with his father. He identified this as one of his favourite places. He and his father would throw in their fishing lines and “listen to music, have a cup of tea, and enjoy the time”. For Ishaq, fishing thus facilitated sociocultural belonging. It provided an opportunity to spend time with his father, and enabled them to share their catch with friends, strengthening reciprocal relationships in the nascent Syrian community. In addition to these traditional subsistence practices, young artist-​ researchers discussed engaging in a range of recreational practices in the natural environment such as playing football in parks, going for walks, swimming at the beach and canoeing. Such activities can foster skills, interests and networks that present possibilities for new ways of belonging in local places and youth communities (Rishbeth and Finney, 2006; Hurly and Walker, 2019). Safety –​widely identified by youth artist-​researchers as a valued aspect of place –​is an important condition for this (Wernesjö, 2015). In Lebanon, Amira and her siblings “spent all of the time at home”, due to the threat of terrorist activities and other forms of violence and persecution. Her mother, intervening in the research interview, which she attended with her daughter, stressed the difference in Gateshead for her children. “Here, especially for the children, they have more freedom than there. They can move; they can walk to the parks.” For the Karen young people, freedom of movement was also critical given how it was constrained during their detainment in camps in Thailand. Moreover, the safety of Bendigo was contrasted with their knowledge of urban resettlement sites that are often perceived as risky for young people. Eh Tah spoke of “crazy young people” who “didn’t study, they are just drunk”, and “people are fighting”. Similarly, N.C. contrasted his experience in Bendigo to his first resettlement location, in Sydney: ‘So, we walk and it’s pretty safe. … We just pop out, walk along [Lake] Weeroona. There’s a lot of people sometimes late in the afternoon, with kids and families having a barbecue. It’s really safe, really safe community. No one will yell at you, give you the middle finger like that. … I feel a lot safer compared to Sydney.’ N.C.’s account draws attention to the role that people play in constituting natural environments, as well as how these places function as sites for negotiating sociocultural and interpersonal relations (Massey, 2005). Recreational practices at the lake, and the demographics of those engaging in them (that is, families), can be understood to mark it as a safe space. Moreover, participating alongside other locals in these practices opens up opportunities for encounter, and can contribute to a wider sense of local belonging. 108

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Resources for belonging Being located in a regional city does not necessarily mean that young people can easily engage with the nature that surrounds them. This depends on having access to financial, linguistic, sociocultural and informational resources, including knowing where places are, how to get there, and the norms and rules that govern how and by whom they are used. Thus, while all youth artist-​researchers had indirect and incidental engagements with nature, especially in the early period of resettlement, not all were able to engage more intentionally, or intensely, through visits to places and participation in activities. This was due in many cases to a lack of knowledge of where to go and how to engage with these places, as well as limited mobility due to reliance on public transport that is at times unreliable, sporadic and expensive. When Eh Tah first arrived in Bendigo he felt isolated. Without a car he ‘can’t go anywhere’ and spent his time ‘just looking at the sky, and when I see the plane [think about] going home’. Driving is critical for many rural young people (Culliney, 2014), and more so for those from refugee-​ backgrounds, many of whom are the first in their family to obtain a drivers’ licence. For Eh Tah, getting his licence not only enabled him to travel to his job, but also to visit ‘beautiful places’ –​something he often did after work and on weekends. Of particular significance to him was a mountain range an hour from Bendigo. This place, which he first visited on a tour run by a local Karen Buddhist organization, made him feel “happy” and “beautiful”. In Gateshead, Asaad was similarly able to access a new place through his participation in a local organization –​in his case, the college where he was learning English. Early in the Dispersed Belongings project, Asaad was having a difficult time. He was caring for elderly, unwell parents and unhappy with the accommodation they were living in. In workshops, he was generally quiet and withdrawn, until one week when he appeared very animated. Excitedly, he pulled out his phone to show us some photos from a visit to a local historic property. The photographs were all of the landscaped gardens. He was very impressed with their beauty, and particularly with the use of flowers to create words and images. Inspired by this English practice, he went on to create artworks using rose petals to write words in Arabic that communicated his feelings of (non)belonging (Figure 5.2). Both Eh Tah’s and Asaad’s experiences highlight the role that organizations and institutions can play in supporting refugee-​background young people to access and engage with the natural environment.

Politics of (non)belonging While many young people in the Dispersed Belongings study expressed a sense of belonging with/​in the natural environment, this was not experienced in 109

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Figure 5.2: Nostalgia for home, Asaad

isolation, but located within a broader sphere of local (non)belonging in which dominant imaginaries of a White rurality frequently position refugee-​ background young people as out of place (Askins, 2009; Edgeworth, 2015). In both Bendigo and Gateshead, this imaginary manifested in local politics of belonging that, while not always exclusionary, often perpetuated unequal power relations between long-​term locals and those from refugee-​backgrounds (Wilding and Nunn, 2018). Many young people experienced positive engagements with local communities, institutions and activities, including ethno-​cultural networks, informal sports activities and refugee support services. At the same time, however, they were subject to a range of structural and interpersonal exclusions, incivilities and hostilities that included the tendency for people to centre young people’s ethnicity/​refugee-​background as their primary identity, poor quality and insufficient services, and direct challenges to their belonging –​even from those whose job it was to support them. Laymu, a young woman from Bendigo, recounts one such instance: “the teacher told me that I’m Asian, come from a refugee background, and that I came here to get a citizenship and get money from government”. Belonging in the natural environment cannot protect young people from such challenges to their local belonging. It can, however, present a challenge

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to the White rural imaginary. Attending to refugee-​background young people’s (non)belongings with/​in the natural environment enables us to tell different stories about rural and regional places and trans-​rural connections, and thus contribute to more diverse, inclusive –​and accurate –​narratives of ethnicity and rurality (Askins, 2009).

Conclusion Belonging with/​in the natural environment is not a panacea for the myriad challenges of (non)belonging in rural and regional settings, nor for addressing the politics that structure these relations. It is, however, a valuable –​and valued –​resource for refugee-​background young people. It can provide a therapeutic and restorative environment in which to recover from the traumas of forced migration; provide sanctuary from the stresses of resettlement; foster connection to and continuity with the past; and support agency and independence in the present. It can additionally provide the context for building connections with local communities, activities and institutions. In these ways, establishing a sense of belonging with/​in the natural environment can provide young people with a strong foundation for establishing meaningful and ongoing relations with/​in local places and for pursuing desired futures. This critical aspect of refugee-​background young people’s (non)belonging has been largely overlooked in resettlement research, policy and practice to date. While this is a significant gap in relation to rural and regional resettlement –​where there is often the potential for sustained, intensive engagement with/​in the natural environment –​it is just as critical for urban resettlement, where access to this valuable resource for belonging may be more limited. Recognizing the role of the natural environment in young people’s lives demands that we broaden our understanding of resettlement and integration beyond instrumental measures, to attend not only to these environments but also, more generally, to affective, embodied dimensions of experience. In doing so we can gain a richer understanding of the lives of refugee-​background young people. Acknowledgements This research was funded by a Marie Skłodowska-​Curie actions/​Durham University COFUND International Junior Research Fellowship. It was conducted in partnership with the Karen Organisation of Bendigo, Bendigo Community Health Services, City of Greater Bendigo Arts and Culture, Gem Arts and Gateshead Council. Thank you to all of the artist mentors, and especially to the youth artist-​researchers.

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Notes 1

2

3

Offshore resettlement schemes involve refugees living in a country of asylum being identified for resettlement, usually by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and offered permanent protection in a third country. While Burma was officially renamed Myanmar in 1989, the young people and their community continue to use its former name, Burma. This preference is honoured here. Throughout this chapter, youth artist-​researchers have been given pseudonyms, with the exception of those whose artworks are featured, who have elected to be identified by their first name/​initials.

References Antonsich, M. (2010) ‘Searching for belonging: An analytical framework’, Geography Compass, 4(6): 644–​659. Askins, K. (2009) ‘Crossing divides: Ethnicity and rurality’, Journal of Rural Studies, 25(4): 365–​375. Australian Government (2020) Safe Haven Enterprise Visa, Department of Home Affairs. Available from https://​immi.home​affa​irs.gov.au/​visas/​gett​ ing-​a-​visa/​visa-​list​ing/​safe-​haven-​ent​erpr​ise-​790 Biglin, J. (2020) ‘Embodied and sensory experiences of therapeutic space: Refugee place-​making within an urban allotment’, Health & Place, 62: 1–​8. Butler, R. (2020) ‘Youth, mobilities and multicultures in the rural Anglosphere: Positioning a research agenda’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(16): 63–​82. Correa-​Velez, I., Gifford, S.M. and Barnett, A.G. (2010) ‘Longing to belong: Social inclusion and wellbeing among youth with refugee backgrounds in the first three years in Melbourne, Australia’, Social Science and Medicine 71(8): 1399–​1408. Coughlan, R. and Hermes, S.E. (2016) ‘The palliative role of green space for Somali Bantu women refugees in displacement and resettlement’, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 14(2): 141–​155. CPRE (2018) Tyne and Wear Green Belt, Campaign to Protect Rural England. Available at: https://​www.cpre.org.uk/​wp-​cont​ent/​uplo​ads/​2019/​11/​ Tyne​_​fac​tshe​et_​2​018.pdf Cuervo, H. (2014) ‘Critical reflections on youth and equality in the rural context’, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(4): 544–​557. Cuervo, H. and Wyn, J. (2017) ‘A longitudinal analysis of belonging: Temporal, performative and relational practices by young people in rural Australia’, YOUNG, 25(3): 219–​234. Culliney, M. (2014) ‘Going nowhere? Rural youth labour market opportunities and obstacles’, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 22(1): 45–​57. Denov, M. and Akesson, B. (2013) ‘Neither here nor there? Place and placemaking in the lives of separated children’, International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, 9(2): 56–​70. 112

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Edgeworth, K. (2015) ‘Black bodies, white rural spaces: Disturbing practices of unbelonging for “refugee” students’, Critical Studies in Education, 56(3): 351–​365. Farrugia, D. (2014) ‘Towards a spatialised youth sociology: The rural and the urban in times of change’, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(3): 293–​307. Farrugia, D., Smyth, J. and Harrison, T. (2016) ‘Affective topologies of rural youth embodiment’, Sociol Ruralis, 56(1): 116–​132. Gateshead Council (2021) Census 2011. Available from: https://​www.gatesh​ ead.gov.uk/m ​ edia/​7922/​Gatesh​ead-​equal​ity-p​ rof​i le/p​ df/0​ 6_E ​ qual​ itie​ s_P ​ ​ rofi​le_​M​ay_​2​019.pdf?m=​636​9359​8577​9700​000 Gilhooly, D. and Lee, E. (2017) ‘Rethinking urban refugee resettlement: A case study of one Karen community in rural Georgia, USA’, International Migration, 55: 37–​55. Ho, L.E. and Hatfield, E. (2011) ‘Migration and everyday matters: Sociality and materiality’, Population, Space and Place, 17: 707–​713. Home Office (2017) Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS): Guidance for Local Authorities and Partners. Available from: https://​ asse​ ts.publ​ ishi​ ng.servi​ ce.gov.uk/g​ ove​ rnme​ nt/u ​ ploa​ ds/s​ yst​ em/u ​ ploa​ ds/a​ tta​ chmen ​ t_d​ a​ ta/fi ​ le/​631​369/​170711_​Syrian_​Resettleme​nt_​Up​ dat​ed_​Fa​ ct_​ Shee​t_​fi​nal.pdf Hudson, C. and Sandberg, L. (2021) ‘Contested hope for the future: Rural refugee reception as municipal survival?’, Journal of Rural Studies, 82: 121–​129. Hurly, J. and Walker, G.J. (2019) ‘ “When you see nature, nature give you something inside”: The role of nature-​based leisure in fostering refugee well-​being in Canada’, Leisure Sciences, 41(4): 260–​277. .idcommunity (2021) City of Greater Bendigo Community Profile. Available from: https://​prof​i le.id.com.au/​bend​igo/​bir​thpl​ace Jacobsen, K. and Landau, L.B. (2003) ‘The dual imperative in refugee research: Some methodological and ethical considerations in social science research on forced migration’, Disasters, 27(3): 185–​206. Joyce, L. and Liamputtong, P. (2017) ‘Acculturation stress and social support for young refugees in regional areas’, Children and Youth Services Review, 77: 18–​26. Kale, A. (2019) ‘Building attachments to places of settlement: A holistic approach to refugee wellbeing in Nelson, Aotearoa New Zealand’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 65: 1–​8. Keniger, L.E., Gaston, K.J., Irvine, K.N. and Fuller, R.A. (2013) ‘What are the benefits of interacting with nature?’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 10(3): 913–​935. Krivokapic-​Skoko, B. and Collins, J. (2016) ‘Looking for rural idyll “down under”: International immigrants in rural Australia’, International Migration, 54: 167–​179. 113

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Major, J., Wilkinson, J., Langat, K. and Santoro, N. (2013) ‘Sudanese young people of refugee background in rural and regional Australia: Social capital and education success’, Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 23(3): 95–​105. Massey, D. (2005) For Space, Thousand Oaks: Sage. McDonald, B., Gifford, S.M., Webster, K., Wiseman, J. and Casey, S. (2008) Refugee Resettlement in Regional and Rural Victoria: Impacts and Policy Issues, Melbourne: VicHealth. Ndofor-​Tar, C., Strang, A., Phillimore, J., Morrice, L., Michael, L., Wood, P. and Simmons, J. (2019) Home Office Indicators of Integration Framework 2019, Home Office Research Report 109. https://a​ sse​ ts.publ​ ishi​ ng.servi​ ce. gov.uk/​gov​ernm​ent/​uplo​ads/​sys​tem/​uplo​ads/​atta​chme​nt_​d​ata/​file/​835​ 573/​home-​off​i ce-i​ ndi​ cato ​ rs-o ​ f-i​ nteg​ rati​ on-f​ ramew​ork-​2019-​horr​109.pdf Nunn, C. (2014) ‘Introduction: The belonging issue’, New Scholar: An International Journal of the Humanities, Creative Arts and Social Sciences, 3(1). Nunn, C. (2017) ‘Negotiating national (non)belongings: Vietnamese Australians in ethno/​multicultural Australia’, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 24(2): 216–​235. Nunn, C. (2018) Dispersed Belongings: Experiences of Young Forced Migrants in Regional Cities in the United Kingdom and Australia. Report to Project Partners, Manchester: Manchester Centre for Youth Studies. O’Neill, M. (2010) Asylum, Migration and Community, Bristol: Policy Press. Rishbeth, C. and Finney, N. (2006) ‘Novelty and nostalgia in urban greenspace: Refugee perspectives’, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 97(3): 281–​295. Rishbeth, C., Blachnicka-​Ciacek, D. and Darling, J. (2019) ‘Participation and wellbeing in urban greenspace: “Curating sociability” for refugees and asylum seekers’, Geoforum, 106: 125–​134. Rumbaut, R.G. (2004) ‘Ages, life stages, and generational cohorts: Decomposing the immigrant first and second generations in the United States’, International Migration Review, 38(3): 1160–​1205. Sampson, R. and Gifford, S. (2010) ‘Place-​making, settlement and well-​ being: The therapeutic landscapes of recently arrived youth with refugee backgrounds’, Health & Place, 16(1): 116–​131. Schech, S. (2014) ‘Silent bargain or rural cosmopolitanism? Refugee settlement in regional Australia’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(4): 601–​618. Sørensen, N.U. and Pless, M. (2017) ‘Living on the periphery of youth: Young people’s narratives of youth life in rural areas’, YOUNG, 25(4S): 1S–​17S. Spicer, N. (2008) ‘Places of exclusion and inclusion: Asylum-​seeker and refugee experiences of neighbourhoods in the UK’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34(3): 491–​510.

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Stewart, E.S. (2012) ‘UK dispersal policy and onward migration: Mapping the current state of knowledge’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 25(1): 25–​49. Wernesjö, U. (2015) ‘Landing in a rural village: Home and belonging from the perspectives of unaccompanied young refugees’, Identities, 22(4): 451–​467. Wilding, R. and Nunn, C. (2018) ‘Non-​metropolitan productions of multiculturalism: Refugee settlement in rural Australia’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(14): 2542–​2560. Yuval-​Davis, N. (2011) The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations, London: Sage.

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Bright Lights, No City: Investigating Young People’s Suburban and Rural Drinkscapes Laura Fenton, Claire Markham and Samantha Wilkinson1

Introduction Geographies of young people’s leisure in late capitalism have typically focused on urban centres, with suburban and rural areas often cast as places to ‘escape from’, to participate in the vibrant night-​time economy of the metropolis. This chapter mobilizes sociological and geographical analyses of young people’s drinking practices and experiences in suburban and rural England to explore how young people located beyond global cities creatively navigate shifting conditions of possibility and constraint shaping their opportunities to socialize. The chapter draws on qualitative research conducted by two of the authors to explore young people’s drinking practices in the suburbs of Manchester, and in rural villages in Lincolnshire. We pay particular attention to how young people craft and experience ‘drinkscapes’2 –​that is, places in which alcohol is consumed –​and to the role of classed and other socio-​spatial processes of exclusion in the creation and experience of such places. Suburban and rural drinkscapes offer distinct drinking experiences; in this chapter we argue that the material cultures and sensual atmospheres of these drinkscapes have the ability to both allure and repel young people. Drinking alcohol is a sensory, embodied practice; this is something that is receiving growing scholarly attention (for example Thurnell-​ Read, 2011; Wait and De Jong, 2014). Similarly, placemaking is also a phenomenon characterized by sensory engagements with material objects and environments. Pink (2008) contends that human practices of everyday life, performance and imagination are implicated in producing material and sensory realities, and a phenomenological ‘sense of place’. Drawing 116

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on two separate studies, this chapter engages with what it means to be a young person participating in drinking rituals in a context of relative spatial marginality. Indeed, the contemporary geographical imaginary of alcohol consumption tends to be one of a city centre issue (Holloway et al, 2008), typified by a large body of work on the night-​time economy (for example Chatterton and Hollands, 2002; Hollands, 2002; Roberts, 2006), in which the drinkscapes of bars, pubs and clubs in city centres have received the most attention. Consequently, the specificities of suburban indoor and outdoor drinking cultures are poorly understood (Townshend, 2013), and rural youth drinking cultures have similarly received far less attention in recent research. By investigating young people’s drinking practices and experiences in bars, pubs and homes in suburban settings, and in the ‘village pub’ in rural contexts, this chapter responds to gaps in the literature and goes some way towards redressing this bias. In exploring suburban drinking cultures, we demonstrate that young people use their perception of the ‘classed other’ (Sutton, 2009), along with their engagement with the material culture and sensual atmosphere of spaces, to justify socio-​spatial processes of inclusion and exclusion from suburban drinkscapes. Our analysis of young people’s drinking practices in rural communities similarly demonstrates how socio-​ spatial, sensory and material elements of village pubs create conditions for both a sense of belonging and a desire to flee.

The spatial, material and sensory turns in studies of youth and alcohol Spanning the fields of alcohol and drug research, recent work on intoxication has sought to move away from treating space and place as passive backgrounds. Instead, it pays attention to how drinking spaces and places shape practices (for example Wilkinson, 2017), and how the body and sensation are crucial to how and why alcohol and other drugs are consumed (for example Lyons et al, 2014). Youth researchers have similarly engaged with how spaces, materialities and sensations are key to the analysis of young people’s lives. Young people’s engagements with built environments for alcohol consumption, principally commercial drinking establishments like pubs and nightclubs, have been a key focus of the literature on young people’s drinking (for example Chatterton and Hollands, 2002; Hollands, 2002; Roberts, 2006). These studies are usually set within the night-​time economies of cities and large towns and focus on urban drinkscapes. Yet, suburban and rural settings provide particular resources, opportunities and constraints that young people collectively fashion into distinct drinkscapes. How young people engage these resources, opportunities and constraints, and the drinkscapes that are produced through these engagements, require careful attention. 117

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The spatial ‘turn’ in the social sciences has involved a reworking of the notion and significance of spatiality, highlighting that geography is intimately involved in the construction of social relations and must not be relegated to an afterthought (Warf and Arias, 2008). Massey (2004) is a key thinker here, proposing a relational approach to space and place. She contends that places are spaces for meeting and sharing (Massey, 2004). By ‘meeting’, Massey (2004, p 3) means that there is a necessity of negotiating across and among difference ‘the implacable spatial fact of shared turf ’. By ‘sharing’, Massey (2004) argues that places (localities, regions, nations) are necessarily the location of the intersection of disparate trajectories. Space, materiality and sensation are intertwined in crucial respects. Suburban and rural contexts provide different kinds of spaces for young people to drink; these material environments are largely distinct from the kinds of spaces characteristic of the night-​time economies of city centres. The material world ‘acts’ on us in and through the senses. As Merleau-​Ponty (2002 [1945]) argues, the senses are experienced in unison, and the body is experienced in motion. More recently, following the material turn, scholars have become particularly interested in how the more-​than-​human world ‘acts’ on humans, and the indivisibility of the two (Latour, 2004). Drawing inspiration from actor-​ network theory, the notion of ‘assemblage’ has been used to capture how agency is distributed across a range of human–​nonhuman relations. The concept of assemblages attends to the agency of interactions, along with the agency of component parts (McFarlane, 2011a). Further, assemblages are not solely relations of stability and rigidity, but of excess, flux and transformation (McFarlane, 2011b). In their encounters with alcohol, young people in suburban and rural settings travel in, and through, different spaces with their attendant sensations and sensory atmospheres (Wilkinson and Wilkinson, 2017). Similar to assemblages, atmospheres emerge from the bringing together of different human and more-​than-​human elements (Shaw, 2014). The concept of atmosphere, however, tends to be more phenomenological in nature: atmospheres are understood as communicating feelings to those experiencing them (Bohme, 2013). Agency is also key, with people actively attempting to ‘stage’ atmospheres, for example through controlling lighting, in order to incite sensations and emotions (Bille et al, 2015). As Anderson (2009) argues, atmospheres are collectively coordinated and in that sense impersonal, but can also be experienced as deeply personal. In this chapter, we argue that the creation of sensory atmospheres with, and through, alcohol has a specific significance in suburban and rural settings. To summarize, while drinking spaces and places have typically been rendered passive backdrops to drinking (Jayne et al, 2008), we contend that an atmospheric assemblage perspective has potential to overcome this, by teasing out the spatial, emotional, embodied and affective atmospheres (Anderson, 2009) bound up with young people’s alcohol consumption practices. An 118

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affective atmosphere is best understood as a form of ‘placed assemblage’ (Shaw, 2014, p 87). A focus on atmospheres and assemblages draws attention to the multi-​sensorial ‘feel’ and experience of place, and how spaces and objects participate in the creation of places. As Mason (2018, p. 197) points out, multi-​sensory perception is crucial to the meanings attached to places, both as they are constituted in the present and when they are later animated in memory. In this chapter, we engage with a range of ‘atmos-​spheres’, to use Anderson’s (2009, p 8) phraseology –​a term which encapsulates that atmospheres are inherently spatial, surrounding people, things and environments. An atmospheric assemblage approach thus challenges static, homogeneous ontologies of place. Seen through this lens, place becomes slippery (Markusen, 1996) and relative (Cele, 2013). Drawing on these theoretical perspectives on space, materiality and atmospheric assemblages, we explore how drinkscapes bear the marks of the kinds of geographical spaces and places in which they are experienced by young people, who are themselves embedded in wider social and economic relations. While suburban drinkscapes are crafted in contexts characterized by a relative measure of choice and agency, the rural drinkscape of the village pub, with its class, age and gender hierarchies, provides more constrained opportunities for crafting atmospheres.

Young people’s engagements with drinkscapes Few studies have focused on suburban drinking practices and experiences. A notable exception is the work of MacLean and Moore (2014). Based on research across greater Melbourne, the authors utilize the notion of ‘assemblages’ to explore outer-​suburban people’s participation in the affectively charged spaces of inner-​city entertainment precincts to show that trouble in the night-​time economy cannot solely be attributed to alcohol and other drugs. According to MacLean and Moore (2014), for young people from outer-​suburbs being ‘hyped up’ in the inner-​city makes different sets of practices possible, particularly in relation to being open to new engagements with friends and sexual partners. However, participants in the study also articulate their concerns about discomfort, danger and fear. Violence was most likely to occur at points where young people felt a dissonance between their heightened affective states and the spaces in which they found themselves. Young people may feel suddenly out of place when denied entry to a club due to some perceived unsuitability, or emotionally drained when waiting for a taxi at the end of the night (MacLean and Moore, 2014). In both instances, there is a disconnect between their embodied drunkenness and the spaces they encounter. Young people are ‘hyped up’ to have a good time, but this contrasts with the discomfort and boredom they experience. Elements of assemblages thus have the potential to re-​constitute 119

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intoxication in potentially more problematic ways. Consequently, MacLean and Moore (2014) contend that outer-​suburban young people’s positioning within the assemblages of the city-​centre night-​time economy makes conflict and violence more likely for them. In line with how ‘the rural’ is treated more generally, young people’s engagement with rural drinkscapes has received limited scholarly attention. Valentine et al (2008) and Leyshon (2005, 2008a, 2008b) investigate how young people carve out identities among the dominant patriarchal cultures that prevail in public drinking places in rural communities. Village pubs are seen and sometimes experienced, often nostalgically, as a community hub where everyone openly interacts on a more or less equal footing (Markham, 2014). The reality, however, for some groups,3 including women and young people, has been markedly different. For these groups, age and gender hierarchies in established drinking norms mean that the village pub is a leisure site offering opportunities for sociability and for developing identities, but under conditions of constraint. Leyshon (2008a, p 289) explores how young people draw on established pub cultures and drinking practices to help them ‘produce, negotiate, and experience their identity’. In doing this, Leyshon (2005, 2008a, 2008b) shows the various ways in which this group can be included and excluded from rural pub spaces. This is reflected in the socio-​spatial organization of village pubs; different areas can be populated by different groups and, historically, class, age and gender have been significant to how the space of the village pub is organized and experienced. Thus, in contrast to the idealized view, village pubs have been public spaces of both social inclusion and exclusion (see Markham, 2014). Similarly, Valentine et al (2008) demonstrate how traditional cultural norms in rural spaces continue to shape the ways in which young people act here. A number of studies suggest that some young men feel the need to be able to demonstrate the skill of being able to consume large quantities of alcohol in order to be accepted by other pub-​goers (Leyshon, 2005, 2008a, 2008b; Valentine et al, 2008). Young men who do not conform to hegemonically masculine drinking practices can be excluded from spaces like the main bar (Leyson, 2008a). Further, young women’s expressions of normative femininities, including in relation to their drinking, are particularly scrutinized in rural pubs. Valentine et al (2008) found that gendered discourses on acceptable behaviour for women continues to influence the behaviour of young women when in rural drinking spaces. Female participants in their study vocalized feeling the need to behave in conservative ways, so as not to be judged by others as behaving improperly (Valentine et al, 2008, p 36). Despite these negative experiences, the village pub continues to be seen by many young people as a space for sociability and for developing their identities and networks (Leyshon, 2005, 2008b). 120

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In this sense, many young people have bought into the mythologized image of the village pub as an inclusive community hub. Having outlined our theoretical interests in atmospheric assemblages, and our substantive interests in rural and suburban drinking spaces, we now describe our case study locations.

The studies and their settings The empirical foundations of this chapter are two separate studies, conducted by two of the authors. First, Samantha Wilkinson’s research explored young people’s drinking practices and experiences. Forty young people, aged 15–​24, were invited to opt into a palette of methods, including individual or friendship group interviews; diaries; mobile phone methods; drawing-​ elicitation interviews; and participant observation. In analysing her data, Wilkinson adopted the manual method of coding, perceiving that computer-​ assisted qualitative data analysis can distance the researcher from the data (see Davis and Meyer, 2009). Following Miles and Huberman’s (1994) three-​stage model, a process of data reduction occurred, whereby she organized the mass of data and attempted to meaningfully reduce this by identifying key themes and sub-​themes. Participants feature in this chapter through pseudonyms, to conceal their identities. In order to contextualize quotations, genuine ages and locations are given. Samantha conducted her research in two suburbs of Manchester, Wythenshawe and Chorlton, which were chosen for their differing socioeconomic profiles and drinking micro-​geographies. Wythenshawe was created in the 1920s as a Garden City in an attempt to resolve Manchester’s overpopulation problem in its inner-​city ‘slums’. In the 1980s and 1990s, it experienced high unemployment, decaying infrastructure, crime and drug abuse problems (Atherton et al, 2005). Chorlton is a residential area approximately five miles from Manchester city centre. It is a cosmopolitan neighbourhood with family areas alongside younger communities. Chorlton has good road and bus access to the city centre, and is situated within easy access to the motorway network. Chorlton has a higher proportion of minority ethnic residents (19 per cent) in comparison to Wythenshawe and compared to the national average (11.3 per cent) (Manchester City Council, 2012). Second, Claire Markham’s research explored how rural inhabitants and connected actors perceive and experience the village pub (Markham, 2014). She conducted 66 in-​depth semi-​structured interviews with White British men and women in Lincolnshire, a rural county of England, between 2010 and 2013. These interviews allowed individuals to tell their own stories and explain what the village pub meant to them in terms of connections and experiences. Throughout the interviews, many participants, of all 121

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ages, reflected on their youth experiences of the village pub and rurality. Markham’s study made use of the Glaserian (1978, 1992) approach to data analysis. This involved a process of substantive and theoretical coding whereby the author coded and constantly compared the data, looking for categories and connections leading to the emergence of a theory. The research aimed to provide deeper insights into how the village pub is perceived and experienced. As we now explore in our analysis, young people’s drinking practices in the suburbs of Manchester and rural villages of Lincolnshire provide interesting and contrasting lenses on young people’s suburban and rural drinkscapes. The analysis was approached through identifying shared and divergent themes emerging from the two studies, a process facilitated by the first author. The findings of two studies were compared and contrasted for what they reveal about how young people encounter, participate in, avoid –​or even repudiate –​suburban and rural drinkscapes.

Creating suburban drinkscapes In this section, we move beyond the contemporary imaginary of drinking as a city-​centre issue (Holloway et al, 2008) to unpack diverse drinkscapes in the suburban areas of Wythenshawe and Chorlton in Manchester. In so doing, we demonstrate that young people use their perception of the ‘classed other’ (Sutton, 2009) along with their engagement with the material culture and sensual atmosphere of spaces, to justify socio-​spatial processes of inclusion and exclusion from suburban drinkscapes. Many young people from Chorlton, who were above the legal drinking age, identified distinct appeals to consuming alcohol in the commercial premises in the local area: ‘[Showing me a video of friends drinking in the outside seating area of a bar in Chorlton]. Bars round here are kind of, normally there’s somewhere to sit outside, and it’s also like … I don’t think you have to censor what you say when you’re outside. It’s a nicer feel. I think when you’re surrounded by people who only want to get drunk it can be like annoying, but in Chorlton people just wanna sit and have a chat and not cause a fuss. In Chorlton I either go to a bar with music and nice drinks or like a proper pub where I can get a pint and its quite quiet and warm, those are my favourites.’ (Louisa, 22, Chorlton, mobile phone interview) ‘Obviously in Chorlton, there are some like really cheap places, and … more expensive places, so sometimes that will play into it if we’re kind of a bit skint towards the end of the month, we’ll be like “ah, shall we go to The Marine [a pub] for a few”, or if money’s not a problem 122

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then there’s a few nicer bars where we choose to go, so maybe like [x]‌, or all the bars around [x] Road are quite nice. … But it’s nice to just wander along to a few different ones. You’re not really short of choice to be honest. But we also, yeah sometimes quite enjoy going into the more rough kind of pubs, like The Langham is like really rough, don’t ever go when football is on, you’ll just be like “ah, I’m going to get stabbed” [laughs]. But that’s where I go with my housemate because she quite likes old men’s pubs, whereas I like … bars and things. We go everywhere really, we don’t really stick to one kind of place just like “ah, let’s go here today, or let’s go there”.’ (Evie, 24, Chorlton, interview) In the first quote, Louisa describes the importance of specific elements, such as outdoor seating, in making commercial drinkscapes in Chorlton alluring. For Louisa, the ability to drink outside is liberating; because there is less of an audience when drinking outdoors, compared to indoors, she does not have to “censor” what she wishes to say. Louisa characterizes the clientele in Chorlton as people who “want to have a chat”. She explains that their aim is not for what Measham and Brain (2005, p 268) term ‘determined drunkenness’. Both Louisa and Evie highlight that the appeal of consuming alcohol in Chorlton is due to the diversity of commercial drinkscapes available. As Evie claims, Chorlton offers a range of cheap and expensive spaces, bars and pubs, and rough and un-​rough spaces. It is interesting that Evie does not necessarily equate “cheap places” as ‘good’ and “expensive places” as ‘bad’. Rather, she favours the ability to vary the spaces of her alcohol consumption practices; this can be influenced by external factors such as duration of time since pay day. Evie likewise does not consider “rough” spaces as somewhere to necessarily avoid. Rather, consuming alcohol in such spaces is something she proclaims to “enjoy” on occasion. For both Louisa and Evie then, suburban drinking is a diverse and heterogeneous practice, and there are clear classed spaces that they move between for their drinking experiences. In reflexively choosing between different spaces, these young women are selectively consuming classed spaces and atmospheres as well as alcohol. More commonly, many young people, from both Chorlton and Wythenshawe, articulated a variety of classed reasons why they did not enjoy consuming alcohol in bars, pubs and clubs in their local areas. Consider the following comments: ‘I go out in the Gay Village4 in town. It’s way cheaper and it’s just like easier. Like in Chorlton it’s like, it’s kind of busier as well, and everyone’s a little bit, not to be offensive, but everyone’s a little bit pretentious, and I’m like “really?”, like –​I don’t know. I think everyone just, not 123

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everyone –​that’s a really big generalization, but I think like there’s kind of like this air of everyone thinks that they’re like, I don’t know, a little bit kooky and special, but it’s not really my thing that.’ (Lucie, 24, Chorlton, interview) SW: Collin:

What do you think of the pubs in Wythenshawe? They’re not the best, there’s a few in Wythenshawe that are full of 16/​17-​year-​olds and you get a few that are your old men pubs, as you call them, others that are people who aren’t working that just sit there all day every day, shouting and swearing at people, so it’s not the nicest place to go for a drink. (Collin, 23, Wythenshawe, interview)

In the first quote, Lucie –​who earlier in the interview disclosed that she identifies as lesbian –​hints that Chorlton does not offer commercial gay spaces, choosing instead to access Manchester’s Gay Village.5 More than this though, Lucie expresses judgement about the kind of people that inhabit bars in Chorlton. Lucie comments on the “pretentious”, “kooky” and “special” people that frequent commercial premises in Chorlton, distancing herself from such traits. The notion that particular types of people can make commercial drinkscapes undesirable was also a theme in young people’s accounts of consuming alcohol in Wythenshawe, as exemplified in comments made by Collin, Scott and Olivia. According to Collin, Wythenshawe predominantly has ‘old man pubs’, which are often frequented by the unemployed, and are consequently seen as unappealing drinkscapes for young people. Collin expresses disapproval over the types of people drinking in such spaces by highlighting their auditory capacity to offend, as they “shout” and “swear”. In addition to expressing disapproval over certain types of people frequenting commercial premises, young people in Wilkinson’s study contend that encounters with material culture and sensual atmospheres have the ability to pull them out of place (see Taylor and Falconer, 2015): ‘Some of the bars here [points to a spot on the map] play their music so loud. I went to Walley’s [a bar] with my sister, couldn’t hear a word she was saying. Loud music, really expensive beer or alcohol in general, urm and if it’s too crowded … if it’s too crowded you can’t hear yourself think either, or it takes ages to get served and you get annoyed and want to leave. I just don’t like it. I think if it was slightly cheaper and a bit more friendlier … a lot of the bar staff working in it as well, they tend to be a bit up themselves, so you don’t really fit in. And I think they [Chorlton] could do with a nightclub. … The bars try and be quirky, and if you just want to go out for a drink with your girlfriend or whatever, you’re not arsed if it’s quirky, if they’ve 124

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got a lager from Beijing or whatever.’ (Tim, 19, Chorlton, drawing elicitation interview) ‘I went to that Tantra [pub] one once and that was well scary. It’s a bit council housey, council house people would go there I think. I just met some friends there once and yeah, it smelt like, you know like proper horrible lager. I can’t cope with it. I like pubs that smell like not like they’re pubs really, no I wouldn’t go somewhere like that.’ (Coral, 24, Chorlton, interview) Tim explains how the soundscape of a bar in Chorlton, combined with the high density of people, and expensive alcohol, leads to a feeling of ‘annoyance’, provoking him to want to leave this bar. Further, Coral describes the sensory atmosphere of a pub in Chorlton that accommodates what she describes as “council house people”. Coral exercises her ‘middle-​class gaze’ (Skeggs and Loveday, 2012, p 487) and reveals her anxieties about consuming alcohol in this pub through statements of symbolic distinction designed to hold the working class at a physical and metaphorical distance. Unlike these “council house people”, Coral is put off by the smell of the pub, and is thus secure in her boundaries that she is not them (see Taylor and Falconer, 2015). Smell, then, ‘is held to signal a dangerous proximity, which must then be guarded against, since to do otherwise would be to threaten the stability of middle-​class claims of respectability’ (Lawler, 2005, p 440). Here, middle-​classness relies on the expulsion and exclusion of working-​classness (Lawler, 2005). Placemaking practices are ‘at the same time “people-​making practices” ’ (Benson and Jackson, 2013; Ravn and Demant, 2017). Recognizing the problems with consuming alcohol in commercial premises, many young people from both case study locations in Wilkinson’s study articulated a preference for consuming alcohol in the home. Indoor spaces are important for young people’s drinking practices in suburban locales, whether they choose to spend the entire night in this space, or use the home as a space to ‘pre-​drink’.6 Due to their familiarity with the micro-​ geographies of the space of the home, Wilkinson witnessed some young people ‘socially sculpture’ their experiences; this phrase refers to the trajectory a night can take, from an idea to a situation bodies can tangibly experience (Moore, 2013). Young people took control over their experience of dark spaces by staging a specific atmosphere (Bille, 2015), in order to influence their experiences of drunkenness. The following participant observation excerpt lends credence to Bille’s (2015) contention that light has the capacity to influence the way people behave and feel: When I arrived at Louisa’s at 8.00 pm, lights were turned off, yet candles were lit. The candles, and slow paced music, contributed 125

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towards the creation of a calm atmosphere. The candles set the tone that this would not be a ‘big night out’, but rather a relaxing night in over a few glasses of wine. (Field diary, night in with Louisa, 22, and friends, Chorlton) Louisa affected her friend’s bodies through controlling how they experience darkness and lightness (Shaw, 2015). Here, the practice of lighting candles was used by Louisa as ‘a tool’ (Bille and Sørensen, 2007, p 263) to exercise a ‘gentle suggestion’ (Sumartojo, 2014, p 62) that she desired the night ahead to be low-​key. Lighting, then, was cultivated towards relaxation (Bille, 2015), transforming the young people’s experiences of space. Louisa was relying upon her friends possessing the corporeal capacities to sense rhythms of light and sound; it seemed her friends responded to the sculptural proposition (Moore, 2013), as they attuned themselves to the rhythmicity of the moment, through the pace of their consumption of alcohol. This was reflected through a later excerpt from Wilkinson’s field diary: A few hours after arriving at Louisa’s, I looked around her sitting room, and all the guests, including me, were slowly sipping wine from their glasses. The night was drawn to a close prior to midnight. The candles seemed to have achieved the purpose of nonverbally communicating that ‘excessive’ alcohol consumption was not appropriate tonight. (Field diary, night in with Louisa, 22, and friends, Chorlton) The relaxing atmosphere did not simply impact the young people individually. The rhythmic structuring of the night in was not individual, rather it was collective (see Edensor, 2010), and relied upon the synchronization of drinking practices. This indicates, in line with Edensor (2015a), that atmospheres are not formed out of one element –​candlelight in this instance; rather, they continuously emerge out of an assemblage of forces, affects and happenings. Young people also contributed to its generation; the atmosphere is thus best understood as a ‘co-​produced’ one (Edensor, 2015b, p 83). More than simply the functional practice of increasing visibility for activities to take place (Bille, 2015), we suggest that lighting practices also create and shape drinking spaces, and thereby drinking practices and experiences. To summarize, we have suggested that it is important not to construe young people within drinkscapes and allied atmospheres as passive. Commercial drinking spaces and their attendant atmospheres are experienced as classed; this can be evaluated in either positive or negative terms. Classed practices of othering are mobilized by some young people in suburban settings to justify socio-​spatial processes of exclusion. Moreover, the findings show that young people are able to stage specific atmospheres, and thereby influence the experiences of drunkenness for themselves and others. 126

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Creating rural drinkscapes On the whole, young people in rural communities exercised a more constrained measure of agency over their experience of a key rural drinkscape, the village pub, as a result of age and gender hierarchies (Leyshon, 2005, 2008a, 2008b; Valentine et al, 2008). While rural drinkscapes, like their suburban counterparts, are multiple and heterogeneous, we focus here principally on the atmospheric assemblage of the village pub. However, we note that, like young people in suburban settings, rural youth may also choose to drink in homes, and cultivate similar domestic drinkscapes to those discussed in the previous section. Village pubs are important in a number of interconnected ways, and are perceived by various actors as economically, socially and culturally valuable (Markham, 2014). This section unpacks how young people engage with village pubs in rural Lincolnshire. After briefly exploring how the socio-​spatial organization of village pubs reflects wider class relations, we turn to how young people see the village pub as a space to develop identities, friendships and to consume the past. However, young people’s experiences differ markedly from the idealized version of the village pub circulating in discourses and representations of rural life, producing both social inclusion and exclusion, discontent, and a desire to seek out and engage with urban drinkscapes. As an atmospheric assemblage, village pubs both allure and repel young people. When discussing the appeal of the rural pub, many older participants reflected on their youth. In doing so, they situated their youth experiences within the wider social and economic context of the day, such as living and working in close proximity, and commented on how divisions based on class and length of residency limited how they engaged with the rural pub as a young adult: ‘I would say there has always been a division [between newcomers and long-​standing residents], it just wasn’t as obvious as the toff and peasant divide. … When I first moved to the village in the 70s it took a long time to be accepted by and fully embraced into the local pub clan.’ (Village resident, South Kyme, 2011) Village pubs can reflect wider divisions, both in terms of which pub one frequents, and in terms of how the space inside pubs was divided (see Hunt and Satterlee, 1986; Markham and Bosworth, 2016). In the work of Hunt and Satterlee (1986), the saloon was a space that could be occupied by managers, while the main bar was where workers tended to congregate, a well-​established socio-​spatial division in English pub culture. Despite such limitations and divisions, village pubs were seen by many participants as desirable spaces to socialize in their youth. Village pubs offered 127

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young people a sense of belonging in which they are able to, as Leyshon (2005, 2008a, 2008b) finds, develop and hone a social identity and thus become part of an established network. Such connections can be particularly important in the context of limited mobility and when relationships to place are more fixed in nature. Indeed, a lack of transport, which meant that drinking and other leisure spaces further afield were inaccessible for many, coupled with desire to create and sustain bonds of friendships locally, strengthened the appeal of village pubs. The former point is unsurprising, as a lack of public transport is a well-​documented barrier to social engagement beyond the local area for various groups of people (see, for example, Ward et al, 2013). Thus, while some did travel further afield for leisure purposes, the inaccessibility of alternatives meant that others felt particularly invested in their ‘local’. Village pubs could also provide some young people, namely those who have resided in the same locality for years or have family who have, a connection to their past. Some participants discussed how experiencing the material environment of the pub occasioned a heightened sense of belonging to place: ‘I love the fact that this place holds so much history within its walls, the furniture is so old, it’s no different to when my grandfather came here but that’s what makes it special knowing that my ancestors sat in the same chairs.’ (Village resident, Billinghay, 2010) The reference to the material objects making up a pub space –​in this case, the furniture –​underscores how the pub mediates a feeling of connection with the past and a sense of rootedness in the community through the shared use of the objects across time with real and imagined kin. The pub’s chairs become a conduit for a sense of belonging, a resource or prop for the performance of the claim to belong in the interview encounter. As a key component of young people’s rural drinkscapes, village pubs can facilitate a sense of belonging and solidarity. In this sense, village pubs constitute a kind of museum of ‘symbolic roots’, to paraphrase and reverse Hecht’s (2001, p 124) description of her research participant’s private home as a ‘private museum’. Objects create, preserve and pass on ‘memories of former times and eras and specifically places, people and relationships’ (Mason, 2018, p 134). Objects play an active role in constituting collective biographies, as well as individual ones. They are involved in the telling of stories, not just as a backdrop, but as part of their power to evoke sensory memory. This sense of belonging, however, is not universal. Rather it is permeable and can be broken. The embodied consequences of intoxication, namely the loss of inhibitions, can, as a number of Markham’s participants noted, pose particular risks for ties and networks that are intended to endure. This serves 128

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to reaffirm the notions articulated by Valentine et al (2008) and Leyshon (2005, 2008a, 2008b) that young people can be, or become, excluded from rural drinkscapes if they do not conform to cultural norms and practices in rural spaces. One example of this centres around intoxication, which is seen as an undesirable behaviour which can lead to ridicule and exclusion from established venues (Leyshon, 2005, 2008a, 2008b). While rural drinkscapes offer young people the opportunity to socialize, as well as to create or strengthen an identity, the links to the past and the perceived need to behave conservatively has led some young people to actively engage with urban drinkscapes. Here, some participants in Markham’s study noted that they sought an escape from the ‘sameness’ and familiarity of the rural pub in favour of a more hedonistic and fluctuating drinkscape. Indeed, those who could find reliable transport to urban and semi-​urban spaces appreciated the opportunity to experience novelty, rejecting –​or at least taking a break from –​the perceived monotony and homogeneity of village pubs (Markham, 2014; Markham and Bosworth, 2016). While pubs provide a space for some young people to engage and socialize with both peers and the past, they can also be space of judgement and confinement, and ultimately some felt restricted to behaving in ways that they believed would please others (Leyshon, 2005, 2008a, 2008b). Recognizing the conformist and judgemental behaviours of some other young people and adults in rural pubs leads many young people to view and experience them as a temporary stopgap or bridge until they are able to more easily access the drinkscapes of towns and cities.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have moved beyond the contemporary geographical imaginary of drinking as a city centre issue to unpack alternative drinkscapes, including bars, pubs and homes in suburban locales and village pubs in rural communities. The chapter has explored the heterogeneity of young people’s drinking spaces. We have highlighted that young people navigating their way through suburban drinkscapes perceive there to be clear classed drinking spaces; drinkscapes become ‘classed’ through a range of practices, such as how young people analyse the behaviour of drinkers and bar staff in commercial drinkscapes, along with scrutinizing the décor and sensory atmospheres of the space. Such young people’s perception of the ‘classed other’, both in human and more-​than-​human respects, has a fundamental role to play in their desires to either access certain drinking spaces, or purposefully exclude themselves from such spaces. While much of the existing literature has been interested in how moral judgements about the working class are used to justify socio-​spatial processes of exclusion, this chapter has brought to the fore that some young people avoid certain 129

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commercial suburban nightscapes on the basis that they are ‘pretentious’, ‘kooky’ or ‘posh’, while sometimes seeking out others, including on occasion ‘rough’ –​but not ‘smelly’ –​spaces. The desire to feel a sense of belonging was similarly potent in how young people navigated rural drinking spaces, both attracting and repelling young people from village pubs. Here, the class, age and gender hierarchies and the persistence of particular cultural norms influencing the socio-​spatial organization of village pubs means that young people on the whole exercised less agency in ‘staging’ the atmospheres in which they consumed alcohol. The creation and experience of sensory atmospheres across different types of drinkscapes are key constituent features of young people’s drinking practices, a fact that is often overlooked in the existing, principally urban-​ based research on intoxication (for example Measham and Brain, 2005). Moreover, sensory atmospheres can have important consequences for levels of consumption. For example, through engaging with suburban young people’s drinking practices in the space of the home, we have showed how lighting has the capacity to influence drinking and drunkenness. In the space of the home, candles were used as a tool to exercise a ‘gentle suggestion’ (Sumartojo, 2014, p 62) that the desire is for the night ahead to be a low-​ key one. Young people, then, can contribute towards the generation of specific –​in this case relaxing –​drinking atmospheres. Thus, we have shown that spaces and places are not passive backdrops to young people’s drinking practices and experiences; rather, they are active constituents with the ability to shape drinking occasions (Jayne et al, 2012). More than this though, young people are not passive to atmospheres; they have the agency to co-​construct atmospheres, thereby influencing the drinking practices and experiences of themselves and others. We note, however, that in the case of the particular rural drinkscape discussed in this c­ hapter –​the village pub –​this agency is exercised under conditions of constraint as a result of the socio-​spatial organization and the various hierarchies that can characterize pub life. Nevertheless, village pubs were valued by many as important spaces for sociability and for facilitating a sense of belonging to place over time via an engagement with their material culture. Notes 1 2

3

4

The authors are listed alphabetically to reflect the collaborative nature of the chapter. With the notion of ‘drinkscape’, we are drawing on Johansson et al’s (2009, p 30) definition and usage of ‘foodscape’. The notion of drinkscape encompasses the meanings and associations connected to different alcoholic drinks. Village pubs in rural communities are, more often than not, spaces characterised by Whiteness; how they are experienced by ethnic minorities is a topic that has received scant attention. Manchester Gay Village is in Manchester city centre, and is populated with gay bars and restaurants. 130

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5

6

See Binnie and Skeggs (2004) for an overview of the production and consumption of sexualised space in Manchester’s Gay Village. ‘Pre-​drinking’ is the practice of intensive drinking in a pair or group in preparation for a night out.

References Anderson, B. (2009) ‘Affective atmospheres’, Emotion, Space and Society, 2(2): 77–​81. Atherton, J., Baker, C. and Graham, E. (2005) ‘A “genius of place”? Manchester as a case study in public theology’, in E. Graham and A. Rowlands (eds) Pathways to the Public Square: Proceedings of the 2003 IAPT Conference, Manchester, London: Transaction, pp 63–​83. Benson, M. and Jackson, E. (2013) ‘Place-​m aking and place maintenance: Performativity, place and belonging among the middle classes’, Sociology, 47(4): 793–​809. Bille, M. (2015) ‘Lighting up cosy atmospheres in Denmark’, Emotion, Space and Society, 15: 56–​63. Bille, M. and Sørensen, T.F. (2007) ‘An anthropology of luminosity: The agency of light’, Journal of Material Culture, 12(3): 263–​284 Bille, M., Bjer regaard, P. and Sørensen, T.F. (2015) ‘Stag ing atmospheres: Materiality, culture, and the texture of the in-​between’, Emotion, Space and Society, 15: 31–​38. Binnie, J. and Skeggs, B. (2004) ‘Cosmopolitan knowledge and the production and consumption of sexualized space: Manchester’s Gay Village’, The Sociological Review, 52(1): 39–​61. Bohme, G. (2013) ‘The art of the stage as a paradigm for an aesthetics of atmospheres’, Ambiances. Available from: http://a​ mbianc​ es.revu ​ es.org/3​ 15 Cele, S. (2013) ‘Performing the political through public space: Teenage girls’ everyday use of a city park’, Space and Polity, 17(1): 74–​87. Chatterton, P. and Hollands, R. (2002) ‘Theorising urban playscapes: Producing, regulating and consuming youthful nightlife city spaces’, Urban Studies, 39(1): 95–​116. Davis, N.W. and Meyer, B.B. (2009) ‘Qualitative data analysis: A procedural comparison’, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 21(1): 116–​124. Edensor, T. (2010) ‘Walking in rhythms: Place, regulation, style and the flow of experience’, Visual Studies, 25(1): 69–​79. Edensor, T. (2015a) ‘Light design and atmosphere’, Visual Communication, 14(3): 321–​350. Edensor, T. (2015b) ‘Producing atmospheres at the match: Fan cultures, commercialisation and mood management in English football’, Emotion, Space and Society, 15: 82–​89. Glaser, B. (1978) Theoretical Sensitivity, Mill Valley: Sociology Press. Glaser, B. (1992) Basics of Grounded Theory Analysis, Mill Valley: Sociology Press. 131

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Hecht, A. (2001) ‘Home Sweet Home: Tangible Memories of an Uprooted Childhood’, in D. Miller (ed) Home Possessions, Oxford: Berg, pp 123–​145. Hollands, R. (2002) ‘Divisions in the dark: Youth cultures, transitions and segmented consumption spaces in the night-​time economy’, Journal of Youth Studies, 5(2): 153–​171. Holloway, S.L., Jayne, M. and Valentine, G. (2008) ‘ “Sainsbury’s is my local”: English alcohol policy, domestic drinking practices and the meaning of home’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33(4): 532–​547. Hunt, G. and Satterlee, S. (1986) ‘Cohesion and division: Drinking in an English village’, Man (N.S.), 21(3): 521–​537. Jayne, M., Valentine, G. and Holloway, S.L. (2008) ‘The place of drink: Geographical contributions to alcohol studies’, Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, 15(3): 219–​232. Jayne, M., Gibson, C., Waitt, G. and Valentine, G. (2012) ‘Drunken mobilities: Backpackers, alcohol, “doing place” ’, Tourist Studies, 12(3): 211–​231. Johansson, B., Mäkelä, J., Roos, G., Hillén, S., Hansen, G.L., Jensen, T.M. and Huotilainen, A. (2009) ‘Nordic children’s foodscapes: Images and reflections’, Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 12(1): 25–​51. Latour, B. (2004) ‘Nonhumans’, in S. Harrison, S. Pile and N. Thrift (eds) Patterned Ground: Entanglements of Nature and Culture, London: Reaktion Books, pp 224–​227. Lawler, S. (2005) ‘Disgusted subjects: The making of middle-​class identities’, The Sociological Review, 53(3): 429–​446. Leyshon, M. (2005) ‘ “No place for a girl”: Rural youth, pubs and the performance of masculinity’, in J. Little and C. Morris (eds) Critical Studies in Rural Gender Issues, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp 104–​122. Leyshon, M. (2008a) ‘The village pub and young people’s drinking in the countryside’, Annals of Leisure, 11(3/​4): 289–​310. Leyshon, M. (2008b) ‘ “We’re stuck in the corner”: Young women, embodiment and drinking in the countryside’, Drugs, Education, Prevention and Policy, 15(3): 267–​289 Lyons, A., Emslie, C. and Hunt, K. (2014) ‘Staying “in the zone” but not passing the “point of no return”: Embodiment, gender and drinking in mid-​life’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 36(2): 264–​277. MacLean, S. and Moore, D. (2014) ‘ “Hyped up”: Assemblages of alcohol, excitement and violence for outer-​suburban young adults in the inner-​city at night’, International Journal of Drug Policy, 25(3): 378–​385. Manchester City Council (2012) Chorlton Ward Profile. Manchester: Manchester City Council.

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Markham, C. (2014) The Public House in the Rural Community, PhD thesis, University of Lincoln. Available from: http://​epri​nts.linc​oln.ac.uk/​id/​epr​ int/​23378/​ Markham, C. and Bosworth, G. (2016) ‘The village pub in the twenty-​first century: Embeddedness and the “local” ’, in I. Cabras, D. Higgins and D. Preece (eds) Brewing, Beer and Pubs, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 266–​281. Markusen, A. (1996) ‘Sticky places in slippery space: A typology of industrial districts’, Economic Geography, 72(3): 293–​313. Massey, D. (2004) ‘Geographies of responsibility’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 86(1): 5–​18. Mason, J. (2018) Affinities: Potent Connections in Personal Life, Cambridge: Polity Press. McFarlane, C. (2011a) ‘Assemblage and critical urban praxis: Part one: Assemblage and critical urbanism’, City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 15(2): 204–​224. McFarlane, C. (2011b) ‘The city as assemblage: Dwelling and urban space’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 29(4): 649–​671. Measham, F. and Brain, K. (2005) ‘ “Binge” drinking, British alcohol policy and the new culture of intoxication’, Crime, Media, Culture, 1(3): 262–​283. Merleau-​Ponty, M. (2002 [1945]) Phenomenology of Perception, translated by C. Smith, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M. (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, 2nd edition, Thousand Oaks: Sage. Moore, M. (2013) ‘Studio 54 and the production of fabulous nightlife’, Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture, 5(1): 61–​74. Pink, S. (2008) ‘An urban tour: The sensory sociality of ethnographic place-​ making’, Ethnography, 9(2): 175–​196. Ravn, S. and Demant, J. (2017) ‘Figures in space, figuring space: Towards a spatial-​symbolic framework for understanding youth cultures and identities’, Young, 25(3): 252–​267. Roberts, M. (2006) ‘From “creative city” to “no-​go areas”: The expansion of the night-​time economy in British town and city centres’, Cities, 23(5): 331–​338. Shaw, R.E. (2014) ‘Beyond night-​time economy: Affective atmospheres of the urban night’, Geoforum, 51(1): 87–​95. Shaw, R.E. (2015) ‘Controlling darkness: Self, dark and the domestic night’, Cultural Geographies, 22(4): 585–​600. Skeggs, B. and Loveday, V. (2012) ‘Struggles for value: Value practices, injustice, judgment, affect and the idea of class’, The British Journal of Sociology, 63(3): 472–​490. Sumartojo, S. (2014) ‘ “Dazzling relief ”: Floodlighting and national affective atmospheres on VE Day 1945’, Journal of Historical Geography, 45: 59–​69. 133

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Sutton, L. (2009) ‘ “They’d only call you a scally if you are poor”: The impact of socio-​economic status on children’s identities’, Children’s Geographies, 7(3): 277–​290. Taylor, Y. and Falconer, E. (2015) ‘ “Seedy bars and grotty pints”: Close encounters in queer leisure spaces’, Social & Cultural Geography, 16(1): 43–​57. Thurnell-​Read, T. (2011) ‘ “Common-​sense” research: Senses, emotions and embodiment in researching stag tourism in eastern Europe’, Methodological Innovations Online, 6(3): 39–​49. Townshend, T.G. (2013) ‘Youth, alcohol and place-​based leisure behaviours: A study of two locations in England’, Social Science & Medicine, 91: 153–​161. Valentine, G., Holloway, S., Knell, C. and Jayne, M. (2008) ‘Drinking places: Young people and cultures of alcohol consumption in rural environments’, Journal of Rural Studies, 24(1): 28–​40. Waitt, G. and Jong, A.D. (2014) ‘Embodied geographies of alcohol and the weekend in the Bega Valley, New South Wales, Australia’, Leisure Studies, 33(2): 116–​132. Ward, M.R.M., Somerville, P. and Bosworth, G. (2013) ‘ “Now without my car I don’t know what I’d do”: The transportation needs of older people in rural Lincolnshire’, Local Economy, 28(6): 553–​566. Warf, B. and Arias, S. (2008) The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, London: Routledge. Wilkinson, S. (2017) ‘Drinking in the dark: Shedding light on young people’s alcohol consumption experiences’, Social and Cultural Geography, 18(6): 739–​757. Wilkinson, S. and Wilkinson, C. (2017) ‘Night-​life and young people’s atmospheric mobilities’, Mobile Culture Studies, The Journal, 3: 77–​96.

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PART III

Identities: Mobility, Rootedness and Belonging

7

Thinking beyond the Neighbourhood and National Territory: Exploring Central American Migration from a Mobilities Perspective Lirio Gutiérrez Rivera

Introduction Central American migrants have garnered attention from the media, human rights organizations and scholars in recent years. Thousands of men, women and children, named the ‘migrant caravans’, fleeing El Salvador and/​or Honduras to the US have headlined mainstream newspapers such as the New York Times, the Guardian and the Washington Post. Human rights organizations’ reports have looked at the reasons why many Central Americans are fleeing their home countries (UNHCR, 2015a 2015b; Amnesty International, 2016; Doctors without Borders, 2018). Both the media and human rights organizations name the massive migration of Central Americans a humanitarian crisis. Scholars have started to explore the subject. Anthropologists and sociologists have pointed out that Central American migration to the US, the main country of destination, is not new (Bibler Coutin, 2000; Menjivar and Abrego, 2012; Menjivar, 2013). Nevertheless, in recent years, the region has witnessed considerable change in its migration patterns which includes massive movements to the US, forced internal displacement in home countries, and forced movement of Central Americans to their home countries through deportations (Blanchard et al, 2011; Burt et al, 2016). Scholars have pointed out that poverty, exclusion and, more recently, violence and crime by gangs and criminal groups are some of the reasons 137

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why low-​income Central Americans mainly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are leaving their home countries (Cantor, 2014; Chapelle Deckert, 2016). When exploring violence and crime and its connection to migration, studies focus mainly on Central Americans’ journey to the US (Vogt, 2013; Brigden, 2018; Frank-V ​ itale, 2020). Some scholars have looked at violence and crime in their home countries, arguing that institutional change that excludes youth, neoliberal economic policies and state violence, and US–​Central America relations (Green, 2011; Rodriguez et al, 2019) are all factors that produce migration and displacement. However, with the exception of Frank-​Vitale (2021), Berg and Carranza (2018) and Clark et al (2008), how Central Americans’ experience with violence by criminal groups affects their movements and/​or non-​movements within the neighbourhood and beyond is poorly understood. This chapter explores how Central Americans’ experience with violence by criminal groups (such as maras, which are transnational street gangs, local criminal groups and gangs) impacts their movements in the neighbourhoods where they reside, as well as the decision to migrate (internally and/​or externally). This chapter focuses on Honduran migrants who are seeking asylum in the US. It draws on the mobilities perspective (Sheller and Urry, 2006; Sheller, 2017) to analyse the declarations of Hondurans which are presented at immigration courts as part of their asylum claims. The mobilities perspective understands movement not only as the traditional physical movement of bodies from one place to another. It also includes spatial imaginations (of going or being somewhere else), the use of technologies (for example cell phones, messaging, texting), and the absence of movement, uncertainty, or the longing for stillness. In analysing the declarations of Honduran asylum seekers, this chapter shows that their different experiences of mobilities such as restriction, waiting, hiding, as well as imagining a life elsewhere are not indicators of powerlessness as portrayed in the media. Rather, analysis shows that Honduran asylum seekers have agency in their attempt to establish spaces of protection and security in their imagination, in moving to another neighbourhood or country, or in seeking asylum in immigration courts. The next section discusses the mobilities perspective and its use in the context of migration, followed by a discussion of violence, criminal actors and migration in Honduras. Followed by a brief overview of the methodology, the fourth section analyses the different forms of mobilities of Honduran asylum seekers. The last section offers conclusions.

Mobilities perspective and migration Mobility is generally associated with movement, for instance, going from point A to B. However, this is only one aspect of mobilities. As Sheller and Urry 138

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(2006) explain, the new mobilities paradigm includes the lack of movement as part of urban life. For instance, some persons are immobile in their neighbourhoods not because they are content in their dwelling, but because they are forced into confinement or limited movement because of urban infrastructure (that is, the lack of or limited access to), a criminal group who controls the area, or state security agents policing an area. As Shelly and Urry (2006) point out, the association of being at home or leading a sedentary life with happiness and contentment fails to explore the impact of some persons (for example criminal groups), objects (for example the lack of or limited transportation) and the built environment (for example urban infrastructure, public services) on the movement and/​or non-​movement of some people. Mobilities also refer to digital forms of mobilities such as text messaging, use of social media, the imagining of places and travel, as well as longings and memories of a place or moment. These forms of mobilities indicate that they are embedded in a ‘network of connections that stretch beyond place and mean that nowhere can be an “island” ’ (Sheller and Urry, 2006, p 209). These connections involve ‘scalar logics’ entailing the global and local, as well as other scalar levels (municipal, national, etc). Technologies such as cable systems, television, the internet, mobile phones and computers, among others, have complicated the interconnections of place. In this sense, mobility is not linear, nor teleological. Though a destination may be in mind for some, it is not always the case. Despite the impression that mobility is ubiquitous, it is important to point out that it is a resource, that is, not everyone has access to it, or ‘has an equal relationship with it’ (Sheller and Urry, 2006, p 211). An example is air travel. Only some have the resources to pay an airline ticket, which limits the movement of others who cannot afford one. Airports have border officers who decide on the entry to certain parts of the airport (for example a connecting flight or entry to the place of destination). The encounter with a border officer involves long queues and waiting periods –​ even restriction –​for some nationalities while swift movement and entry for others (for example certain passports or people who have paid Global Entry, which is restricted to specific nationalities). Not having access to an airport does not mean that people who try to go to a place do not travel. They do. However, they use other routes and aids (for example human traffickers, coyotes travelling with migrants). Migration appears to be the paradigmatic example of mobility because it involves movement. However, migration can fall into a ‘romantic reading of mobility’ (Kaplan, 2006) in which movement is idealized and the migrant is perceived as a ‘cosmopolitan’. The movement –​in this case, migration –​ of some people ‘depends upon the exclusion of others who are already positioned as not free in the same way’ (Ahmad, 2011, p 152, emphasis in original). 139

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The situation of persons who have been forced to move internally or abroad questions the idealization of movement and the perception of the migrant as ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘progressive’. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) website, currently there are 70.8 million forcibly displaced people worldwide of which 41.3 million persons are internally displaced, 25.9 million are refugees and 3.5. million are asylum seekers. Governments in the global north (where many refugees and asylum seekers migrate) and now in the global south (for example Venezuelan migration to various countries in South America) have been attempting to control their movements through policies that construct these migrants as criminals, dangerous and even ‘disposable’ (Golash-​Boza, 2015). In this context of forced migration and displacement, ‘mobility and control over mobility reflect and reinforce power’ (Sheller and Urry, 2006, p 210), not only of governments, border agents and migration officers over migrants, but also other persons who enable border crossings such as criminal gangs, coyotes and non-​governmental organizations (NGOs) whose work focuses on displaced persons and human rights. Refugees, displaced persons and asylum seekers are generally not considered within the mobilities perspective (Gil et al, 2011). This is because their movement challenges conventional notions of movements, generally understood within ‘elite circumstances’ of privilege (Kaplan, 2006, p 4) or as linear forms of movement, as well as the idea that migrants have chosen to leave and establish in a place of destination. This is not the case for refugees, displaced persons and asylum seekers whose movements involve, in many cases, the imagination of a different place or lack of an endpoint or destination. Whether they arrive at the destination or not is another issue. It may take days or years to arrive. And arriving does not mean that they have found settlement. Displacement is a process that can last months or even years (Gil et al, 2011). Furthermore, they experience different mobilities that include, aside from movement, the imagination of going to a place, or going back to a place, spaces of immobility, constraint and restriction of movement (for example detention centres), as well as spaces of hiding (from border agents). Migrants and, particularly, persons who have been forcibly displaced, do not experience these multiple mobilities separately. Rather there is a ‘fluid interdependence’ (Sheller and Urry, 2006, p 212). For instance, a person can be walking and texting with a family member in another country or watching (or listening to) the news on the cell phone while riding the bus. States play an important role in migrants’ and forcibly displaced persons’ mobilities, especially under the current global agenda of border control. The responses of many states towards mobile populations involves quantification and categorization of migrant populations into desirable or undesirable –​ even disposable –​groups. States’ classification and categorization is political, 140

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deciding who moves or not, as well as making some groups excludable and governable (Rose, 1999, cited in Gil et al, 2011). Through border controls states seek security, yet create ‘spaces of insecurities’ for displaced persons and refugees who prefer to be covered and hiding while on the move (Gil et al, 2011, p 307). Gender cannot be separated from mobilities and migration. Women and men experience mobilities differently evident in their patterns of movement and non-​movement. Scholars criticize the simplistic interpretations of women’s mobilities such as associating movement with empowerment and non-​movement with disempowerment (Gilbert, 1998; Hanson, 2010). Hanson (2010) points out that it is important to ask what movement and non-​movement mean to women. Studies on violence and crime focus on illicit groups, territorial control and negotiation with state authorities (Winton, 2012; Arias and Ungar, 2013; Arias, 2017; Yashar, 2018), as well as its impact on forced migration in Central America (Cantor, 2014; Galemba, 2017; Brigden, 2018; Wolf, 2021). Drawing on the mobilities perspective, this chapter explores how the different forms of mobilities experienced by many low-​income Central Americans are entangled with violence and crime mainly by criminal actors and even the state. Rather than remaining as victims of a situation, female and male Central Americans become agents seeking protection by reimagining their movements in the neighbourhood, city and beyond. In the next section, I give an overview of the context of violence and crime in Honduras.

Violence, crime and migration in Honduras Most Central Americans migrating internally and abroad are from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. This chapter will focus on Honduras, one of the least studied countries of the region, even though Honduras migration –​and deportation from the US and Mexico –​has increased steadily in the past decade (Blanchard et al, 2011). Honduran migration is not new. It dates from the late 19th century when many Hondurans who worked at the United Fruit Company, which was based in the North Coast region, migrated to New Orleans, the headquarters of the company (Sluyter et al, 2015). Honduran migration has since continued to this day. However, it has recently garnered media attention, showing thousands of minors stationed at the US–​Mexico border and thousands of people, mainly from Honduras, crossing Guatemala and Mexico on foot and heading towards the US. Honduran migration has increased in the past decades, as have reasons for leaving the country. In the early 1990s, Hondurans migrated seeking better job and economic opportunities due to the introduction of neoliberalism. 141

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Neoliberal policies are complex political and economic policies that centred on the development of agroindustry businesses, made labour contracts flexible and privatized social services. Many Hondurans were affected by these changes, especially from social and economic disadvantaged backgrounds. They were earning less, paid an hourly rate or could not join the formal labour market. Many opted to leave for the US, where some had family or knew someone, in search of better economic opportunities. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch destroyed much of the infrastructure in the country and left many Hondurans displaced, homeless and without work. As a form of humanitarian aid, the US government issued Temporary Protection Status (TPS) visas to Honduran (and Salvadoran) nationals who wished to work in the US. According to the US Citizen and Immigration Services website, around 57,000 Hondurans have received TPS and work in construction, driving/​delivery, cleaning buildings and houses, gardening, cooking, childcare and factories. In recent years, NGOs and media started documenting the massive arrival of children and families (both single parents with their children as well as nuclear families) from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras at the US border. Thirty per cent of the persons apprehended at the border in the fiscal year 2019 were from Honduras. In the previous fiscal year, the apprehension of Hondurans was a bit lower, around 22 per cent, and the fiscal year before that –​2017 –​it was around 20 per cent (Capps et al, 2019). This indicates the steady increase of Honduran migrants. Most of the persons arriving at the US border were fleeing violence and criminal activities from criminal actors in their hometown such as criminal groups, large criminal organizations operating transnationally (for example the Sinaloa Cartel) and maras (UNHCR, 2015a). Domestic violence caused principally by male partners and spouses was also a reason for leaving (UNHCR, 2015a; Capps et al, 2019). Other factors associated with their emigration include climate change and droughts, which intensified economic difficulties, high population growth rates, which means a young population,1 and low wages. The combination of these factors has propelled Hondurans, mostly from social and economic disadvantaged backgrounds, to move internally as well. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s website, there are 247,000 internally displaced Hondurans, that is, 57,000 more persons internally displaced than the year before (190,000). As I will detail later in this chapter, internal displacement leads, in many cases, to the decision to leave the country. Violence and crime have become a main concern in Honduras –​as well as in El Salvador and Guatemala. Local studies observe that violence and crime are carried out mainly by criminal and armed actors, some of them are involved in common crimes (for example mugging, vandalizing) and more organized forms of crime by local gangs and maras (for example extortion, kidnapping, 142

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human and drug trafficking) (CEDOH, nd; Salomón, 1994). Though many Hondurans have experienced the former, the experience of the latter tends to influence the decision to move to another neighbourhood or country. Though violence and crime are linked to the presence of drug trafficking and large criminal organizations in the region (for example cartels such as the Zetas, the Sinaloa Cartel) (Cantor, 2014) as well as the easy access to firearms of high caliber, local studies indicate that violence has historically been how some Hondurans –​especially in rural areas –​solve conflicts (IUDPAS, 2020), as evident in the appearance of family feuds and ‘settling of scores’ through intentional homicides as one of the main forms of violence. However, the ‘settling of scores’ has become frequent among organized groups such as maras and gangs, as well as male partners in cases of domestic violence. As I will analyse in this chapter, these too are forms of violence that affect Hondurans’ decision to move.

Methodology and methods To understand how young male and females’ experience with violence by criminal actors impact their mobilities in the neighbourhood and their decision to migrate within the country and/​or abroad, I carried out a qualitative study that drew on the declarations of young males and females seeking asylum in the US in immigration courts. Declarations are part of the paperwork included when filing for asylum at an immigration court. In the declaration, the person seeking asylum narrates their life history, usually from childhood until the person leaves the country. My work as an expert witness to Central American asylum seekers gives me access to the declarations, which I use to write the expert report for the asylum claims.2 In this chapter, I analyse these declarations looking for the mobilities of the migrants.3 Declarations are useful to understand mobilities because the person seeking asylum details, in chronological order, the events leading up to the moment or decision of the migrant to leave the country. In other words, it is possible to trace the movements –​and non-​movements –​of the persons affected by violence and crime. I looked at 60 declarations from 2017 to 2019 of young male and female Honduran asylum seekers aged from 18 to 30. Through their declarations, I explore the following questions: • What type of mobilities emerge after an experience or various experiences of violence and crime by illicit actors and/​or state actors? • How do these new forms of mobilities empower the persons affected by violence and crime? The next section explores these questions. 143

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Mobilities of Honduran asylum seekers The presence of different criminal actors such as local gangs, criminal gangs, maras and members of organized crime in low-​income urban neighbourhoods and some rural areas shaped the movements –​physical and imagined –​of the residents in urban contexts as well as members of a rural community. Most of the residents living in urban neighbourhoods controlled by criminal actors came from disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds. For instance, even though almost all of the asylum seekers from the sample had access to primary education, not all had completed secondary education, and none had entered higher education. The low level of education impacted young male and females’ entry to formal labour markets as well as securing a stable income. Most of the asylum seekers had started working at an early age in the informal market (for example selling tortillas or fruit) and had unstable and/​or little income. As a result of these social and economic limitations, asylum seekers lived in low-​income areas, which were the areas they could afford. These areas, however, were prone to be controlled by criminal actors and had high levels of crime and violence. Thus, asylum seekers had constant interactions with criminal actors such as members of maras, of local criminal groups, etc, that influenced how, where and when they moved. Asylum seekers who lived in areas controlled by criminal actors were aware of their presence and rule, as well as their use of violence as a form of controlling residents and the neighbourhood. Despite these apparent restrictions, asylum seekers described the moment prior to experiencing any form of violence by gangs or criminal groups as a form of ‘freedom’ –​ to move around and in and out of the neighbourhood to do their daily activities. Juan4 for instance, describes no problems moving around in the neighbourhood before being threatened and attacked by gang members: ‘My neighbourhood has been controlled by the Mara Salvatrucha and I was used to seeing them there. I would try not to get involved with them. … I would avoid them and tried not to have any problems so, you know, I’d say hi to them when I saw them. If they wanted five Lempiras, I’d give it to them. … Everyone does that in the neighbourhood, no one wants to have problems with them, so you’re polite to them.’ (Juan, telephone conversation, 10 May 2019) Juan’s description indicates how maras were able to exert control over residents through these apparently non-​violent actions such as saying hi or giving them food. Residents like Juan perceived that in avoiding gang members, they were not in trouble and were able to move freely in the neighbourhood. This form of interaction with the gang was part of what Creswell has called ‘practices of mobility’, which refers to the ‘everyday embodied 144

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and habitualized experiences of the subject’ (2010, p 10). These everyday experiences involve not only physical movements, but also representations or meanings of mobility. Avoiding the gang physically and spatially in the neighbourhood or trying to have minimum contact with them had become a common practice among residents. On the one hand, this common practice of avoidance and/​or minimum contact represented the gangs’ power over residents’ mobilities in the neighbourhood. On the other hand, it was part of a socio-​spatial relation in the neighbourhood that was related to the production of territory, in this case, the neighbourhood. Residents’ practices of mobility vis-​à-​vis the gang contributed to turning their neighbourhood into a ‘spatialization of domination’ (Creswell, 2006, p 47) on the local level by the gang. When there were confrontations between residents and gang members, the residents’ mobilities changed. Confrontations between residents and gang members occurred when a member of a gang began demanding money or needed something specific from a resident. For instance, gang members started extorting residents who had a small business (for example food sellers or beauty shops) or who worked in the transportation system as bus or taxi drivers. Gang members also attempted to forcibly recruit young male adolescents and coerced some young female adolescent residents into being their girlfriends. In some cases, gang members would make young male adolescents do ‘favours’ for the gang such as delivering packages. The confrontation occurs when the residents resist or refuse to do what the gang or the criminal group says (for example paying the extortion, taking the package, etc). When this happens, gang members start using different forms of violence to pressure the resident to do as the gang says. These forms of violence include following the person around in the neighbourhood, threatening them through cell phone calls, sending ‘anonymous’ notes or messages. In some cases, gangs use physical violence against residents such as beatings or cutting parts of the body. Some asylum seekers described the use of cruelty (for example removing fingernails) and sexual violence (for example rape). These different forms of violence altered residents’ mobilities in many ways. Many asylum seekers described a sense of feeling restricted, more than before when they avoided the gang or had minimum contact with them. Marco, who sold food, describes that he was already paying a criminal group a weekly extortion. A second criminal group began extorting him, but he refused to pay them. He continued to pay the first group. However, choosing to pay one group over another affected his and his son’s movements in the neighbourhood: ‘I was also more inclined to pay them because I knew that my son “Carlos” had to travel to a very dangerous location in order to go to 145

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school. Since the criminals charging me rent had already told me over the phone that they knew where my son walked, I was afraid that they would hurt him while in school. The school where my son went to was named “X” and it was located in a very problematic sector of our neighbourhood. It is well-​known that there is a lot of drug selling and purchasing in the surroundings of this school. … Every Sunday afternoon, I waited for the call between 6 and 7 pm. The person on the other side of the phone normally asked me to deliver the money at the same place, near a Christian church in my neighbourhood. I never handed the money to anyone, I just placed it where he asked me to and would leave quickly.’ (Marco, asylum seeker, from declaration) Marco describes the sense of insecurity moving through his neighbourhood as well as being monitored through calls to deliver the money. The sense of restriction and insecurity was common among other asylum seekers who had refused or did not comply with the gangs’ demands. Karen describes how the extortion of the Eighteenth Street Gang to her parents considerably reduced her movement (and other members of the family) in the neighbourhood. She even feared to leave her house: ‘[Members of the Eighteenth Street Gang] extorted my parents … they owned a small shop and they paid weekly a fee they set. My parents told me not to go out by myself, that it may be dangerous because of the maras. One week they couldn’t pay and [the Eighteenth Street Gang] started threatening directly my family. They slipped a letter under the front door of our home. They demanded the money and threatened with violence if we didn’t pay. We received more letters and in one of them, the gang mentioned that they would murder someone of the family. … I, all of us, were afraid to go out of the house.’ (Karen, asylum seeker, from declaration) These descriptions of fear and reduced movement indicate changes in the practices of mobilities of the residents. They describe a more violent form of the spatialization of domination of the gang, where contact with residents was direct and where they could not meet the gangs’ demands. With anonymous notes and cell phone calls, gangs reshaped residents’ representations and notions of movements in the neighbourhood by creating a sense of fear and insecurity. Residents responded by reducing or limiting their movements in the neighbourhood, or, as in the case of Marco, being monitored in his movements when he left the weekly extortion. In some cases, the asylum seekers who had direct encounters with a criminal group or gang members felt immobilized or were physically immobilized. Karen, for instance, was followed by a gang member in the 146

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neighbourhood; he had been making advances to her and wanted her to be his girlfriend, but she refused. He followed her when she walked to school from her house and, one day, he kidnapped her when she was walking to her house from school: ‘I was shoved into the back seat. I could not see outside the pickup truck because the backseat windows were covered in fabric, and there was a curtain between the front seat and the back seat. I was not told, nor could I see, where I was being taken. … The room was small. It had a mattress on the floor and a bucket to use as a toilet. Other than once or twice a week when [the gang member] would let me use a shower in an outhouse, I was never allowed out of that confined space.’ (Karen, asylum seeker, from declaration) In this case, mobility takes the form of total immobility, where Karen was held captive and confined to a room what she believes was located near the neighbourhood. Gangs produce spatial immobility, however, it does not necessarily create the expected effect in Karen. Other forms of mobility emerge while Karen is held captive, namely in the form of networks which creates ‘channels through which people, objects, and information move’ (Miller and Ponto, 2016, p 269). Karen describes how she had contact with a cleaning lady who arrived at the house where she was held captive. This woman created a connection between Karen and her family: ‘The gang members had a lady working for them, who took care of the household chores; she cooked and cleaned. She would leave old clothes of hers for me outside the room because [the gang] did not give me any clothes. One day when nobody else was in the house, she approached me and said she wanted to help me. She said it would take time. She asked for the phone number of someone who could help me and I gave her my father’s phone number. The cleaning lady heard the gang members would be gone again, and called my father through a burner phone. Once [the gang members] were gone, the cleaning lady unlocked the front door for me. She told me my father was waiting for me outside. I followed her instructions and ran out of the house. It took around five minutes before I saw my father waiting for me.’ (Karen, asylum seeker, from declaration) Karen’s description shows how the networked social relation with the cleaning lady allows flows of information that contribute to Karen’s physical movement back home. However, despite the possibility of imagining herself free from the gang, the feelings associated with this network are characterized by fear. The same occurs when she is back home with her father. Home 147

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and her hometown, once a safe place for Karen, are now places of unsafety and discomfort. She fears being found by the gang, which is possible due to their infrastructure in physically controlling and regulating territory. All of the asylum seekers who had experienced violence by criminal actors, such as gangs, described feelings of fear and insecurity. Usually, they hid from them by trying not to make their movements visible in the neighbourhood or by staying at home. In other cases, they fled to another neighbourhood or they left the country. Marcia, for instance, went to another neighbourhood, but Angela left the country with her daughter after members of a gang were able to track her down after they fled: ‘The next day, my mother took us away from that house. We went to live near [our neighbourhood] … we went there because my father’s relatives lived there.’ (Marcia) ‘After about four or five hours of walking I arrived at some houses a woman gave my daughter and me some food and a place to sleep. I remained there the next day and night. The day after, we boarded a bus to the US. I paid for the bus tickets with the money I had made by selling tortillas. I did not want to go back to our house because I was very afraid [the gang]. They killed my father, they threatened to kill my mother, my siblings, me, and then they found us and attacked us again. We had no choice but to leave everything and run for our lives.’ (Angela, asylum seeker, from declaration) In these descriptions, hiding, which is generally understood as a form of immobility, becomes for Marcia and Angela a form of mobility that allows them to escape from the control of the gang through networks such as a family member or someone they met on the way. Through networks, Marcia and Angela are able to imagine a different life for themselves. This is especially the case for asylum seekers who have family members in other countries. Family members abroad open networks on a scalar level that allow the asylum seeker to rethink the possibilities of movement beyond the neighbourhood controlled by the gang, and beyond national territory controlled by the state. Going to another country in this context of violence at the local level means safety for the asylum seeker. This is because the networks between asylum seekers and family members create a ‘representation of mobility’ which refers to ‘diverse narratives and portrayals of mobility’ (Creswell, 2010, p 19). Carlos, for instance, fled gang extortion arriving at Houston. When I asked why Houston, he explained that he had a cousin there: ‘We remained in contact; it’s easier now with technology. He told me about his life here, what he did. … I told him what happened 148

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to me with the gangs. … I mentioned that I was going to leave, and he said to come [to Houston], which I did.’ (Carlos, asylum seeker, from declaration) Carlos’s contact with his cousin created narratives of a place he will arrive later in his life. Houston becomes part of Carlos’s imaginary of movement and a place that can be safe for him; he eventually arrives there when he feels that he cannot stay in Honduras due to the gangs’ threats for not paying extortion. For asylum seekers, even though mobilities and immobility are related to territory and a place, they are not bounded to them. Networks with persons such as family members or friends in other places mean that new spaces and places are perceived as available to them. Border and immigration controls by states, the various stories of dangers travelling through Mexico, and many other stories, do not deter asylum seekers from moving beyond the national level. Elsa, for instance, narrates her trip through Mexico, which included hiding from a criminal group, working as a cleaning lady in houses in some Mexican cities, crossing the river to enter the US, dealing with multiple sexual advances, being detained at the border and sent to an Immigration Detention Center. She did not see herself as a victim in a harrowing journey, but as a person who made a decision to move through networks. When released from the Immigration Detention Center, her networks took her to a safer place: her family: ‘When [I]‌were released, I used a telephone at a local church to contact [my husband] who arranged a bus ride to New York. We now live together as a family again in New York.’ (Elsa, asylum seeker, from declaration) Networks through family members and the use of technologies to communicate, for instance, cell phones, messages via WhatsApp and Facebook, help asylum seekers re-​imagine their lives in other places and territories in a positive way. This was not restricted to economic opportunities, but also included a feeling of safety. Gender also played a role in the movements and non-​movements. Movement traditionally tends to be associated with freedom and autonomy, yet for Central Americans experiencing violence, movement had a different meaning. Male residents were able to move around more than females. Females feared encounters with criminal groups believing they would be sexually harassed, groped or kidnapped. As a result, many females tried not to go out of the house too often: ‘One day I was walking home from school when two members of the MS-​13 came up to me. One of them said that he wanted me to work 149

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for them. I refused. I was afraid to go out because they followed me to school … one day three gang members grabbed me. They threw me on the ground, covered my mouth, hit me all over my body and raped me … they said it was a gift from their boss for refusing to work for them.’ (Cecilia, asylum seeker, from declaration) Males’ movements in the neighbourhood were different. Although they avoided gang members after being threatened, they continued to go out with caution instead of staying inside. Females avoided movement in the neighbourhood. Movement, in this sense, was not associated with freedom or autonomy, but rather danger and fear. When females had to go out, they moved in groups, with a family member or a friend. This was the case of Ana who refused the advances of a gang member. She feared going to school alone, so she walked with a neighbour: ‘I was afraid to go out but wanted to go to school. I walked with my neighbour. … One day a car stopped. I saw [the gang member who harassed me] with other gang members. They grabbed me and forced me in the car and gagged me.’ (Ana, asylum seeker, from declaration) Gang members reinforced a geography of exclusion for females and are included in the public realm in ‘highly scripted and delimited roles’ (Ruddick, 1996, cited in Rodó de Zárate, 2014) determined by criminal groups. Non-​ movement provided access to safety that state authorities did not provide. Females moved when they sensed their life was in danger. Movement was related to insecurity but was also forced. They moved abroad because of continued threats or violence by a gang. Men moved alone, whereas women travelled with a family member, their children, or with a group. Teresa, for instance, describes a harrowing experience when crossing the Mexico–​US border: ‘It was a hard trip for me. I travelled with a group and the coyote. There is always fear of being caught by “la migra” (migration officers) or encountering criminals. I felt this throughout the trip. At the border, I ended up with another group; another coyote took us across Rio Grande. The night before crossing the river, this man wanted to abuse me, I started crying. Another member of the group heard me and told him to go away. I don’t know what would have happened had I been completely alone with this man.’ (Teresa, asylum seeker, phone conversation, 12 June 2019) Teresa’s description of her trip to the US border from Honduras shows how movement is associated with fear and uncertainty, common in one of the 150

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most dangerous journeys for migrants (Brigden, 2018). This is one of the reasons why migrants taking this route travel in groups, especially women. Movement in groups can provide a sense of safety and, as Vogt (2018) has pointed out, intimacy, which is necessary for migrants like Teresa who experienced harrowing conditions at home and was likely to experience them in her journey.

Conclusion Drawing on a mobilities perspective, this chapter set out to understand the experience of male and female Hondurans with violence by criminal groups, including how these experiences have impacted their movements in the neighbourhood and their decision to migrate. The analysis shows that the experience of violence by illicit actors such as gangs or criminal groups produces different moments, or following Creswell (2010), ‘practices of mobility’. The practices of mobility include limiting direct contact with illicit actors that control their neighbourhood as well as restricting their spatial movements in the neighbourhood in order to avoid an illicit actor or have minimum contact with them. This worked for many asylum seekers briefly who perceived their neighbourhood as ‘safe’, despite limitations on their physical movement. Mobilities changed when there was a confrontation between the asylum seeker and the member of the gang and/​or criminal group as it involved having direct contact with criminal actors, followed by threats and/​or violence. Physical movements became even more restricted or the victim of violence was immobile (at home, in the neighbourhood). Immobility took the form of hiding in the neighbourhood or not leaving the house. Furthermore, the experience of violence, movement and non-​movement affected males and females differently taking gendered forms. Despite these spatial and physical restrictions, mobilities were enhanced through networks of asylum seekers particularly with family members abroad or with someone they met. Cell phones, text messages through WhatsApp or Facebook, or a conversation with someone contributed to establishing and sustaining networks and, more importantly, connected asylum seekers to another level of mobility that included reimagining safety and welfare beyond the neighbourhood. These networks were empowering, not only establishing flow of information and possibilities for the asylum seeker, but also aiding them to decide how to find welfare and safety. Movement and migration, especially, tend to be associated to freedom and privilege. Asylum seekers are rarely described in this way. They are generally portrayed as victims, poor, dispossessed persons, or invaders (for example in the media or in presidential campaigns) who have no agency; attorneys and even expert witnesses contribute to reproducing asylum seekers as victims in 151

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immigration courts (Good, 2004; Gibson, 2013). A mobilities perspective shows that movement and non-​movement of persons who experience the type of violence described in this chapter are more complex and have different meanings. Movement is generally associated with freedom and status; while non-​movement is linked to a form of disempowerment, an obstruction. For asylum seekers movement and non-​movement could translate, depending on the circumstance, to empowerment and even safety in the case of women. Furthermore, movement and non-​movement were not restricted to physical movements alone; their contacts abroad or with persons opened up their understanding of safety and welfare, allowing the decision to seek a safer place. Notes 1 2

3

4

In Honduras, the population tends to be 15 years or under (Capps et al, 2019). I have been writing expert reports since 2012 for Central Americans seeking asylum in the US and the UK. To use this material for the analysis, I asked the attorneys, who drafted the declarations and represented the migrants at the immigration courts, if this material could be used to do an analysis on violence and migration. Permission was granted on the condition that the identity of the asylum seekers was not disclosed. All names used are pseudonyms.

References Ahmad, A.N. (2011) Masculinity, Sexuality and Illegal Migration: Human Smuggling from Pakistan to Europe, Farnham: Ashgate. Amnesty International (2016) ‘Looking into the eyes of Central American refugees in a time of hate and fear’, November. Available at: https://​www. amnesty.org/​en/​latest/​news/​2016/​11/​looking-​into-​the-​eyes-​of-​central-​ american-​refugees-​in-​a-​time-​of-​hate-​and-​fear/​ Arias, E.D. (2017) Criminal Enterprises and Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arias, E.D. and Ungar, M. (2013) ‘La vigilancia comunitaria y la crisis de seguridad ciudadana en Latinoamérica’, Estudios Socio-J​ urídicos, 15(1): 19–​52. Berg, L.-​A. and Carranza, M. (2018) ‘Organized criminal violence and territorial control: Evidence from northern Honduras’, Journal of Peace Research, 55(5): 566–​581. Bibler Coutin, S. (2000) Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants’ Struggle for U.S. Residency, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Blanchard, S., Hamilton, E.R., Rodriguez, N. and Yoshioka, H. (2011) ‘Shifting trends in Central American migration: A demographic examination of increasing Honduran-​US immigration and deportation’, The Latin Americanist, 55(4): 61–​84. Brigden, N. (2018) The Migrant Passage: Clandestine Journeys from Central America, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 152

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Burt, G., Lawrence, M., Sedra, M., Bosworth, J., Couton, P., Muggah, R. and Stone, H. (2016) ‘Deportation, circular migration, and organized crime: Honduras case study’, Research Report: 2016-​R006, Public Safety Canada. Available from: https://w ​ ww.publicsafety.gc.ca/​cnt/​rsrcs/​pblctns/​ 2016-​r006/​2016-​r006-​en.pdf Cantor, D.J. (2014) ‘New wave: Forced displacement caused by organized crime in Central America and Mexico’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 33(3): 34–​38. Capps, R, Meissner, D., Ruiz Soto, A.G., Bolter, J., Pierce, S. (2019). ‘From control to crisis: Changing trends and policies reshaping U.S.–​Mexico border enforcement’, Migration Policy Institute. Available from: https://​ www.migrationpolicy.org/​sites/​default/​files/p​ ublications/B ​ orderSecurity-​ ControltoCrisis-​Report-​Final.pdf CEDOH (Centro de Documentación de Honduras) (nd) Criminalidad y violencia en Honduras: Retos y desafíos para impulsar la reforma. Available from: http://​www.cedoh.org/​resources/​Inicio/​Cartilla-​1.pdf Chapelle Deckert, J. (2016) ‘Social work, human rights, and the migration of Central American children’, Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 25(1): 20–​35. Clark, C., Ryan, L., Kawachi, I., Canner, M.J., Berkman, L. and Wright, R.J. (2008) ‘Witnessing community violence in residential neighborhoods: A mental health hazard for urban women’, Journal of Urban Health, 85 (1): 22–​38. Creswell, T. (2006). On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World, New York, Routledge. Creswell, T. (2010) ‘Towards a politics of mobility’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28(1): 17–​31. Doctors without Borders (2018) ‘Central American migration: I want a normal life for my son’, 20 December. Available from: https://​ www.doctorswithoutborders.org/ ​ w hat- ​ we- ​ d o/ ​ n ews- ​ s tories/ ​ s tory/​ central-​american-​migration-​i-​want-​normal-​life-​my-​son Frank-​Vitale, A. (2020) ‘Stuck in motion: Inhabiting the space of transit of Central American migration’, The Journal of Latin American Caribbean Anthropology. 25(1): 67–​83. DOI: 10.1111/​jlca.12465 Frank-​Vitale, A. (2021) ‘Rolling the windows up: On (not) researching violence and strategic distance’, Geopolitics. 26(1): 139–​115. DOI: 10.1080/​ 14650045.2019.1662396 Galemba, R.B. (2017) Contraband Corridor: Making a Living at the Mexico-​ Guatemala Border, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gibson, S. (2013) ‘Testimony in a culture of disbelief: Asylum hearings and the impossibility of bearing witness’, Journal for Cultural Research, 17(1): 1–​20.

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Gil, N., Caletrio, J. and Mason, V. (2011) ‘Introduction: Mobilities and forced migration’, Mobilities, 6(3): 301–​316. Gilbert, M.R. (1998). ‘ “Race”, space, and power: The survival strategies of working poor women’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 88(4): 595–​621. Golash-​Boza, T.M. (2015) Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism, New York: New York University Press. Good, A. (2004) ‘Undoubtedly an expert? Anthropologists in British asylum courts’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10(1): 113–​133. Green, L. (2011) ‘The nobodies: Neoliberalism, violence and migration’, Medical Anthropology, 30(4): 366–​385. Hanson, S. (2010) ‘Gender and mobility: New approaches for informing sustainability’, Gender, Place and Culture, 17(1): 5–​23. Instituto Universitario en Democracia, Paz y Seguridad (IUDPAS). (2020). ‘Observator io de la Violencia. Mortalidad y Otros’. Edition 56. Available from: file://​/​C:/​Users/​Usuario/​Downloads/​ BoletinNacionalEneDic2019Ed56.pdf Kaplan, C. (2006) ‘Mobility and war: The cosmic views of US “air power” ’, Environment and Planning A, 38(2): 395–​407. Menjivar, C. (2013) ‘Central immigrant workers and legal violence in Phoenix, Arizona’, Latino Studies, 11(2): 228–​252. Menjivar, C. and Abrego, L. (2012) ‘Legal violence: Immigration law and lives of Central American immigrants’, American Journal of Sociology, 117(5): 1380–​1421. Miller, B. and Ponto, J. (2016) ‘Mobility among the spatialities’, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 106(2): 266–​273. Rodó de Zárate, M. (2014) ‘Managing fear in public space: Young feminists’ intersectional experiences through Participatory Action Research’, Cahiers du CEDREF, 21: 1–​19. DOI: 10.4000/​cedref.967 Rodriguez, N., Urrutia-​Rojas, X. and Gonzalez, L.R. (2019) ‘Unaccompanied minors from the Northern Central American countries in the migrant stream: Social differentials and institutional contexts’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(2): 218–​234. Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salomón, L. (1994) La violencia en Honduras, 1980–​1993, Tegucigalpa: CEDOH. Sheller, M. (2017) ‘From spatial turn to mobilities turn’, Current Sociology, 65(4): 623–​639. Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006) ‘The new mobilities paradigm’, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 38(2): 207–​226. Sluyter, A., Watkins, C., Chaney, J.P. and Gibson, A.M. (2015) Hispanic and Latino New Orleans: Immigration and Identity since the Eighteenth Century, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 154

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UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency) (2015a) Women on the Run: First-​Hand Accounts of Refugees Fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. A Study Conducted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Available from: https://​www.unhcr.org/​5630f24c6.pdf UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency) (2015b) Children on the Run: Unaccompanied Children Leaving Central America and Mexico and the Need for International Protection, Washington, DC. Available from: https://​ www.unhcr.org/​56fc266f4.html Vogt, W.A. (2013) ‘Crossing Mexico: Structural violence and the commodification of undocumented Central American migrants’, American Ethnologist, 40(4): 764–​780. Vogt, W.A. (2018) Lives in Transit. Violence and Intimacy on the Migrant Journey, Berkeley: University of California Press. Winton, A. (2012) ‘Analysing the geographies of the “transnational” gangs of Central America: The changing spaces of violence’, Investigaciones Geográficas, Boletín del Instituto de Geografía, 79: 136–​149. Wolf, S. (2021) ‘Talking to migrants: Invisibility, vulnerability, and protection’, Geopolitics, 26(1): 193–​214. Yashar, D.J. (2018) Homicidal Ecologies: Illicit Economies and Complicit States in Latin America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Youth Transitions and Spatiality: The Case of a Deprived Coastal Town in the UK Aniela Wenham

Introduction In order to further our understanding of how young people navigate contemporary youth transitions, it is important to recognize the distinct challenges and opportunities for young people who grow up in a variety of social contexts, including the importance of geographical place (MacDonald and Marsh, 2005; Skelton and Gough, 2013; Farrugia, 2014). This chapter explores what it is like to grow up in a deprived coastal town, illustrating how these particular places have distinctive social structures, webs of relationships and cultural meanings attached to them. It also draws attention to the importance of locating young people’s identities and aspirations within such contexts, showing how the subjective meanings associated with class are ‘lived out’, and made sense of differently, across a range of contexts. In doing so, it will demonstrate the centrality of localities not only being important sources of cultural identity, but how the structural features of ‘place’ can severely limit the opportunities available to young people. Highlighting the distinctiveness of geographical place, the chapter draws upon ethnography, participatory arts-​based research, and 31 semi-​structured interviews with young people aged 15–​25 years of age, who live in a deprived coastal town in the North of England. This research illuminates the complex ways in which young people’s classed identities are formed and maintained in diverse spaces of deprivation. It illustrates the push and pull factors that form young people’s positioning of mobility, evidenced through ideas of rootedness or connectedness to place, with accompanying narratives of ‘escape’ and mobility in order to ‘get on’ or ‘get out’. This is 156

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then contextualized within accounts of affective displacement that embody a sense of not belonging to particular spaces. Understanding these subjective feelings of place is particularly timely and pertinent for young people who find themselves navigating transitions to adulthood in areas framed as ‘left behind’ or ‘struggling’. As global forces continue to deepen structural divisions, the ways in which young people describe and define their cultural worlds provides a useful lens on the impact of such divisions. Experiences of the ‘locale’, how young people live out their local lives, also profoundly impact on perceptions of their wider world and how they make sense of inequality and wider feelings of discontent.

Spatial inequalities and contemporary youth There have been long-​standing debates from sociologists, human geographers and political scientists that draw attention to place-​based understandings of social inequalities (Skelton and Gough, 2013; Farrugia, 2014, 2016; Jennings and Stoker, 2019). Within the context of youth studies, the importance of spatial inequalities, especially those that result in variations in young people’s transitions from education to work, have been well documented (Cartmel and Furlong, 2000; MacDonald and Marsh, 2005). This research often draws attention to the significance of local labour markets, including the key differences between rural and urban contexts that impact upon access to education and transitions into employment or training. Alongside research that has sought to understand the material inequalities of particular localities is an exploration of the meanings, feelings and emotions that young people attach to places, and in particular, how place shapes young people’s identities, life opportunities and intergenerational relationships (Cuervo and Wyn, 2014; Farrugia, 2014; Woodman and Wyn, 2015). The contribution of this work is that it allows us to explore young people’s lives spatially, and in particular how the spatial concentration of inequalities impact upon the experience of youth and the patterning of youth transitions. This can include an analysis of the different patterns of employment and unemployment for young people who live across a range of different localities, as well as how young people make sense of, and respond to, markedly different opportunity structures. More recently, broader debates on spatial inequalities have been reinvigorated by analyses of people and places characterized as ‘left behind’ or ‘struggling’. This is most notably a reflection of shifts that took place from the 1970s onwards, a critical juncture for the restructuring of the welfare state (Jessop, 2000). While areas labelled as ‘left behind’ vary greatly, they tend to be characterized by depressed economies, exemplified by lower than average earnings and weak labour markets, which in turn lead to lower living standards in those areas. Geographical inequalities, often resulting from 157

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the processes of deindustrialization, have remained stubbornly entrenched for over a number of decades. This has led to the persistent and complex, spatial clustering of deprivation within such areas, including long-​term unemployment, poor health and below average educational attainment (IFS, 2020, p 325). These debates are particularly pertinent in the UK, as analysis of regional economic inequality across 27 developed countries showed the UK to be the most geographically unequal, ranking considerably higher than other Western European countries such as France, Spain and the Netherlands (IFS, 2020, p 324). Research has shown that since the mid-​1990s, there has been a ‘rapid and continued upturn in the performance of London … transforming it from one of the lowest performing regions to one of the highest within a 20-​year period’ (Lupton et al, 2016, p 293). Following the financial crisis in 2008, London pulled further ahead of other regions in England on a range of economic, health and education indicators. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has also examined the extent of geographical inequalities in the UK demonstrating ‘large gaps in productivity and earnings across the country, with mean annual earnings in London 1.3 times the UK average and 1.5 times higher than in the North East’ (IFS, 2020, p 320). Britain’s decision to leave the European Union placed rebalancing regional disparities high on the political agenda. Voting preferences of the EU referendum showed large cities and towns were more likely to vote remain, while towns with ageing populations voted to leave (Jennings and Stoker, 2019; Centre for Towns, 2018). With promises to ‘listen to the people who have felt left behind’ (Conservative Party, 2019), the Johnson government drove forward with a ‘levelling up’ project, most recently exemplified by the announcement of a £4.8 billion ‘levelling up fund’ to support ‘struggling’ towns and communities (HM Treasury, 2021). This scheme aims to evidence a prioritization of ‘left-​behind communities’ by targeting funding to specific places, most notably ex-​industrial areas, deprived towns and coastal communities. In order to ‘visibly deliver against the diverse needs of all places and all geographies’ (HM Treasury, 2021, p 2), the fund is intended to drive economic growth and recovery by investing in local infrastructure and regeneration projects. The fund is part of a wider government commitment to not only ‘get Brexit done’, but provide a post-​Brexit vision of greater regional equality. These debates on ‘levelling up’ matter because they speak to feelings of discontent and marginalization surrounding the impact of decades of entrenched and persistent geographical inequality. When mobilized as political weaponry, they also have the potential to encourage resentment and corrosive divisions. Such issues are not confined to the UK, but rather represent a crisis of Western politics in a much broader sense. As Jennings et al argue: ‘it is essential to understand the politics of levelling up as part of 158

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a dynamic in British and Western politics more generally that is a product of structural changes in society and the economy’. They go on to argue how this realignment is ‘oriented around a divide between “winners” and “losers” of globalisation’, a divide that reflects ‘changes in social and economic structure and perceptions of deprivation and loss’ (Jennings et al, 2021, p 6). Understanding the dynamics of geographical inequality also highlights how localities embodying economic prosperity cannot be seen in isolation; on the contrary, they have both global and local impacts, especially upon areas that are deemed to be on the periphery. Within the context of late modernity, Farrugia explores what this means for young people growing up in contemporary society. Foregrounding the spatial processes between the rural and the urban, he argues that: the same global processes that have profoundly reshaped the lives of urban youth have profoundly influenced rural young people, whose transitions demonstrate spatial dimensions of these changes. In particular, economic shifts at both the global and national levels have created new geographic inequalities with profound consequences for young people outside urban centres. (Farrugia, 2014, p 298) This draws attention to the significance of global cities, often central to the command and control of the world economy, not only having differential impacts on other economies and regions (Curtis, 2016), but also shaping the lives of young people across a range of different spatial contexts. The contribution of youth studies is to enable an understanding of what this means for young people, to interrogate the importance of place-​based social connections and shared experiences, and to explore how young people respond to feelings of exclusion, displacement and loss that might result from the processes of social change.

Localities depicted as ‘left behind’: entrenched deprivation in UK coastal towns In comparison to urban contexts such as London, which have seen a decrease in deprivation over time, coastal and rural areas have seen steady increases. Several attempts have been made to document higher levels of social and economic deprivation including quantitative analysis of the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) by Agarwal and Brunt (2006) that found coastal and seaside districts had wards with severe pockets of deprivation. In 2018, Agarwal et al devised a typology of highly deprived coastal towns that illustrated the persistent, complex, spatial clustering of deprivation. Studies by Beatty et al have also found that coastal towns had higher levels of social and economic deprivation than the English average (Beatty et al, 2011). 159

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Other indicators of deprivation include poor transport links and connectivity (House of Lords Select Committee, 2019), the transience of populations, particularly in migration (Leonard, 2015), and the distinct housing markets of seaside towns (Ward, 2015) that demonstrate the complex spatial clustering of multiple deprivation. Coastal towns also have an unequal distribution of an ageing population (Centre for Towns, 2018), which stands in stark contrast to urban contexts that have an overrepresentation of the youth population. Concerns over population projections of coastal towns have recently been voiced, with headlines such as ‘Small towns left behind as exodus of youth to cities accelerates’ being symptomatic of this (Burn-​ Murdoch, 2017). There are also challenges around the prevalence of drug and alcohol misuse, with recent statistics showing that some seaside towns in England and Wales had the highest rates of death from misuse of heroin/​morphine (ONS, 2018). An example of the complex relationship between the urban and rural relate to current concerns on ‘County Lines’, the criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults via the transience of gang members from major cities to rural/​coastal towns to expand drug trade (HM Government, 2018). Research has also shown that those living in deprived coastal towns are more likely to experience poor health, with research by the Social Market Foundation showing that ‘among the 20 local authorities in England and Wales with bad or very bad health (according to the 2011 census), 10 were coastal communities’ (Corfe, 2017, p 4). The differences in educational attainment of disadvantaged young people in coastal areas are stark when compared to similar young people in urban areas, especially London: ‘Londoners are around a third more likely to gain two or more A-​levels, nearly twice as likely to enter university and twice as likely to enter a selective university’ (SMC, 2017, p 59). In rural and coastal areas there tends to be limited, if any, higher education providers. Where options are available, there are limited course options or below average teaching and employment outcomes (SMC, 2017, p 70). Similarly, a Social Mobility Report asserts that: ‘Isolated rural and coastal areas are dire for youth social mobility outcomes’ (SMC, 2017, p 55), and that ‘disadvantaged young people in isolated areas are often trapped –​they cannot afford to move out, but have inadequate opportunities available locally’ (SMC, 2017, p 73). Evidence submitted to the House of Lords select committee on regenerating seaside towns by the Association of Child Psychotherapists stated that ‘seaside towns are amongst the worst served areas in terms of access to specialist child and adolescent psychotherapy’ (ACP, 2018, p 2). They go on to state particular concerns over the mental health of looked-​ after children and young people who are overrepresented within coastal towns and known to have higher incidences of poor mental health. The constellation of this evidence clearly illustrates that coastal towns encounter 160

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a unique set of issues that are rooted in their distinct histories, population, geography and tourist infrastructure. The consequences of these spatial inequalities on young people in rural areas can be profound, including what Corbett (2009) refers to as geographic ‘disembedding’. This is a term partly used to describe the necessity for rural youth to become mobile in order to withstand the ‘poor’ outcomes associated with the material inequalities of place (Farrugia, 2016). However, the mobility imperative, or geographic ‘disembedding’, has particular consequences for the most marginal and disadvantaged young people who lack the capital and resources to be mobile, or for whom place attachment takes on distinct meanings. For instance, research on young people and rurality in the UK has highlighted the complex and nuanced ‘meaning making’ surrounding attachment to place and people, with young people demonstrating an awareness of the impacts of economic decline that drive potential aspirations of migration, contextualized by the ‘benefits of being surrounded by family and friends who have no plans to leave’ (Jamieson, 2000, p 218). Recent qualitative research with young people in deprived coastal contexts has also demonstrated the complex relationship between precarity and place, including analysis of the gendered dimensions as young people navigating austerity and weak labour markets (Black et al, 2019; McDowell et al, 2020; Wenham, 2020; Simpson et al, 2021). The gendered dynamics of navigating mobility, immobility and a ‘future self ’ have been further highlighted through recent research with young women who live in a deprived locality (Ravn, 2021). This research illustrated the importance of how young women utilized micro-​geographical distinctions as a discursive and performative strategy, and in particular, the need to distance themselves from ‘other’ ‘problem’ families or neighbourhoods in order to manage the stigma attached to place. The study also drew attention to the prioritization of family and social relations when contemplating future projections, effectively redefining ‘ “aspirations” to be social and familial rather than individualistic’ (Ravn, 2021, p 9). Urban life is often presented as a symbol of ‘success’, while the fortunes of those who stay in rural localities are synonymous with ‘failure’. These are felt in complex, contradictory and conflicting ways by young people. Exploring the relationship between the cultural politics of inequality and particular localities, Farrugia (2020) has shown the making of classed subjectivities, whereby signifiers of distinction (cosmopolitanism) create a cultural politics of place, which in turn produce new forms of inequality (Farrugia, 2020, p 2). This can involve various markers of stigma that separate certain types of people and places from the cosmopolitan ideal. Public commentary on deprived coastal towns often embodies narratives of marginalization, disenfranchisement and disconnection from mainstream society. Some of the most emotive language derives from popular tabloids and newspapers, 161

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with headlines such as ‘Seaside towns have become dumping grounds for the poor’ (Bingham, 2013). These dominant representations of ‘struggling’ coastal contexts signal tensions between pride and nostalgia for a ‘successful’ past, the shame and misery of the present, and a fear that the future is nothing but bleak. Such narratives speak directly to ‘geographies of discontent’ where people feel politically, economically and socially marginalized. Unpicking the depiction of ‘struggling’ coastal towns illuminates how micro-​level impacts of major global changes constrain and stratify individual lives. Fusing together the local and the global, the macro and the micro, also provides a lens through which we can better understand the ways in which communities look inwards and outwards to try and explain deep feelings of uncertainty, marginalization, loss and frustration. I now turn to the empirical research with young people in a deprived coastal context in the UK. The findings will demonstrate the complex decision-​making processes at play in the shaping of youth biographies, and how place is an important marker of identity and source of a sense of self. The dominance of the mobility imperative will be highlighted, as will the particularities of navigating this, or making sense of this, within rural contexts of severe deprivation. It will be highlighted that geographic disembedding has particular consequences for the most marginal and disadvantaged young people who often lack the capital and resources to be mobile, or for whom place attachment takes on distinctly different meanings.

Methods and data This chapter draws upon a qualitative study with young people aged between 15 and 25 years that took place from late 2017 to early 2019, including ethnography, participatory arts-​based research and 41 semi-​structured interviews with young people aged 15–​25 who live in North Yorkshire, England. Thirty-​one of those interviews took place in a deprived coastal town in the North of England. This coastal town has complex spatial concentrations of deprivation with average employee salaries among the lowest in England. It is the sample of 31 interviews from this context that are the focus of analysis for this chapter. Purposeful sampling focused on recruiting participants who had experienced disengagement, or were deemed ‘at risk’ of disengagement, from education, training or employment. All participants were drawn from neighbourhoods in the coastal town identified as ‘hotspots’ of severe deprivation, including high levels of poverty and long-​ term unemployment. The young people recruited into this study could be described as some of the most vulnerable young people in the coastal town. They described a range of complex needs that directly correspond to research on the spatial clustering of deprivation and hardship in deprived coastal towns, including issues around substance misuse, poor mental health 162

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and high crime rates. Other indicators of poverty and deprivation included receiving free school meals (FSMs) or recalling previous entitlement while growing up. There were also a number of young people who experienced particular hardships and trauma such as experience of the care system, bereavement and family substance misuse. Participants were recruited through two main gatekeepers, a detached youth work project, and an education and training provider. Interviews lasted between 30 and 100 minutes. Participants received a £20 gift voucher as a thank you for taking part in the research. The research study received ethical approval from the University of York’s Department of Social Policy and Social Work Ethics Committee. Interviews followed a semi-​structured format via a topic guide that focused upon the following areas: (a) the everyday lives of disadvantaged young people who are at risk from, or disengaged from education and employment; (b) how young people see themselves and reflect on how they are perceived by others; (c) understandings of their locality; (d) critical moments and biographical accounts that help understand routes to disengagement; and (e) hopes and aspirations for the future. Individual semi-​structured interviews were tape-​ recorded, transcribed verbatim, and the data analysed thematically. After careful reading and re-​reading of transcripts, key themes and sub-​themes were developed into a framework for triangulating and organizing the material (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998). Ethnographic observations, including fieldnotes and materials from arts-​based activities, were also coded and incorporated into the analysis. The broad themes of belonging, aspiration, reciprocity, stigma and precarity are mainly focused upon for the purposes of this chapter.

Analysis Labour market transitions in a deprived coastal context The distinctiveness of spatial inequalities within the coastal context were illuminated through young people’s navigations with the local labour market. This often involved an awareness of the weaknesses aligned to a lack of jobs, low pay and the challenges associated with the seasonality of the labour market. The majority of young people felt their local labour market consisted of poorly paid and insecure employment. A lack of jobs also meant that many young people felt the pressure competing for jobs when they did become available, which in turn highlighted a sense of failure if they were not up to the ‘standards’ required. Having the right social contacts who could help source employment was also believed to be of great importance in successfully obtaining employment. The following quotes illustrate the distinct ways in which the ‘fragility’ of the local labour market was navigated, given meaning, and responded to. Experiences of precarity and insecurity are situated within the specific dynamics and features of the coastal context. 163

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‘Yeah, there’s not much for jobs and if you do want to get into a job where it’s good pay, good hours, it’s factory work somewhere out of x (coastal town) or you’ve got to know somebody who owns a small business in x (coastal town) and sort of like, you know.’ (17-​year-​ old female) ‘Well seasonal jobs it’s good in the summer, but then in winter you’ve not, you basically han’t got no money whatsoever.’ (17-​year-​old female) ‘Someone can put in a shop window staff wanted, five minutes later it’ll be on a Facebook group, everyone’s commenting saying can I come in with a CV and; then, then five minutes later it’ll be like job taken.’ (16-​year-​old female) It is unsurprising that the local labour market was felt to be challenging when contemplating future career aspirations. Many young people were disillusioned by their current situation; they were encountering constant knock-​backs from potential employers, but also felt like they lacked a ‘competitive edge’ due to insufficient qualifications and skills: “if you’re not to their standards then they’ll just say no”. The majority of participants had left school early with extremely limited, or in some cases, no qualifications. This in turn could impact upon their motivation to further education and training, or to feel positive about their prospects when searching for jobs. Perceptions of feeling stuck are illustrated by the following participant who describes the obstacles trying to further his career prospects. The quote illustrates the tensions juggling the requirements of training schemes in tandem with the demands of conditionality embedded within the social security system: ‘I feel like I’m stuck in one spot and I can’t move forward to where I wanna be, so I’ve gotta stay here [training scheme] until I can get them qualifications to get to that spot. But Job Centre saying I’m not gonna be able to claim benefits while I’m doing a course then I’m not gonna be able to go on a course cos I’m not gonna leave meself and me kids and me family without money, so I need to make sure I’ve got that money coming in for me kids, for food and that, but I don’t think Job Centre’s seeing it like that, they’re just saying, oh we’ve got a job, we’re signing you on, making you do different things. … I want to be able to work and earn money for me kids. I want to pay my taxes like everybody else, but I can’t, feel like I can’t do it because I han’t got them sorta qualifications in me life to get on with it. So I think that’s what’s just letting me down, is them qualifications and skills.’ (23-​year-​old male) 164

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Other participants also discussed the frustrations of churning between various training schemes within the context of precarious, low-​paid local labour markets. Here we can see the particularities of place coming to the fore –​the ‘masking’ of poverty and hardship behind the scenes of ‘holiday making’ in a coastal context: ‘Because everyone in authority is just masking [the problems], they want the tourists to see a nice seaside town, ice-​creams, beach. And they aren’t really helping people. Basically the job centre is in cahoots with every agency and what in x [coastal town], and they get paid for putting them on it, and then they get paid for you being on it, and then when you’ve finished you go back to the job centre and you do it all again. I don’t want to do it, but for me to get money I have to.’ (25-​year-​old male, participatory arts-​based film transcript)

‘Stickiness’ of social class and the mobility imperative While the relationship between seasonality and underemployment are distinct to the particularities of the coastal context, shared experiences of precarity and low pay cut across both urban and rural localities. While it is important to recognize these similarities, the ways in which experiences of precarity and uncertainty are navigated within rural/​coastal contexts are mediated through the lens of the mobility imperative (Farrugia, 2016). For example, young people perceived their spatial context as limiting, and contrasted this to urban contexts, such as London, that were believed to provide prospects for progression. Young people often compared the size of their coastal town, being “tiny” or “small”, with places “out there” that were “bigger”, would provide “more stuff”, and “more opportunities”: ‘Like to be able to go to university and like be able to move out x [coastal town] and get more, a bigger job opportunity in a bigger area, like not to know like there’s not just life in x [coastal town], there’s life outside … it’s like move to somewhere bigger and there’s more opportunities, there’s more opportunities to know people. Like one of my mates said they’re gonna live in x [coastal town] forever, but like not everyone knows like what kind of opportunities are out there.’ (16-​year-​old male) ‘X [coastal town] is such a tiny place, I feel like there’s so much more stuff out there compared to what there is here.’ (18-​year-​old male) Reinforcing a sense of being stuck in a locality that offers little prospects was mentioned by a number of young people, but the way in which this was 165

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navigated varied, depending upon resources, social networks and a sense of belonging. Here we see the mobility imperative being reinforced, but the way this is made sense of, and the degrees to which this is even desired, is impacted by a number of factors, including feelings of reciprocity that are embedded in friendships and families that can act as a grounding to remain, or lay down roots, as well as wider systems of support that enable prospects for mobility. The following quote is from a young man who discusses the sense of feeling ‘stuck’ and how a lack of options can entrench this sensation further. When reflecting upon a state of churning between various training programmes, he says “I mostly just get like stuck really, like I feel like I’m stuck”. Unlike the majority of the participants, who lacked social networks that would enable mobility to the “bigger” places they desired, he draws attention to a family connection (his ‘successful’ uncle) that will potentially enable him to move to a global city (London) where he feels there will be “more options”. While this participant shared a similar class background to other participants, including shared experiences of deprivation and similar social connections within the neighbourhood, it was the opportunities for geographical mobility via his uncle, also from the same neighbourhood and class background, that was showcased as a mark of distinction when compared to others in the locality: ‘I get why people feel like they’re stuck when they’re round a place for like so long and don’t have many options to get out … I might be moving to London. There’ll be a lot more options down there; so I’ll have to like find out where a place is what can actually help me out with that.’ (18-​year-​old male) What was most enlightening about his conversation was how the participant went on to mobilize the spatialized narrative of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ that depicted the coastal town as a route to exclusion and that prospects for social mobility entailed the necessity to become geographically mobile. What is striking in the following quote is the positioning of the coastal town as a “black hole” that perpetuates a sense of intergenerational ‘stickiness’ of class origin, and how the (social) mobility performed by his uncle is showcased as a ‘success story’ by the family and wider community: ‘My uncle said x [coastal town] is like a black hole; once you’re in it you can’t really get out and you’re stuck here, and then your family after are stuck here. Like when he came back [to visit family], like he’s really successful now and like all the people that used to give him grief are out looking at him now, and it’s like wow … he got out, and he did go to [X City] Premiership and went, moved to London, moved to Miami; goes all over the world.’ (18-​year-​old male) 166

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Another participant also illustrates the mobilization of the mobility imperative and, again, how intergenerational discussions reinforce similar sentiments of the ‘stickiness’ of class mobility: ‘Every person I’ve talked to my age has said that as soon as they like get 18 they want to leave because there’s nothing here for ‘em. My granddad said like “There’s nothing here for you [person’s name], you need to move to a nicer place”. … Most people’ll want to go to like London … somewhere big where there’s jobs, do you know what I mean.’ (16-​year-​old female) Intergenerational discussions surrounding young people’s imagined spatial futures of ‘success’ were further complicated by individualized accounts of personal responsibility. For example, in trying to make sense of why so many people struggled to navigate ‘successful’ transitions into education and employment, some participants placed the responsibility for a “lack of aspiration” onto individuals. Within such narratives, failure is internalized as an individual shortcoming, while the structural inequalities aligned to the particularities of place are minimized. An important argument put forward by Furlong and Cartmel (2007) when theorizing the impact of social change, is how ‘the intensification of individualism means that crises are perceived as individual shortcomings rather than the outcome of processes which are largely outwith the control of individuals … young people frequently attempt to resolve collective problems through individual action and hold themselves responsible or their inevitable failure’ (Furlong and Cartmel, 2007, p 144). These narratives illustrate what Furlong and Cartmel would argue to be an ‘epistemological fallacy’, a concept that helps us appreciate how ideas around ‘aspiration’ are formed and maintained within young people’s social and spatial locations. The following quote highlights this ‘epistemological fallacy’, but also draws attention to a common theme across the sample of envisaging a return to the locality if geographical mobility has taken place, to raise a family or settle down in later life: ‘Most people round here, like they don’t have big aspirations, like no-​one’s like oh I want to be a doctor. … Like people just think because we’re from a small town we can’t do it, but we can if we put our minds to it, everyone can do it … not many people move out of x [coastal town], they always stay … but I really want to move out of x [coastal town] … it’s just I’d like somewhere that’s big like … I’d love to come back like, obviously, and live here when I’m older, but it’s just, there’s nothing here for young people here.’ (16-​ year-​old female) 167

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For other participants, the mobility imperative was just as relevant, but access to the means to achieve this meant it held different meanings or took on different forms. The following participant, despite sharing similar socioeconomic circumstances with the rest of the sample, had weaker links to family, friends and the community in the locality. This participant stood out as having a particularly negative perception of the coastal town where these limited, or very weak social connections, meant there were no points of tension when considering the prospect of ‘moving away’ and leaving others behind. It is within this context that the metaphoric qualities of the ‘fish tank’ are mobilized to describe a compelling account of feeling ‘stuck’, and going ‘nowhere’ in a structural context of limited opportunities: ‘When you live in x [coastal town] and you don’t leave x [coastal town], you think x [coastal town] is the be all and end all. Its nowt, it’s a dead end, it’s a fish tank. Well it’s like to look at, well, you’ve got the tourist side and then you’ve got the run down, you know, dirty, scruffy places. Not a lot of money goes into the area because the tourists don’t see it.’ (25-​year-​old male, participatory film transcript) For others, the thought of ‘moving away’ or “going too far” from friends, family and the community was painful: “there’s no way that I could move and just leave them behind”. This reinforces the complex feelings surrounding a strong attachment to place where reciprocity and the proximity of care (Cuervo and Wyn, 2014; Ravn, 2021) are critical for projections of a future self: ‘Like I’m physically prepared, like I’m old enough to go but I know in my own mind it’ll be a bit too much stress on me because I’ll be too worried about what my dad’s doing or whatever; so I wouldn’t be focusing on uni work I’d be focusing on what’s happening at home. … I’d like to say I’d try moving away but I’m not too sure because it is my home town and it could be that home sickness, not just from being away from my dad, it’d just be the home sickness of the town cos it’s all I’ve known.’ (18-​year-​old female) These narratives of feeling ‘stuck’, of navigating the ‘mobility imperative’ within a fragile structural context of limited opportunities, are felt in complex and contradictory ways. We can clearly see the tensions that young people face when confronted with the pressure to geographically disembed, but how this is given meaning, and indeed responded to, are far from uniform. While classed subjectivities have a marked spatial pattern, they are interjected by a whole range of factors. For example, the desire to move away, or geographically disembed, was complicated by the very nature 168

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of the ties that bind young people to their local context –​friends, families and communities who had often supported each other through sustained, complex and overlapping forms of hardship. The context of poverty and deprivation could strengthen these ties, which in turn, could leave young people worried or apprehensive about leaving others behind. This provides a graphic illustration of how young lives are bound within localities and social milieus that feel familiar and known. This also provides a powerful glimpse into how young people’s identities, including their perceptions and aspirations for the future, are entangled in a complex matrix of reciprocity that works its way through families, friends and localities in extremely complex ways. For some of the most vulnerable young people in the study, ties to the locality were particularly weak, and while they may have had the strongest desire to move away, they most often lacked the resources, support and connections to be mobile. While young people’s material circumstances and perceptions of belonging might explain the ‘stickiness’ of class origin, the richness of the qualitative data can powerfully illustrate the diverse pathways in which young lives unfold within and between different localities.

Displacement pressure through the lens of tourism and regeneration Elements of affective displacement, a sense of ‘otherness’ and not belonging to particular spaces were also evidenced. Similar to wider studies of urban transformation (Butcher and Dickens, 2016; Slater, 2017), experiences of spatial stigma were connected to feelings of segregation and exclusion from the benefits associated with regeneration. Descriptions of their neighbourhoods being “left behind” and “run down”, things being taken away and not replaced, were commonplace. When ‘investments’ were made (that is, a newly built waterpark), these were felt to be inaccessible to local people due to cost. The distinction between things being built/​invested in for “them” (tourists) and not for “us” (locals) often engendered a sense of resentment and discomfort. Young people described feelings of frustration and anger with the prioritization of tourist spots, while local (stigmatized) neighbourhoods were neglected and left to “run down”: ‘I feel like tourists enjoy it more than the people who actually live here.’ (18-​year-​old male) ‘There’s nothing here for young people. We’ve got a water park but it’s really expensive. … We’ve got one cinema which is like run down, and obviously they’re trying to build a new one, which is gonna be so expensive we can’t afford it anyway. And it’s just, they build like apartments and stuff and they could be building like other things for us.’ (16-​year-​old female) 169

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These quotations allow us to witness the differential impact of the processes of displacement and gentrification on marginalized young people. What is particularly interesting here is the ways in which subjectivities associated with regeneration unfold in localities that are on the periphery and highly politicized as part of the ‘levelling up’ agenda. Here we can see the impact of displacement pressure unfold in localities that have depressed economies, distinct labour markets and vacancies in housing stock that stand in sharp contrast to the spatial displacement to be found in more urban contexts. Looking at displacement pressure through the lens of tourism and regeneration offers a unique perspective to our understanding of these processes. With the wider literature being dominated by young people’s experiences within the urban context, these findings are particularly novel and insightful. The more recent ‘levelling up’ agenda, placing deprived coastal towns high on the political agenda for action, also means we need further empirical investigation into the spatial and temporal dimensions of regeneration, including how feelings of displacement pressure unfold within such communities. This will provide a timely analysis of how ‘left behind’ coastal towns have become cultural signifiers of disadvantage, and what might be the consequences of stigma and the cultural politics of place. Such investigations will provide a richer understanding of the processes that shape young people’s relationship towards place and how the production of stigma in communities is understood and made sense of. How such processes might be internalized and affect wider perceptions of belonging will also be integral to our understanding of how spatial inequalities are lived and experienced.

Conclusion This study focused upon a highly deprived coastal context, illustrating how young people navigate the experience of deprivation and how this intertwines with educational structures and local labour markets that are highly restrictive. This context presented distinct challenges and obstacles that led many young people to envisage a way of ‘getting on’ via ‘getting out’, often to urban localities that were perceived to provide greater opportunities. The qualitative data with marginalized young people in a deprived coastal context further highlighted the meanings and sense-​making aligned to their communities and localities, including the specific challenges when making transitions to education and employment that are unique to their spatial context. The analysis also showed that in order to navigate the structural conditions of place, the mobility imperative was mobilized, a salient marker of how geographical mobility was often linked to ideas surrounding social mobility. However, despite the shared experiences of multiple forms of deprivation and hardship, a range of complex factors such as resources, 170

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social networks and reciprocity influenced the degree to which the mobility imperative was invested in or even desired. This reinforces the significance of place, not only as an important structural category, but also an important marker of identity. The research demonstrated how young people engaged in identity work that was difficult to disentangle from their locality. This provides a powerful illustration of how young people’s identities, including their perceptions and aspirations for the future and what is considered ‘possible’ or ‘impossible’, are entangled in a complex matrix of reciprocity that works its way through families, friends and localities in extremely complex ways. This not only helps us understand how choices are highly constrained by the spatial structures of inequality, but also how young people’s decision-​ making, how lives are lived and experienced, made sense of, given meaning and value, interlinks with the cultural dimensions of locality and mobility. This allows us to understand the reproduction of social inequalities in more complex ways. Put simply, understanding the locale is central to how class functions and is lived today. Young people were also aware of the regeneration activities aligned with narratives of their communities depicted as ‘left behind’. Here we witnessed similar feelings of affective displacement to those found in urban contexts, but also some significant differences. For example, how displacement pressures unfold across these two distinct contexts –​and how areas depicted as marginal, ‘struggling’ and ‘left behind, with depressed economies and vacancies in housing stock, stand in sharp contrast to the risks of spatial displacement to be found in global cities. While large-​scale statistical data can tell us a great deal about the structural conditions of place, including industries, labour markets and educational institutions, they are unable to provide more nuanced understandings of how people engage with place on a daily basis and how young people rooted in specific localities make sense of their positioning and representation. As the concept of ‘left behind’ towns, cities and regions gains political momentum, more attention needs to be placed upon the structural context of place, in tandem with how places are subjectively experienced. While inequalities between cities and regions are deep-​rooted, complex and multifaceted, simple binary accounts of the urban and rural are problematic. A ‘levelling up’ agenda that politicizes the re-​balancing of regional inequalities fails to appreciate the complex ways in which inequality manifests itself in different contexts, and then how this is navigated and made sense of by those subject to shifting social landscapes. This is not to say that we do not need to strengthen policies to spatially rebalance disparities. But rather, policies need to attend to broader issues of social justice that recognize spatial inequalities in more complex ways. This will involve greater recognition of inequalities between cities globally, between regions within nation states, but also within cities themselves. 171

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References ACP (Association of Child Psychotherapists) (2018) The Association of Child Psychotherapists Response to the House of Lords Select Committee on Regenerating Seaside Towns and Communities. Available from: https://​childpsychotherapy. org.uk/​ s ites/ ​ d efault/ ​ f iles/ ​ d ocuments/ ​ ACP%20Regenerating%20 Seaside%20Towns%20and%20Communities%20Response_​0.pdf Agarwal, S. and Brunt, P. (2006) ‘Social exclusion in English seaside resorts’, Tourism Management, 27(4): 654–​670. Agarwal, S., Jakes, S., Essex, S., Page, S. and Mowforth, M. (2018) Tourism Management, 69: 440–​459. Beatty, C., Fothergill, S. and Wilson, I. (2011) England’s Smaller Seaside Towns: A Benchmarking Study, London: Department for Communities and Local Government. Bingham, J. (2013) ‘Seaside towns have become “dumping grounds” for the poor, says think-​tank’, The Telegraph. Available from: https://​www. telegraph.co.uk/​news/​politics/​10221475/​Seaside-​towns-​have-​become-​ dumping-​grounds-​for-​poor-​says-​think-​tank.html Black, N., Scott, K. and Shucksmith, M. (2019) ‘Social inequalities in rural England: Impacts on young people post-​2008’, Journal of Rural Studies, 68: 264–​275 Burn-​Murdoch, J. (2017) ‘Small towns left behind as exodus of youth to cities accelerates’, Financial Times. Available from: https://​www.ft.com/​ content/​2312924c-​ce02-​11e7-​b781-​794ce08b24dc Butcher, M. and Dickens, L. (2016) ‘Spatial dislocation and affective displacement: Youth perspectives on gentrification in London’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40(4): 800–​816. Cartmel, F. and Furlong, A. (2000) Youth Unemployment in Rural Areas, York: York Publishing Services/​Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Centre for Towns (2018) The Ageing of Our Towns. Available from: https://​ www.centrefortowns.org/​reports/​the-​ageing-​of-​our-​towns Conservative Party (2019) Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain’s Potential, The Conservative and Unionist Party Manifesto, 2019. Corbett, M. (2009) ‘Rural schooling in mobile modernity: Returning to the places I’ve been’, Journal of Research in Rural Education, 24(7): 1–​13. Corfe, S. (2017) Living on the Edge: Britain’s Coastal Communities. Available from: http://​www.smf.co.uk/​wp-​content/​uploads/​2017/​09/​Living-​on-​ the-​edge.pdf Cuervo, H. and Wyn, J. (2014) ‘Reflections on the use of spatial and relational metaphors in youth studies’, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(7): 901–​915. Curtis, S. (2016) Global Cities and Global Order, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (1998) Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry, London: Sage. 172

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Farrugia, D. (2014) ‘Towards a spatialised youth sociology: The rural and the urban in times of change’, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(3): 293–​307. Farrugia, D. (2016) ‘The mobility imperative for rural youth: The structural, symbolic and non-​representational dimensions rural youth mobilities’, Journal of Youth Studies, 19(6): 836–​851. Farrugia, D. (2020) ‘Class, place and mobility beyond the global city: Stigmatisation and the cosmopolitanisation of the local’, Journal of Youth Studies, 23(2): 237–​251. Furlong, A. and Cartmel, F. (2007) Young People and Social Change, 2nd edition, Buckingham: Open University Press. HM Government (2018) Serious Violence Strategy. Available from: https://​ www.gov.uk /​government/​publications/​serious-​violence-​strategy HM Treasury (2021) Fund Extended to Help Level-​up Every Corner of United Kingdom. Available from: https://​ w ww.gov.uk/​ g overnment/​ n ews/​ fund-​extended-​to-​help-​level-​up-​every-​corner-​of-​united-​kingdom House of Lords Select Committee on Regenerating Seaside Towns and Communities (2019) ‘The Future of Seaside Towns’: Report of Session 2017–​ 2019, House of Lords HL 320, London: The Stationery Office. IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) (2020) ‘Levelling up: Where and how?’. IFS Green Budget 2020, Chapter 7. Available from: https://​www.ifs.org. uk/​uploads/​CH7-​IFS-​Green-​Budget-​2020-​Levelling-​up.pdf Jamieson, L. (2000) ‘Migration, place and class: Youth in a rural area’, The Sociological Review, 48(2): 203–​223. Jennings, W. and Stoker, G. (2019) ‘The divergent dynamics of cities and towns: Geographical polarisation after Brexit’, The Political Quarterly, 90(2): 155–​166. Jennings, W., McKay, L. and Stoker, G (2021) ‘The politics of levelling up’, The Political Quarterly, 92(2): 302–​311. Jessop, B. (2000) ‘From the KWNS to the SWPR’, in G. Lewis, S. Gewirtz and J. Clarke (eds) Rethinking Social Policy, London: Sage, pp 171–​184. Leonard, A. (2015) ‘Seaside town regeneration and the interconnections between the physical environment, key agencies and middle-​life’, Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, 8(2): 107–​126. Lupton, R., Obolenskaya, P. and Fitzgerald, A. (2016) ‘Spatial inequalities’, in R. Lupton, T. Burchardt, J. Hills, K. Stewart and P. Vizard (eds) Social Policy in a Cold Climate: Policies and their Consequences Since the Crisis, Bristol: Policy Press, pp 291–​316. MacDonald, R. and Marsh, J. (2005) Disconnected Youth? Growing up in Britain’s Poor Neighbourhoods, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. McDowell, L., Bonner-​T hompson, C. and Harris, A. (2020) ‘On the margins: Young men’s mundane experiences of austerity in English coastal towns’, Social and Cultural Geography, DOI: 10.1080/​ 14649365.2020.1795233 173

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ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2018) More than Half of Heroin/​Morphine Misuse Death Hotspots in England and Wales Are Seaside Location (4 April 2018). Available from: https://w ​ ww.ons.gov.uk/p​ eoplepopulationandcommunity/​ birthsdeathsandmarriages/​deaths/​halfofheroinmorphinemisusedeathhotsp otsinenglandandwalesareseasidelocations/​2018-​04-​04 Ravn, S. (2021) ‘Reframing immobility: Young women aspiring to “good enough” local futures’, Journal of Youth Studies, DOI: 10.1080/​ 13676261.2021.1948515 Simpson, R., Morgan, R., Lewis, P. and Rumens, N. (2021) ‘Living and working on the edge: “Place precarity” and the experiences of male manual workers in a U.K. seaside town’, Population, Space and Place, DOI: 10.1002/​ psp.2447. Skelton, T. and Gough, K. (2013) ‘Introduction: Young people’s im/​mobile urban geographies’, Urban Studies, 50(3): 455–​466. Slater, T. (2017) ‘Territorial stigmatization: Symbolic defamation and the contemporary metropolis’, in J. Hannigan and G. Richards (eds) The Sage Handbook of New Urban Studies. London: Sage, pp 111–​125. SMC (Social Mobility Commission) (2017) State of the Nation 2017: Social Mobility in Great Britain, London: SMC. Ward, K. (2015) ‘Geographies of exclusion: Seaside towns and houses in multiple occupancy’, Journal of Rural Studies, 37(1): 98–​107. Wenham, A. (2020) ‘ “Wish you were here”? Geographies of exclusion: Young people, coastal towns and marginality’, Journal of Youth Studies, 23(1): 44–​60. Woodman, D. and Wyn, J. (2015) Youth and Generation: Rethinking Change and Inequality in the Lives of Young People, London: Sage.

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Housing and Regional Rootedness: Home Ownership beyond the Metropolis Julia Cook, Helen Cahill and Dan Woodman

Introduction Recent discussions of Australian young adults have been marked by concerns about housing affordability and subsequent declines in rates of home ownership among the 25–​34-​year-​old demographic. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) most recent Survey of Income and Housing (2017–​2018) found that only 37 per cent of 25–​34-​year-​olds were home owners, down from 57 per cent in 1971 (ABS, 2019a). Attention has focused, however, on home ownership in capital cities, with less attention given to the experiences of those living in regional and rural areas. This lack of attention is perhaps unsurprising as Australia is one of the world’s most urbanized countries, with close to 90 per cent of the population living in urban areas at the time of last census (ABS, 2016). However, this lack of attention beyond the metropolis also echoes the wider tendency to focus on urban areas in youth sociology, and to use the lives of urban young people as a benchmark for what is common in the lives of all young people (Farrugia, 2014). In the case of home ownership, this tendency to conflate the experiences of non-​urban youth with those of their urban counterparts overlooks crucial points of distinction. While much of rural Australia has also been impacted by the rapid price inflation that has affected urban property markets since the year 2000, rural areas also contend with issues such as bifurcated housing markets in resource boom areas hosting temporary workers, with a split between high value properties and affordable but low quality housing (Beer et al, 2011). However, just as rural and regional Australia is highly heterogeneous, so too are its property 175

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markets. It is thus useful to consider the ways in which particular non-​urban areas differ not just from urban areas, but from each other. In service of this aim we seek to address the ways in which young adults living in Launceston, a regional centre in the Australian island state of Tasmania, negotiated issues related to housing, considering how these experiences provide a window into challenges associated with employment, attachment to people and places, and their future thinking. We draw on data from a one-​day dialogic workshop conducted with 19 29–​30-​year-​ old participants from the long-​running Life Patterns study. We find that although property prices have risen sharply in recent years (post-​2017), some of the participants’ experiences were nevertheless distinct from metrocentric narratives of declining housing affordability, with many achieving home ownership at a relatively young age. However, home ownership provoked a host of distinct challenges for the participants. While remaining in their local area in a permanent way through home ownership contributed to feelings of rootedness and belonging for the participants, it directly contradicted the requirement for, and value placed on, flexibility and mobility in their preferred careers in the contemporary employment economy. The negotiation of conflicting imperatives around home and career presented a key tension to be managed by our participants (Cahill and Leccardi, 2020), as also found in a growing body of work addressing ‘rural stayers’ who remain in or return to regional and rural areas (Stockdale and Haartsen, 2018). This work has sought to move beyond the dominant focus on instrumental factors to consider relational determinants of place mobility and immobility. We contribute to this effort by attending to the way in which, in a regional setting, home ownership on the part of a relatively advantaged group of young professionals enhanced forms of security related to rootedness and place attachment while simultaneously evoking financial insecurities arising from constraints on pursuing socially valued employment pathways in a constrained labour market, and limitations on their ability to follow preferred options in relation to their children’s futures. We begin by discussing literature addressing the experiences of young adults who remain in rural and regional areas before moving on to present the methods and the findings of the research.

Towards an immobility perspective in mobilities research Researchers working on the topics of mobility and migration have recently begun to turn their attention to experiences of immobility. This area of interest has emerged largely in response to the observation that a minority of people migrate either internally or internationally, demonstrating that immobility is a much more common experience than that of mobility, 176

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despite the disproportionately large amount of attention directed towards the latter. In a conceptual register this point of focus is articulated as an effort to challenge the ‘grand narrative’ of hypermobility, modernity and dislocation that rose to the fore particularly in theoretical treatments of the topic (Sheller and Urry, 2006; Coulter et al, 2016). The emerging focus on immobility in studies of mobility and migration is particularly relevant to rural areas, in which immobility has been framed in a particularly negative way, often equated with a ‘failure to leave’ (Looker and Naylor, 2009). Stockdale and Haartsen (2018, p 2) have contended that such accounts strip non-​migrants of agency, and call for the development of an immobility perspective ‘that considers stayers as active participants and staying as active’. Such an approach builds upon earlier studies that have distinguished between immobility as a choice on the one hand, and as a product of constraints on the other (for example Hjalm, 2014) in order to frame staying as ‘an active process rather than an absence of movement’ (Coulter et al, 2016, p 359). A rethinking of both mobility and immobility is of utility to our work for three key reasons. First, work stemming from this perspective has drawn on family migration research to emphasize that few individuals make mobility decisions (whether to stay or to migrate) with reference only to economic and career-​based factors (Morse and Mudgett, 2018). The relevance of this insight lies in the way in which it draws attention away from solely negative or reactive reasons for migration or non-​migration based on deficits in economic opportunities and labour market in either local or destination areas, shifting attention instead towards diverse considerations based on family ties and the specific attributes of one’s local area. For instance, in their US-​based study of lifetime stayers in both rural and urban areas Erikson et al (2018) found that high levels of community attachment were a strong predictor of being a stayer. Similarly, in research focusing specifically on rural areas Haartsen and Stockdale (2018) found that their participants often accepted the physical limitations of their local areas in relation to the availability of services in order to experience the social aspects of rural life, on which they placed a higher value. This body of research has also emphasized the need to focus on place attachment and the specific ways it is formed and re-​formed by individuals (Stockdale and Haartsen, 2018). Second, work stemming from the immobility perspective has emphasized that the decision to stay is not made once at a single point in time. It is, rather, proactively renegotiated over time, and with the onset of new life stages. This insight is particularly relevant for the study of younger stayers, as the bulk of research on rural young adults focuses on the point at which they face the post-​secondary ‘mobility imperative’, deciding whether to stay in their local area, or to leave, often in pursuit of education and employment opportunities. In service of developing an active and agentic account of 177

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immobility Stockdale et al (2018) have emphasized that the decision to stay in one’s local area is renegotiated throughout time, throughout life course changes and, crucially, in relation to the life course transitions of significant others. The authors advocate for the use of a linked lives perspective (Elder, 1994), which calls attention to the role of significant others in mobility (and immobility) decision-​making. Third, scholars advancing this perspective have developed typologies of (im)mobility experiences in an effort to capture the complexities of staying and returning. Of most use to us is the understanding of staying developed by Haartsen and Thissen (2014) and Rérat (2014). These authors each base their conception of staying on the perceptions and experiences of their participants, and for this reason adopt a more expansive definition than has been used in other studies. Specifically, they classify individuals who have left their local area physically, and yet essentially remain in their local area mentally as a type of stayer. Indeed, Haartsen and Thissen (2014) find that many of the young adults who fell into this category in their research had planned to return before even leaving their local area, and were leaving to pursue education or employment for a bounded timespan. Ultimately, by emphasizing non-​economic motivations for (im)mobility based on relational ties and place-​based considerations, and by recasting (im)mobility decision-​making as an active and ongoing process, this literature offers a lens for interpreting the experiences of rural and regional stayers. The latter point has particular utility for understanding the experiences of young adults who have remained in their local area, a consideration which has heretofore been dominated by a focus on post-​secondary decision-​ making, thereby treating subsequent experiences of staying as an extended result of this decision. We seek to contribute to this literature by considering the specific ways in which young adults, who are more than ten years post-​ secondary schooling, negotiate and renegotiate the decision to stay in their local area both in the present and in their imagined futures.

Rural housing and Launceston Although some research has begun to identify links between non-​urban stayers and local housing markets (for example Gkartzios and Scott, 2013), focusing on issues such as quality and availability of housing stock, there is nevertheless a paucity of literature addressing the impact of the housing market on this group. The small volume of literature that has addressed the mobility impacts of rural housing has focused predominantly on social and community housing (for example Dufty-​Jones, 2015), attending to renting and ownership only in the context of rural in-​migration (for example Costello, 2009). A notable exception is the work of Beer et al (2011), which points to some crucial considerations for regional housing markets 178

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by addressing drivers of supply and demand in Australia’s rural and regional centres. Beer et al (2011) find that there is a significant gap between home ownership and the rental sector in many rural and regional places. While home ownership has, in many areas, remained relatively affordable, availability and accessibility of rental accommodation is out of step with this, especially for those from low-​income groups. The lack of attention to the influence of local housing markets in existing studies of rural stayers is in part a response to the highly specific nature of these markets. Rural and regional markets, and the areas in which they are located, are highly heterogeneous in relation to their geographical features, population demographics, quality of housing stock and many other considerations, meaning that insights about the impact of these markets gained from one area have to very cautiously be generalized to other areas. However, the diversity of non-​urban areas, while it must be recognized in any study, does not discount that place-​based considerations have an influence on many individual (im)mobility experiences in these areas in a greater and different way to urban areas. The participants in our study lived in or around Launceston, a regional city in the north of the island state of Tasmania, Australia, with a population of just over 84,000 at the 2016 census. Launceston is located almost 200km from the state capital of Hobart (ABS, 2019b). Launceston’s economy is the largest in Northern Tasmania, reflecting its role as a regional economic centre, and the local economy is dominated by the retail and service sector due both to Launceston’s growing reputation as a tourist destination and the collapse of the logging industry in the late 2000s. However, it also hosts a campus of the University of Tasmania, and an agriculture sector that is in transition between the production of apples and the emerging viticultural industry. The median age of the population of Launceston was 40 at the 2016 census, slightly higher than the Australian median of 38 and likely reflecting a small effect for youth out-​migration. The population reflects a below average level of tertiary education, with 16 per cent of the population holding a Bachelor level or higher qualification, compared to 22 per cent of the general Australian population. Levels of employment were similar to those of both the wider state of Tasmania and national averages, as were the proportion of the population in each occupational grouping. However, while median levels of weekly personal, family and household income were similar to those of the wider Tasmanian population, they were significantly lower than those of the wider Australian population in each category. For instance, median weekly family income in Launceston was reported as $1,416, compared to $1,734 for the national population (data drawn from ABS, 2019b). Over 90 per cent of housing in Launceston is comprised of freestanding or semi-​detached houses, meaning that flats and apartments account for 179

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a small proportion of overall housing stock. Rates of outright ownership, ownership with a mortgage and renting were each at approximately 32 per cent, comparable with the wider Australian population, and median weekly rent payments and monthly mortgage payments were significantly lower than those of the wider Australian population. However, renters reported slightly higher rates of rental stress (12.6 per cent, compared to the national average of 11.5 per cent, calculated as households in which weekly rent payments were greater than or equal to 30 per cent of weekly household income), while those who owned with a mortgage reported somewhat lower than average rates of mortgage stress (4.5 per cent compared to the national average of 7.2 per cent, similarly calculated as households in which monthly mortgage repayments were greater than or equal to 30 per cent of monthly household income) (ABS, 2019b). This suggests that Beer et al’s (2011) characterization of the gap between the rental and owning sectors of housing markets in rural centres likely applies in Launceston. The Launceston property market is currently experiencing a price boom, with property prices increasing 11.4 per cent in the last year (REIT, 2021). The boom in housing prices that has occurred over the last few years follows a ten-​year depression in Launceston’s housing market following the collapse of the logging industry. However, median house prices in Launceston remain below $500,000, compared to $1.3 million in Sydney and $974,000 in Melbourne, the two largest capital cities in Australia.

Methods The data presented in this chapter are drawn from a one-​day workshop that was held in Launceston in late 2018 with participants from the long-​ running Life Patterns research programme. The Life Patterns programme is a mixed-​method, longitudinal study following two cohorts of Australian young adults through the milestones traditionally denoting independent adult life. The cohort from which the workshop participants were drawn were recruited into the study over 2005–​2006 in their second-​last and then last year of secondary school. The participants in this cohort were recruited from secondary schools in the states of Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania, as well as the Australian Capital Territory. In 2005–​2006, 60 per cent of the roughly 4,000 participants in the study were living in rural and regional areas. Members of this demographic were oversampled due to the study’s particular focus on the life-​course experiences of rural and regional young people. All Life Patterns participants living within a 50km radius of Launceston (approximately 70) were invited to participate in the workshop, and were offered a $150 gift card to compensate them for their time, as well as reimbursement of their travel costs. Nineteen participants elected to take 180

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part in the workshop, which was held in late 2018. The participants were aged 29–​30, and included three men and 16 women. The participants reflected high levels of post-​secondary education; 17 had completed a Bachelor degree and ten had either completed or were currently completing a graduate qualification. In the group there were three teachers, two social workers, two nurses, one draftsperson, one operations manager, one lawyer, three were employed in health science, two worked in hospitality, two were employed in geographical or environmental sciences, one was employed in agriculture, and one was a full-​time graduate student. In relation to tenure type, nine of the participants were home owners, six were living in rental properties, two were living with parents rent-​free and two were paying board to parents. Four of the participants were parents, and a further three were pregnant at the time of the workshop. The participants’ levels of educational attainment, employment and home ownership were overall above average for the area and for Australia as a whole. While they are not representative of their wider age cohort, they provide a useful case for studying rural stayers, who differ from the popular representation of young adults who stay in rural and regional areas as those with low levels of education and low aspirations (Farrugia, 2016). The dialogic workshop was designed to capture the explanatory theories that the participants use to understand their lives. The workshop employed a range of small group discussion, thematic games and drama-​based activities to evoke input about their experiences of stress and coping, housing, mental health, and their views about personal and national futures (Cahill and Leccardi, 2020). It was structured so that the 19 participants spent some time in plenary, interleaved with time spent in focus groups of four or five participants, each with a facilitator who was a member of the research team. The focus groups and plenary discussions were audio-​recorded and transcribed. The plenary activities were also video-​recorded. The day was designed around four key activities inquiring into stress, coping, housing and futures. In this chapter we focus predominantly on data drawn from small group discussion and plenary discussion about housing, in which the participants were asked to describe the sorts of accommodation or living arrangements that are common for people their age, and to identify the factors that affect their living arrangements. The focus group-​style format of the workshop was chosen to allow for interaction and an exchange of ideas between the participations (Kitzinger, 1994), providing a type of data not possible through one-​on-​one interviews. Analysis began with a round of open coding which focused on identifying themes in both the participants’ experiences and their interpretations and explanations (conceptualized as everyday theories). The latter focus was informed by the fact that the workshop positioned the participants to speak on behalf of their age cohort, rather than drawing solely on individual 181

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experiences. The data were then organized into higher level themes, and memos were written to capture interpretations at this stage of analysis. In fidelity with the design of the workshop, each stage of analysis focused not just on emerging themes, but on how they were built collaboratively by participants, whether this was through conferral or debate. This aspect of the analysis is carried through to the presentation of findings, in which we focus on collaboratively constructed knowledge and interpretations.

Staying and returning Eighteen out of the 19 participants were raised in Launceston or the surrounding areas, with only one (a teacher) moving to Tasmania from mainland Australia for work. However, the mobility experiences of the participants who had grown up in Tasmania were nevertheless varied. Some had remained predominantly in their local area, while others had lived elsewhere in Tasmania, and in mainland Australia in two cases, for a period of time. Those in the latter category echoed some of the findings put forward by Haartsen and Thissen (2014) and Rérat (2014), each of whom have contended that in some cases individuals from rural areas may leave these areas physically while retaining a strong sense of connection. Such an experience of remaining connected while living elsewhere was suggested in the following exchange, which took place during one of the small group discussions: Facilitator: Stuart:

Robert:

I’m curious to know whether it’s common for your generation to move away from home to study or work, [for those of you] living in Tasmania? I see a few different things. Some people just, you know, they keep moving and they almost are moving further and further away. And a lot of other people, they go out, they get their education and then they come back, or they come back after working somewhere else. While I was studying in my major, journalism, [I was] staying in Hobart. A lot of people in that situation, they moved to Hobart while they studied. In my case, I had a job up here and had my family and everything here, so I chose cross-​campus study. So I was busing down there for a couple days, staying in a hotel and then bussing back after I’d done my class. And then I’d be working every other day of the week. So it just worked out for me in that case. All the people that moved down there, and some of them never came back, they stayed down there and finished. 182

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Sally:

I was very similar. I moved to Hobart and stayed in the accommodation and rented and then travelled back every weekend to work, ‘cause I had work up here.

Evidently Robert and Sally commuted between Launceston and Hobart (the capital city of Tasmania) rather than relocating to Hobart. Although they each cite work commitments in Launceston as a driving factor in this arrangement, their experiences are nevertheless indicative of a continuing commitment to and identification with their local area. This finding resonates with the interpretation of staying as a mental and relational, rather than simply physical, state.

The complexities of housing in a regional centre While addressing the topic of housing, the participants in each group positioned the state of Tasmania in relation to mainland Australia, emphasizing how each context differed and in so doing identifying in a place-​based way with their state, as well as their locale. This was particularly overt in relation to what the participants identified as a culture of home ownership in Tasmania (and in their local area more specifically), as illustrated in the following exchange: Rachael:

Simone:

It’s not a rarity for people to purchase a house in Tasmania. There’s always this mentality or perhaps pressure … [in a previous group discussion] we were saying that some of our friends have moved interstate, but their social networks are home owners. So there’s almost this pressure on them to live elsewhere, but want to buy a house. But achieving that is a little bit difficult when you live somewhere else. There’s that whole “get your mortgage signed before you have kids”. So you get your education, then get your career set up and get your house. It’s this old-​fashioned way of working.

Although the normalization of home ownership, and especially of its normative positioning as sequentially after one had completed their education and begun their career but prior to childbearing, was identified as ‘old-​ fashioned’, almost half of the participants (nine out of 19) were home owners at the time of the workshop, and many of the remaining ten cited aspirations of home ownership in the near to mid-​term future. However, despite the impression that home ownership was easier to achieve in Tasmania than on the mainland, the participants identified that they too were affected by the affordability challenges that contemporary young adults face. For instance, 183

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Simone’s experience of listening to her parents and other members of older age groups discuss what they had paid for their houses in the past aligned with sentiments expressed by young adults in similar positions on the mainland: ‘I think you start hearing the absolute crazy prices like “I got this at $30,000”. I wish I could get a house for $30,000!’ The growing affordability challenge was addressed further in the whole-​ group discussion, with one of the participants addressing the impact of growing prices, while remaining cognizant that housing in Tasmania as well as Launceston was likely more affordable than that on the mainland: ‘So we talked about, obviously, the high [property] prices. Well, that might seem laughable to some people. Living in Launceston we have good house prices compared to other places in the country, but we talked about them being very expensive. [It’s still] hard to save up a deposit, especially if you’re renting and trying to save up to buy your own house as well.’ Similarly, another participant stated: ‘Comparatively, you know, we’re really very lucky. But still something, paying the mortgage is a stress however you do it.’ The participants also discussed affordability in relation to the impact of lower wages in Tasmania compared to the mainland, stating: ‘Compared to the mainland it’s a lot cheaper in general. But then I think our wages are a lot cheaper as well, so it’s probably comparable.’ Along with perceptions that they shared the affordability issues that are commonly associated with capital cities, the participants noted ways in which the lack of rental opportunities and the high cost of renting impacted on their lives, and added pressure to purchase housing. This suggests that the ‘gap’ between rented and owned housing that Beer et al (2011) have identified in relation to affordability in rural areas may be playing out here. Indeed, one participant discussed her choice to buy a property due to the inability to find an appropriate rental: ‘I bought my house because I was looking for somewhere to rent and couldn’t find anything I liked for a certain dollar value so I bought a two bedroom unit and I’ve been there for the last eight years. At that time in Tasmania, you were better off to put your money into a 184

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mortgage than renting. Your monthly mortgage repayment was like paying someone’s rent.’ A similar experience around lack of availability and security in rental housing and the relative similarity in cost was recounted in the following exchange: Bianca:

Simone: Melissa: Simone:

My partner and I bought our house two and a half years ago. We’d been traveling, both finished uni, been travelling overseas for a year and we came back and rented and then it came to a point where we had to be out of that house, so we had to find another house. We decided to buy instead of rent again, because it’s gonna work out about the same [referring to cost]. And I think that’s probably unique to Tasmania and maybe northern Tasmania more so than south because it’s gonna be a bit ridiculous down there. It is. But that’s kind of how it was, like you know, we may as well, if you’re lucky enough to secure the deposit then you may just buy. And I don’t think that happens so much for our age group in other parts of Australia.

Conversely, another participant who was living in a regional town outside of Launceston identified her inability to buy property due to concerns about potential difficulties selling it, revealing complexities to be considered on both sides of the owning/​renting divide in rural areas: ‘So I can’t go and buy because I might lose the job and then can’t really sell a house in [regional town] because who would buy that house? Like, I live there, but who else would want that house? So then it’s that fear of onselling. So renting is where I’m at because I don’t feel that buying’s an option because, you know, if I lose my job tomorrow. … I’m in [local area] for the job, it’s not where I’m from. If it was in Launceston it’d be different, you know, I’d have family, I’d have friends here.’ Evidently while the participants perceived that their housing experiences were marked by many similarities with those in other parts of Australia, their locale also presented additional and distinct challenges for them to navigate, which constrained their conditions of possibility. In addition to this, the participants identified that they were affected by a stronger culture of ownership when compared with mainland Australia, highlighting a key tension they faced while planning for their futures. 185

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While it was common to highlight economic distinctions in relation to housing, the participants also identified the influence of their specific socioeconomic milieu. When asked about experiences of housing in their local area for members of their age cohort beyond their peer group, one group of participants highlighted the intersection between low income status and unemployment in relation to housing affordability, and the possibility that the most privileged groups did not have to invest the same efforts towards securing a house as a longer-​term strategy towards financial security: Bianca:

Rachael:

I’m trying to think of people that I’m only half friends with, that I went to school with. They’re probably not in a position to buy a house because they’re lower in their earnings or whatever. We were a pretty little school in a little town and a lot of the people I can think of, there’s a lot living on the dole and things like that, so they’re obviously not the sort of people that earn much. But also I don’t really know that many, like, socialites, so I don’t know their ins and outs, but there is, like, a lot of people that I can think of that I went to school with that I think, you know, you don’t have a job, so you don’t have a house and I guess, for them, it’d be a lot different. Looking into that, the people that have got, you know, wealthy families may not feel the pressure to need to have a nest egg. You know, the four of us [in the small group discussion] have seen it as a priority to get into the housing market. So, for those, you know, lower it’s maybe not a priority, high up, possibly not a priority either.

This exchange illustrates their awareness that their locale did not provide an even playing field, and that socioeconomic status played a major role in what was possible in relation to housing choices.

Relational imperatives and future plans For many of the participants, familiarity and relational ties formed a compelling reason for staying. However, this did not negate the ongoing and active nature of choosing to stay. The participants navigated the opportunities and constraints of their local area in relation to considerations such as employment and housing for themselves, and in some cases with the possible effects on their children’s futures in mind. The participants’ discussion of locale suggested that rural Tasmania was central to their imagined futures. When asked about those advantages and disadvantages of living in a regional area that went beyond employment-​based 186

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considerations, the participants brought up lifestyle and intergenerational family considerations pertaining both to their parents’ generation, and the generation that they anticipated they might raise: Robert: Well, lifestyle choice … Facilitator: Yeah. Robert: For instance, my parents are from a rural property, so that makes me more inclined to go to that sort of an area. Because I like that lifestyle. Facilitator: Yeah, and you’ve grown up around it … Robert: Yeah. But it’s like the perspective, the longer-​term perspective is, you know, I would like to bring up children in that sort of environment. However, the decision to stay, or indeed to return, was often identified as in conflict with career ambitions, necessitating some form of compromise. For instance, one of the participants linked the pursuit of certain career pathways with living in urban areas: ‘If you’re doing … uh, it’s probably a terrible example, but if you’re doing say um … economics or law and you want to work in those fields and you don’t want to go to like a more rural uh, sort of area to work, you want to be where everything’s happening. They tend to stay in the city more.’ Another participant joined this conversation with her own experience of career compromise: Amanda:

Facilitator: Amanda:

Facilitator:

And I sort of did that a little bit with work and housing choices. I studied zoology and I can do that interning in Hobart. Through the uni or through the Antarctic division, but I couldn’t do that from up North. Or I could travel the world and do all sorts of crazy. But I decided that what was most important to me was being close to family and being up here in the North, and so I chose to then change my career and what I was doing to fit in with where I wanted to live. So what do you do now? [laughter] I didn’t end up going back and studying. I just got some work and worked up through the ranks doing it that way, but I’m an operations manager of a disability organization. Oh, okay. 187

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Amanda: Facilitator: Amanda:

And so my work is now helping putting me through the qualifications [laughter] that match where I’m at within the business. Okay. Do you regret not doing Zoology? No. I still am happy and glad that I did it. It’s given me a lot of skills and knowledge and life experience to sort of shape where I am today and … and how I am, so I’m still very thankful for doing it. And maybe one day I’ll get back … [laughter] back into it. But, I’m happy and I live on property. So I have my own animals and stuff anyway, so I get to do all my animal-​y stuff.

These accounts demonstrate that the role of relational considerations in (im)mobility decision-​making is entangled not only with investments made in education, but also interacts with and often comes into conflict with career-​based factors. An example of how this complex interplay may manifest in practice was provided by Simone, whose ambitions to stay in her local area in a secure and long-​term way led to a compromise with her short-​term mobility goals: ‘I’m a nurse and I bought it in my graduate year, which was probably a bit risky, because it was only a 12-​month contract. At the same time I needed somewhere to live, so I was like oh well, I’m a nurse, I can work anywhere, so there was that job security to take that risk. So that’s what I did. I had the money in the bank for a Europe trip and I was like, well, gave that up for the deposit, bought it instead.’ Many participants emphasized that employment opportunities and security constrained their freedom to make choices around living arrangement and starting a family. For instance, one of the male participants stated: ‘Then how do you buy a house and bring up kids and things on a five-​year contract? Or worse, a one-​year contract?’ Some expressed concern that for their generation, a sense of permanency was a thing of the past, and questioned what the future would look like for generations to come, with many participants expressing the need to re-​evaluate and shift their expectations in life (Cahill and Leccardi, 2020). Ultimately, the participants identified that while staying was a choice, it was also a commitment. One that was both facilitated and actualized in part by purchasing property, as illustrated in the following exchange which took place while the participants reported on their small group discussions to the wider workshop: 188

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Zoe: Georgia: Jacinta: Olivia:

One was about owning a home being basically a major commitment that stops any mobility or future plans and kinda locks you in with your job. What else did we say about that? Yeah, you kind of had to keep working, there was no, “I don’t want to do this any more, I’m gonna do something else.” Yeah, so you have to commit, not only to the house but also to the job. So that’s kinda like they’re pinning you down in a place and, you know, and as a worker.

These choices about whether or when to leave or stay are intensified, and reoccur in the context of regular comparisons generated through participation in social media. Our data show that the participants regularly engaged in comparative readings, appraising the experiences and lives of others in relation to their own. Thus ‘choosing’ persists as something of an ongoing condition. These findings underscore Stockdale et al’s (2018) reading of (im)mobility decision-​making as an active and ongoing process that is relevant regardless of one’s actual experience of mobility. Elizabeth:

Joseph:

You’re seeing people do these amazing things, and you don’t see the debt they must be in, you just see the beautiful holidays they’re on and the houses they’ve bought or their –​yeah. So I think there’s almost this, um, I was gonna say expectation, perhaps it’s not the right word but, to keep up, to, you know, keeping up with the Joneses, yeah.

Thus the benefits and costs of staying and going are weighed up as part of a life in which evaluative work is a constant. This ongoing practice of comparison suggests that what might be presumed to be ‘rootedness’ is more an ongoing process of settling. This requires ongoing efforts towards fashioning stability while adjusting to changing circumstances and looming futures and surrounding expectations (Cahill and Leccardi, 2020). In this, the binary of mobility–​immobility fails to encompass the ongoing nature of the instrumental and psycho-​social work entailed in settling mentally as well as physically in a place of origin.

Conclusion While developed from a particular group of young people (more professional and educated than average, and with a clear majority of young women) from a particular regional setting in Tasmania, the narratives told by these 189

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participants resonate with an emerging framework for thinking about the different experiences of regional and rural young people. Non-​urban young adults negotiate a set of challenges that, while overlapping with those experienced by their urban counterparts in some ways, are largely distinct to the specific context in which they are situated. They engage in complex work –​practical and identity-​based –​to remain in their local areas. While this type of work is undoubtedly also undertaken by individuals in urban areas to varying degrees, the increased challenges presented by slim labour and housing markets, as well as the pervasive notion of regional and rural areas as ‘other’ in a highly urbanized country, arguably prompt the reflexivity that provokes such work (see Cook and Cuervo, 2020). Ultimately, staying is a complex and ongoing process –​it is not a single decision made at a single point in time. It is made and remade over time, and in dialogue with life course changes on the part of both oneself and significant others. Housing and the sense of commitment and the promise of stability, and financial soundness, that is associated with house purchase is an under-​ addressed consideration in the very recent surge of interest in rural and regional stayers. Property markets which may be relatively easy to buy into, but offer risky prospects for re-​selling, help to shape the conditions of possibility in which individuals make investments in place that take on both material and symbolic forms. The study of property markets –​and individuals’ interactions with them –​holds great potential for understanding the complex ways rural young adults relate to home and place, especially in a country such as Australia in which an extremely high premium is placed upon home ownership as a marker of financial and social security and status. We thus suggest property markets as a key element of the complex and ongoing mobility decision-​making of young people living in regional and rural parts of Australia. References ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2016) Australian Historical Population Statistics. Available from: https://​www.abs.gov.au/​AUSSTATS/​[email protected]/​ mf/​3105.0.65.001 ABS (2019a) Housing Occupancy and Costs. Available from: https://​www. abs.gov.au/​statistics/​people/​housing/​housing-​occupancy-​and-​costs/​ latest-​release ABS (2019b) 2016 Census Quickstats: Launceston. Available from: https://​ quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/​census_​services/​getproduct/​census/​2016/​ quickstat/​60201 Beer, A., Tually, S., Rowley, S., McKenzie, F.H., Schlapp, J., Birdsall-​Jones, C. et al (2011) Drivers of Supply and Demand in Australia’s Rural and Regional Centres, AHURI Final Report No.165, Melbourne: Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. 190

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Cahill, H. and Leccardi, C. (2020) ‘Reframing resilience’, in J. Wyn, H. Cahill, D. Woodman, H. Cuervo, C. Leccardi and J. Chesters (eds), Youth and the New Adulthood: Generations of Change, Singapore: Springer, pp 67–​82. Cook, J. and Cuervo, H. (2020) ‘Staying, leaving and returning: Rurality and the development of reflexivity and motility’, Current Sociology, 68(1): 60–​76. Costello, L. (2009) ‘Urban-​rural migration: Housing availability and affordability’, Australian Geographer, 40(2): 219–​233. Coulter, R., van Ham, M. and Findlay, A.M. (2016) ‘Re-​thinking residential mobility: Linking lives through time and space’, Progress in Human Geography, 40(3): 352–​374. Dufty-​Jones, R. (2015) ‘Governmentalities of mobility: The role of housing in the governance of Australian rural mobilities’, Journal of Rural Studies, 42: 63–​78. Elder, G.H. (1994) ‘Time, human agency, and social change: Perspectives on the life course’, Social Psychology Quarterly, 57(1): 4–​15. Erikson, L., Sanders, S. and Cope, M. (2018) ‘Lifetimes stayers in urban, rural and highly rural communities in Montana’, Population, Space and Place, 24(4): e2133. Farrugia, D. (2014) ‘Towards a spatialized youth sociology: The rural and the urban in times of change’, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(3): 293–​307. Farrugia, D. (2016) ‘The mobility imperative for rural youth: The structural, symbolic and non-​representational dimensions rural youth mobilities’, Journal of Youth Studies, 19(6): 836–​851. Gkartzios, M. and Scott, M. (2013) ‘Placing housing in rural development: Exogenous, endogenous and neo-​endogenous approaches’, Sociologia Ruralis, 54(3): 241–​265. Haartsen, T. and Stockdale, A. (2018) ‘S’elective belonging: How rural newcomer families with children become stayers’, Population, Space and Place, 24(4): e2137. Haartsen, T. and Thissen, F. (2014) ‘The success-​failure dichotomy re-​ visited: Young adults’ motives to return to their rural home region’, Children’s Geographies, 12(1): 87–​101. Hjalm, A. (2014) ‘The “stayers”: Dynamics of lifelong sedentary behaviour in an urban context’, Population, Space and Place, 20(6): 569–​580. Kitzinger, J. (1994) ‘The methodology of focus groups: The importance of interaction between research participants’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 16(1): 103–​120. Looker, E. and Naylor, T. (2009) ‘“At risk” of being rural? The experience of rural youth in a risk society’, Journal of Rural and Community Development, 4(2): 39–​64.

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Morse, C. and Mudgett, J. (2018) ‘Happy to be home: Place-​based attachments, family ties, and mobility among rural stayers’, The Professional Geographer, 70(2): 261–​269. REIT (Real Estate Institute of Tasmania) (2021) Quarterly Report Media Release. Available from: https://​reit.com.au/​Portals/​24/​resources/​media-​ releases/M ​ arch%202021%20Quarterly%20Report%20Media%20Release. pdf?ver=​MRvWdeyO11DW7cqhQp9zdw%3d%3d Rérat, P. (2014) ‘Highly qualified rural youth: Why do young graduates return to their home region?’, Children’s Geographies, 12(1): 70–​86. Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006) ‘The new mobilities paradigm’, Environment and Planning A, 38(2): 207–​226. Stockdale, A. and Haartsen, T. (2018) ‘Editorial introduction: Putting rural stayers in the spotlight’, Population, Space and Place, 24(4): e2124. Stockdale, A., Theunissen, N. and Haartsen, T. (2018) ‘Staying in a state of flux: A life course perspective on the diverse staying processes of rural young adults’, Population, Space and Place, 24(8): e2139.

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PART IV

Temporalities: Historicizing Space and Place

10

Places of Belonging, Places of Detachment: Belonging and Historical Consciousness in Narratives of Rural Finnish Girls Kaisa Vehkalahti and Helena Ristaniemi

Introduction The depopulation of rural areas has been a long-​standing phenomenon in Northern Scandinavia, including Finland, where school closures and the centralization of services have challenged the lives of young people (Karlsen Bæck and Paulgaard, 2012; Paulgaard, 2015; Armila et al, 2018; Öhrn and Beach, 2019). Out-​migration concerns particularly young women from sparsely populated rural areas. The ‘rural exodus’ of young women –​to borrow the term used by Swedish researcher Mats Johansson (2016) –​can be detected particularly among people aged 18–​29, which points at close connections between migration and education as well as movement to more female-​friendly labour markets. In the media, the out-​migration of young women is often labelled as a straightforward threat to the future of rural communities and lifestyles (Käyhkö, 2017; Sireni et al, 2017, p 31). While recognizing that mobility is a necessity for many rural young women (see Corbett, 2007; Farrugia, 2016) to pursue education or work opportunities at some point in their lives, in this chapter we hope to pay attention to some other elements involved in the processes of building a sense of belonging –​or not belonging –​in rural places. We agree with those youth researchers who have underlined the importance of seeking more holistic perspectives that allow for a deeper analysis of the complexities that characterize the experiences of rural young people in various non-​urban locations (Corbett, 2007; Cuervo and Wyn, 2012, 2017; Farrugia, 2014). 195

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Growing roots in the local community is often interpreted as a hindrance to social progress. However, as this chapter demonstrates, questions revolving around belonging are far from straightforward. Young people may express strong belonging in their rural home area or local culture while also recognizing its social problems and appreciating the benefits of city life. In recent years, more attention has been given to rural young people’s positive identification with their home places (for example Corbett, 2013; Stockdale and Haartsen, 2018; Morse and Mudgett, 2018; Tuuva-​Hongisto, 2018; Rönnlund, 2019). Methodologically, this chapter represents sociologically informed cultural history. Our focus on the concept of belonging relies on the theorizations of Cuervo and Wyn (2012, 2017) and Wyn et al (2019), who have emphasized that belonging is a continuous and relational process. We seek to contribute to the ongoing discussion about rural belonging by explicitly considering temporality. We ask how young people’s temporal orientation in relation to local culture and history contributes to their commitment to rural places. Temporal elements involved in identity and placemaking are conceptualized in terms of historical consciousness (Rüsen, 2004). We approach historical consciousness as intertwined with the processes of belonging. We explore how the immanence of the past, family ties, traditions, nature and community co-​construct the feeling of belonging to a place. Here, historical consciousness is not understood as referring to past history only –​or even primarily –​but rather it is understood more widely as an orientation process, of placing one’s life in a continuum between the past, present and future. Our analysis draws on qualitative longitudinal data from 21 girls, aged 16–​19, from two sparsely populated regions, one in Central Finland and the other in the Northern Finnish Sámi homeland.1 As a concept, rurality is rather elusive (Cloke, 2006; Cuervo and Wyn, 2012), defined differently in different countries when referring to non-​urban areas. In comparison to other parts of Europe, Finland often appears as an exceptionally rural country. According to the OECD (2008, p 16) standards, Finland was among the five most rural OECD countries in 2008 with regard both to the proportion of rural areas (89 per cent) and the population. Compared to other European countries, industrialization and urbanization began late in Finland, but the development has been fast. Depopulation has particularly affected the most sparsely populated rural areas. Historical links between rurality and agriculture have blurred with the decline in the importance of agricultural production. Today only 3 per cent of the Finnish labour force is employed in agriculture and forestry, with the majority of people living in areas defined as rural being employed in other fields, such as in the service sector (Sireni et al, 2017, pp 14–​17). The rural territory is heterogeneous, which is reflected in our study. It focuses on two regions that can both be categorized as sparsely populated, but are also quite different in in terms of 196

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nature, culture, economic and social structure, and history. The Sámi people are the only indigenous group in the European Union, which makes the second site of this research –​the Finnish Sámi homeland –​special, particularly in relation to questions concerning belonging and historical consciousness. Our study includes girls with various backgrounds, both indigenous and non-​indigenous.

Place, belonging and historical consciousness Our analysis builds on the growing literature of spatialized youth studies that have highlighted the importance of place in understanding young people’s lives (for example Cuervo and Wyn, 2012, 2017; Farrugia, 2014; Sørensen and Pless, 2017; Habib and Ward, 2019; Juvonen and Romakkaniemi, 2019). In this chapter, we approach place as constructed through social relations (Massey, 1994), and we understand that feelings about place, like attachment or alienation, are shaped profoundly by time and are subject to change (Tuan, 1997 [1977]). As Habib and Ward (2019, p 1) summarized, belonging is infused with individual and collective histories and tied closely to the social milieu that young people experience daily. Further, focus on place as a meaningful site turns aside the power-​laden comparisons between rural and urban and allows us to view the rural as a place of attachment and not only as a place that is lacking something (Cuervo and Wyn, 2017, pp 222, 230). Perspectives grounded in indigenous studies have further alerted us to the complexity and sensitivity of questions related to belonging in a place. In the context of the Sámi, the land is considered a place that carries with it essential elements of the culture and community (Valkonen and Valkonen, 2019, p 17). Even if we do not apply a new materialist stance in this chapter, we do recognize that belonging is an assemblage of both human and non-​human entities (see Wyn and Cuervo, 2019). Our understanding of the concept of belonging relies on the theorizations of Cuervo and Wyn (2012, 2017; see also Wyn et al, 2019), who approached belonging as a continuous and relational process. Drawing on Bell (1999) and Duff (2010), they emphasized the performative nature of belonging, showing how belonging is built through the repetition of mundane everyday practices that construct deep affective experiences of place (Cuervo and Wyn, 2017, p 228). People and social relations constitute another element of belonging that is central to our analysis. Belonging implies connectedness with others, such as family, kinship, local or ethnic communities, or national identities (for example Antonsich, 2010). As suggested in previous studies both internationally and in Finland, family and relatives play an important role in the organization of the everyday lives of rural young people, who are often seen as more dependent on their families compared to their urban counterparts due to long distances, lack of public transport and the 197

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unavailability of services. This dependency may also translate into warm mutual relationships with parents and siblings (Cuervo and Wyn, 2017, p 221; Käyhkö, 2017; Armila et al, 2018, pp 1207, 1211; Tuuva-​Hongisto, 2018). Similarly, Nystad et al (2017) emphasized the importance of families and kinship in the construction of Sámi identity. Interaction with family, friends and community members creates a sense of belonging in the Sámi community that often extends across regional and national boundaries. It also influences the Sámi people’s expectations and goals. As Zanazanian and Nordgren (2019) stated, people’s understanding of the past and temporality strongly impact their ability to navigate the world and to orient themselves. However, more precise definition and operationalization of this connection has been challenging. Historical consciousness has been one of the most productive approaches. Theoretically, its origins lay in German philosophy and the critical perspective of the Frankfurt school (Ahonen, 1998). As a concept, historical consciousness does not refer to what people know about the past as such but directs attention to how the past is perceived in the present day and how people view temporal developments. More importantly, it encompasses the role that historical orientation has in shaping our future expectations (Ahonen, 1998, p 26; Clark and Peck, 2019). Our approach is inspired by German philosopher Jörn Rüsen’s (2004) theory of historical consciousness as a nexus that ties the past and the present in a way that has future implications. This concept has been widely used with both broader and more narrow implementations (Körber, 2016). The discussion has been dominated by educational research, where the term has been utilized particularly for didactic purposes in history education and curriculum studies (for example Zanazanian and Nordgren, 2019; Lévesque and Croteau, 2020). Broader approaches have explored everyday uses of history and connections between collective history cultures and individual meaning making (see Körber, 2016; Clark and Peck, 2019; Zanazanian and Nordgren, 2019). Rantala (2012) analysed how children perceive history and emphasized that their understanding of history is shaped strongly by both narrated memories from older generations and the material memory culture. Moving beyond the pedagogic uses of the term, we are consciously broadening the limits of historical consciousness as an analytical tool in order to address the intertwined processes of belonging and historical orientation. With this concept, we refer to a sense of temporality and cross-​generational connectedness to different communities and places as well as to young people’s orientation in time. By combining this approach to the performative understanding of belonging (Cuervo and Wyn, 2017), we seek to explore those subtle everyday practices that are often unconscious and remain implicit in interviews. For example, when asked directly about the role of local and family traditions or history in their lives, some young people may be puzzled 198

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by the inquiries, answering that they have no particular traditions. However, the same young people may produce rich accounts about how their family spends time together in nature or how their educational choices rely on long-​standing networks and traditions in the family. Finally, we are committed to relational and responsible indigenous ethical approaches throughout the entire research process (Smith, 1999; Kuokkanen, 2002, 2020). We build on the knowledge of Sámi researchers for grounding, and their theorizations are essential for us as bridgebuilders from outside the community (Kuokkanen, 2002, p 251; Francett-​Hermes and Pennanen, 2019; TENK, 2019, p 50). We are also aware that the past can be interpreted differently, and it is not our intention to compare but rather to discuss the different ways of perceiving cross-​generational belonging among young people.

Research sites, data and analysis Our analysis draws on an ongoing qualitative longitudinal study involving 21 girls from two sparsely populated regions. The participants were contacted through their schools at the age of 15 or 16, during their last grades (eighth or ninth grade) of compulsory school. In Central Finland we contacted nine girls during the school year 2015–​2016,2 and in the Sámi homeland 12 girls during the school year 2018–​2019. In Central Finland participants were recruited from one rural municipality, but in the Sámi homeland from several small communities due to both ethical and methodological research choices. We were particularly interested in the experiences of girls living in the sparsely populated areas, in which communities are very small, without compromising their identities.3 Our Central Finnish research site witnessed a wave of out-​migration after the 1960s. It is a small rural municipality with less than 5,000 inhabitants, located more than 100km from the provincial centre. Agriculture and forestry constitute a significant share (20 per cent) of the local labour market, which corresponds exactly to the national median for sparsely populated rural areas. Agriculture in this region typically refers to smallholding dairy farms. Fathers of the girls included in this study were typically employed in the forest industry and logistics, while mothers worked in the service sector, which constitutes the most common source of employment in the region. The unemployment rate is a few percentage points above the national rate. The population is both socially and ethnically homogeneous. The municipality consists of several rural villages, from which services like schools have gradually withdrawn to the town centre. There is an upper secondary school in the municipality, but no vocational schools. Most young people who choose vocational education must move to new towns after their compulsory education ends at the age of 16. Of the nine girls 199

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included in this study, five continued their studies in their hometown’s upper secondary school. Three moved to other locations for vocational studies, and one commuted to another town from the home municipality (see also Vehkalahti and Aapola-​Kari, 2021; Vehkalahti et al, 2021). The Finnish Sámi homeland consists of the northernmost parts of Finland –​Eanodat, Ohcejohka and Aanaar –​and the northernmost part of Soađegilli –​Vuocchu, where ‘the Sámi have self-​regulation concerning their language and culture’ (Sámediggi, 2017). The Sámi is a group of indigenous people whose transnational homeland (called Sápmi) is located in Northern Scandinavia and the Kola peninsula and divided by the borders of four different nation states: Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia (Lehtola, 2002, p 10). The colonial history of Sápmi goes back centuries, with the weight of structural and governmental actions (Nyyssönen, 2014; Lehtola, 2015; Tervaniemi and Magga, 2019). The Sámi people are not just one group but several groups with slightly different cultures, histories and languages. The Northern Sámi and two smaller minorities, the Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi, are the three Sámi groups in Finland. Traditional livelihoods such as reindeer herding, fishing, berry picking and duodji (traditional handicrafts) are still considered an important part of the culture and local economy (Sámediggi, 2017). However, as in the whole of Lapland, unemployment rates in the Sámi homeland are high, which drives young people away from the north. Today approximately 10,000 Sámi people live in Finland, most of them outside the Sámi homeland. The girls from the Sámi homeland came from different cultural and social backgrounds. Eight identified themselves as Sámi or Sámi-​Finnish. Four identified themselves as Finnish but noted that their families have Sámi background. Their families’ socioeconomic backgrounds varied: some had parents with a university degree, while others had parents with a low level of education or who were unemployed. A few had families who were employed at least partially in traditional livelihoods, like reindeer herding and Sámi handicrafts. Educational possibilities in the Sámi homeland are limited to three upper secondary schools and one vocational school. All 12 girls in this study either continued to or applied to upper secondary education or aimed to complete a double degree of upper secondary school combined with vocational school. While it is important to note that Sámi culture and the construction of Sámi identity are not the focus of this chapter, we wish to underline that the narratives presented by girls from the Sámi homeland were produced against this rich and, in many ways, complex historical background. In this chapter we focus on a critical transition period in the lives of the girls: the end of comprehensive school and the start of further studies either in upper secondary or vocational schools. During our short follow-​up (in Central Finland four years and in the Sámi homeland two years) they have made important choices concerning education, careers and movement 200

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between rural home regions and cities offering further education. Our data consist of altogether 66 semi-​structured group and individual interviews conducted in six phases with the Central Finnish girls and in three phases with the girls from the Sámi homeland. During the comprehensive school the research participants were interviewed two or three times, most often in small groups, or together with their closest friend. At the end of the ninth grade, all girls participated in a life course interview involving a lifeline drawing, in which they were asked to depict critical moments and their future goals (Thomson and Holland, 2002, pp 340–​349; Worth, 2011, pp 208–​409). In addition, we used photo elicitation (Clark-​Ibáñez, 2007) as a method to elicit memories and stories. The participants were invited to bring photos depicting places and people important to them.4 After continuing to vocational and upper secondary schools, the participants have been followed by annual interviews, now conducted most often as individual interviews (Vehkalahti and Aapola-​Kari, 2021). Each follow-​up round has involved a certain theme, but the interviews have been conducted with sensitivity to the girls’ responses. It has been our priority to ensure that the participants felt comfortable and safe (see Thomson and Holland, 2002; Saldaña, 2003, p 27). This means that each interview has followed its own rhythm depending on our previous discussions and issues that were relevant to the girls’ lives at the time. The participants were given every opportunity to focus on topics they wished to share with us and to withdraw from others. While cross-​sectional data may reveal the ‘end result’ –​whether rural young women end up in cities or not –​longitudinal data has the benefit of capturing the back-​and-​forth movement that occurs before this endpoint (see Saldaña, 2003; Holland, 2011). Themes such as the home region as a place, social relationships and girls’ future orientations have been revisited in several interview rounds. For this chapter, we analysed our material by paying attention to themes related to belonging and historical consciousness. Transliterations were coded and thematized using the NVivo (QSR International) analysis program by focusing on the following themes: family and kinship, local community, friendships, gendered practices, nature (including relationships with animals as well as nature-​based hobbies and activities), cultural heritage, educational and occupational orientation, and girls’ general orientation on the rural–​urban axis.

Findings and discussion Based on this thematization, three positionings were established. Some of the girls expressed particularly strong attachment to their rural surroundings. In the following, we refer to this positioning as narratives of strong belonging. In contrast, narratives of detachment refer to those pointing at gradual 201

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detachment from the home community, region or rural surroundings in general. Most of the girls’ accounts, however, could be placed somewhere in between these binary positions. This is understandable considering that they were interviewed during a life phase that is generally characterized by the constant weighing of possible futures. In many interviews, the young women engaged in complex ponderings around the issues related to their home environments and communities, for example, cross-​generational family bonds that created a sense of belonging in the community as well as alienation from other local communities or traditions observed as hostile. Hence, we named this positioning narratives of contradicting bonds of belonging. In the following section, key examples are chosen to exemplify the three-​ fold positioning of these narratives.

Narratives of contradicting bonds of belonging ‘It has to be the tranquillity here somehow, clean nature. You can be free here. You don’t need to be scared of anything here, like, there’s no city racket or anything. It is safe to live here.’ (Girl, 17 years old, central Finland) When asked to describe the best qualities of their home regions, both girls from the Sámi region and those from Central Finland most commonly mentioned closeness to nature, peace and silence –​here phrased in terms of safety and freedom by one of our Central Finnish participants. Hiking in the forests, fishing, hunting and rearing animals were commonly mentioned by girls from both research sites. Almost all of the girls from the Sámi homeland had a hunting licence, even if they did not hunt regularly, and except for few, they drove snowmobiles and quad bikes. Forests were described as a place where rural girls felt at home, and none of the girls presented these activities as extraordinary or masculine (see also Käyhkö, 2017, pp 12–​13; Cairns, 2014, pp 480–​483). Belonging in rural nature was constructed in terms of solitude –​the ability to be in peace and alone –​but also in terms of social ties, as a cultural place. While girls from both research sites spent time in nature, the narratives presented by girls from the Sámi homeland involve a deeper cross-​generational layer. Nature-​related hobbies were perceived as part of their heritage from earlier generations. The girls described how joint trips often entailed cross-​generational discussions and storytelling (cf Wilson, 2008). In these activities, place mattered; girls went fishing and hunting in the same places that their ancestors had. Old stories became meaningful when told in their place of origin. These stories were often related to older generations and ancestors, which made them meaningful for engendering historical consciousness within the family (Green, 2019). 202

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In the following quotation, Anne described how she spent time in nature with her reindeer herding community. Her story highlights how the northern landscape is layered with cross-​generational cultural knowledge: ‘I have heard so many of them [traditional stories], and especially there where we have markings and where we go in the spring also. Everyone gathers there at summer, because of [the] markings, and I have heard many stories about the place. And then my mother comes from [a]‌ different direction. All her family is from there, and I have heard some things from there also, when we have been there with the reindeer.’ Anne’s family had lived in the region for generations, and her sense of belonging was deeply rooted in her family’s oral histories. The quotation is an illuminating example of how the concept of space is connected to nature, and particularly cultural places, in the Sámi culture (Keskitalo, 2018, p 46). Green (2019) analysed the relationship between private and public narratives by highlighting that family stories construct continuity within the individual family while simultaneously relating to more commonly shared narratives within the community. The way Anne described the meaningfulness of oral tradition in her interviews is not only connected to her own family but more widely to the Sámi culture and understanding of family and kinship. However, connectedness to the family heritage should not be interpreted as static (Kuokkanen, 2002, p 250). Rather, interpretations of the past were implemented through the lens of the present. For the Sámi girls, belonging was not solely about the place or people but an entanglement of both, that is, narratives of belonging to the Sámi culture (Lehtola, 2002, p 87). Nature was the basis for descriptions of strong belonging within narratives that were otherwise contradictory. After compulsory schooling, some of our participants moved to more urban surroundings for further studies. For some, this engagement with urban spaces further underlined the importance of connecting with silence and nature when they had the opportunity to spend time in their rural home surroundings. In addition, stories about animals and pets emerged as significant markers of belonging. All but one Central Finnish girl shared stories about cats, dogs or horses as important companions in their lives, while girls from the Sámi homeland additionally mentioned reindeer. Pets in particular were often considered family members who had followed the girls from childhood to youth. The notion of pets as comforting partners or substitutes for friends (Wiens et al, 2016) gained new meaning for those girls who brought their pet to the city. Here, pets represented continuum with the rural lifestyle and history that otherwise could not be experienced in everyday life. In contrast, sad and longing stories were shared by those girls who were separated from their pets upon 203

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moving. Animals (especially dogs) also held an important place in the girls’ future dreams, as many described their dream residential environment as a place where it was possible to keep dogs. In the narratives of contradicting bonds of belonging, belonging did not necessarily imply an intention to stay in the rural home region. For many of the girls, the region did not offer possibilities in the long run. Anne, quoted earlier, left the Sámi homeland after comprehensive school. For her, better opportunities to study outweighed place attachment. This was also the case for Nora from Central Finland, who hesitated between staying and leaving. She decided to stay in her hometown for upper secondary school, but after graduating, she felt that moving was inevitable. She did not anticipate returning to her hometown, even though its importance seemed to increase after having started vocational studies elsewhere: Nora:

Interviewer: Nora:

It means a lot! So many young people say “I will never return [to my hometown, it’s] such a bad place” and everything like that, but I like it. Somehow, I appreciate it. … And now I like [my hometown] even more, even if I didn’t want to live there all my life, and will probably never move back there again. I like it anyway. When you say you will “never move back there”, where does that feeling come from? There are no jobs [in] such a small place. There’s nothing but the upper secondary school there. Like, no places to study and no proper jobs either. You can just … like work on a check-​out counter. And that’s it, probably. … You get a feeling that you would just get stuck there because it’s so small and so on. There are no opportunities like elsewhere. I wouldn’t want to move to Helsinki, it’s such a huge place, but maybe to [the biggest city in the province]. There you have a lot more opportunities for everything.

Nora’s description of her old hometown as a place with no future illustrates the contradictory feelings of both belonging in the home region and being pushed away from it. In addition to the lack of jobs, she mentioned high alcohol consumption by young people, something that also other young women mentioned as a rural problem in their later interviews. Hence, their stories can be interpreted as narratives of contradicting bonds of belonging. The narratives feature bonds of belonging in the region and its historical continuum, but not in a way that would imply a future in these regions. Instead, the girls envisioned a future in which they stayed connected with their home regions despite living elsewhere. 204

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Narratives of detachment Some narratives pointed to more decisive detachment from the rural surroundings. From the viewpoint of historical consciousness, the rural landscape and home community was described as a childhood place or even a place of memories. In the following quote, Venla described her relationship to her Central Finnish hometown after a year in vocational studies in the city. During the ninth grade, she had discussed belonging to her rural home place primarily in terms of social relations. Venla had a wide circle of friends and spent a lot of time in places where they used to hang out in the town centre, like the local gas station, and a swimming place in the summer. A year later, the place looked different: ‘Positives [in the rural place] are the tranquility and of course the fact that my family is here, my roots and all those memories and all friends and acquaintances and such. But then again, the negatives are that you sure see that especially the young people start to melt away, gradually. … Like on a Friday night there may be no one anywhere; they are just sitting at home or something. … I’m always looking forward to coming here for the weekend, but then when I’m here, I’m like, “Why did I come here?” or like, I don’t see myself here anymore. I enjoy being here so much, and this is an important place for me, but I feel that there is just nothing for me anymore. This is so withered as a place. … You start to feel like you should just have stayed there [in the city].’ Places that only a year ago could have been described as ‘thick places’ –​to borrow the concept introduced by Duff (2010) to describe how affects and repetitive affective encounters construct meaningful places –​had started to lose their significance in Venla’s life. The quote encapsulates the wistfulness and melancholy of being in a place that has been important but realizing that it no longer is. The home region had increasingly become a place of the past and memories, and in a way that has no implications for her future. Further, Venla’s story is an example of how cross-​generational relations may also offer a safety net for moving away. Venla’s older siblings and friends already lived in the city that she moved to after comprehensive school, and her boyfriend accompanied her. In the lifeline interview conducted at the end of the ninth grade, the atmosphere of excitement and anticipation was palpable. She shrugged off the possible forthcoming challenges with ease: “My sister and brother have made it, so surely I can, too!” The close family bonds that tied Venla to her home region also made it easy to move away. In her life, history was literally present in the form of long-​standing traditions of migration. For her, detachment from the home 205

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community and region was not something that had to be contemplated or justified –​quite the opposite. It was presented as a naturalized step, something that everybody took for granted. Here, historical consciousness had an opposite effect compared to the previous narrative positionings.

Narratives of strong belonging Finally, the narratives of belonging included a few, where belonging in the rural was described through multiple bonds of commitment, named here as narratives of strong belonging. These narratives included descriptions of feeling strongly connected to the home place and nature, which was in many cases marked by both activities in nature and the presence of long-​standing family bonds, particularly traditional uses of natural resources. Belonging was also constructed in relation to close cross-​generational relations and to local networks of people. Most importantly, the girls situated their future dreams in their rural surroundings and made conscious educational and occupational choices that supported their aims of staying in the region. The Sámi language constituted an important dimension of belonging in the home region for the girls from Sámi families. Sámi language skills conflate generations and places, as language is perceived as one of the most important aspects of the culture (Virtanen and Seurujärvi-​Kari, 2019, pp 8–​9). This marks a profound difference in comparison to the Central Finnish girls. After finishing their comprehensive school the young Sámi people not only had to consider leaving their home places and important people, but also whether they were ready to leave their cultural and linguistic surroundings. The ability to continue their studies in the Sámi language was possible in the local upper secondary schools, which was an important factor when deciding whether to stay or not. In the following quote, Emma pondered her future while drawing her lifeline at the end of ninth grade: Emma:

Interviewer: Emma:

I would like to teach [the] Sámi culture [to] my children, so perhaps I would like to live somewhere in the North. It would be easier to teach it, when you are surrounded by it. But otherwise, I’m not like, like it was so urgent for me to move back here, but it would be nice to return. So do you think it is more important for the culture than it is in terms of being able to live here? Yes. Although it is nice to live here, when you can move in the nature and like that. I don’t believe that I would enjoy living in a city that much, although I suppose you would get used to it, if you live there long enough. 206

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But at least for now it feels like I feel more at home in a remote place like this. Emma’s lifeline included plans to attend university outside the region but also dreams of returning and establishing a family in the Sámi homeland. In these plans, historical orientation translated into cross-​generational connectedness to her tight network of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins as well as to the tradition of helping and being present in each other’s lives. Transmission of cultural heritage was important for Emma, who shared an interest in duodji with her female relatives. For Emma, belonging in a place meant living “somewhere North”. Girls from the Sámi homeland often described their networks of friends and family transnationally. For many, Northern Norway was a more familiar place to be than Southern Finland. In their narratives of future wishes, Lapland, the Sámi homeland, and Northern Norway were often perceived in terms of ‘returning home from the city life’. Geographically, the home region where the girls felt they belonged could be quite large, as their networks of kinship and friendship extended widely across the Sápmi. In the Central Finnish narratives, ‘staying’ referred to staying in the home community or in neighbouring small rural towns. It could also refer to a place characterized by a ‘rural’ lifestyle, including spacious detached houses, animals and closeness to nature (such as forests, lakes and fields). Finally, narratives of strong belonging were described in terms of the traditional local uses of natural resources, which refers specifically to agriculture in Central Finland and reindeer husbandry in the Sámi homeland. Ronja from the Sámi homeland rooted her belonging strongly in her family’s reindeer herding and the cultural practices and landscape surrounding it. In the ninth grade, Ronja stated that she had been raised to be a reindeer herder since childhood, and at that time she worked with reindeer daily (both in the summer and during the school year). In fact, she often prioritized the reindeer over her schoolwork. Ronja drove dozens of kilometres by snowmobile with her dog to feed and herd the reindeer and to participate in gatherings and markings. Characteristic for Ronja was reflection on the possibilities and problems connected to herding through a cross-​generational gaze. Her father’s family had been engaged in reindeer herding for generations. For the photo-​ elicitation interview, she brought several pictures of reindeer, reindeer fences, and herself working with the reindeer. She was connected to the chain of local herders and the land through reindeer herding. In one of the interviews, she stated that she had been connected to the land since she was a baby. For her, the reindeer were not just production animals but beloved companions that she cared for and worried about their wellbeing. However, Ronja was aware that reindeer herding was both a privilege and 207

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burden (Kaiser et al, 2013, p 7), as she recognized how endangered the livelihood was. She described her contradictory feelings of love and sadness in relation to the reindeer: Interviewer: Ronja:

What makes you happy right now? Well, [friend’s name] and other friends and those reindeers. They are like they make you –​or like, you love them and get good feelings when you see them, and then again half of your feelings are anger and bitterness, and kind of sorrow. … It is strange. For I love them so much.

For narratives of strong belonging, future orientations can be interpreted as strategies of belonging, to use the concept introduced by Cuervo and Wyn (2017, p 22). These are strategies aimed at being able to stay in the home region. Having a future in rural places, where working opportunities are limited, requires career plans suitable for the rural economic structure, such as reindeer herding. Similarly, Laura from Central Finland made an occupational choice that was based both on her lifelong attachment to animals and the agricultural labour markets available in her home region. In one of our first encounters, Laura introduced herself as a “lonely little hermit”, referring perhaps to how she perceived herself as rather shy but also to her home place in one of the remote villages, where she was happy, not missing anywhere. Laura’s childhood and youth had been filled with animals. Just like Ronja, who brought pictures of reindeer to the photo-​elicitation interview, Laura shared pictures of horses. After her compulsory education, she chose vocational studies and further adjusted her choice of orientation so that it would provide better opportunities for employment in the region. Rural girls sometimes expressed that they were conscious that they were “going against the grain” compared to urban expectations of youth and good life (cf Lanas et al, 2013, pp 395–​396) with their choices. As Laura summarized after returning to her home region following her vocational studies: “I’m taking it easy here with my cat. Other people can do whatever they want.” Girls who saw their future in their home regions did not recognize the narratives of emptiness and withering. Rather, they emphasized that they could be themselves in the home community. While rural gender roles are not the focus of this chapter, it is important to note the gender-​specific social and labour market structures the girls faced. Becoming a reindeer herder may in particular be interpreted as a conscious choice to step into a world perceived as masculine by many, or alternatively, as a means of resisting gendered cultural norms (cf Kuokkanen, 2009; Ruotsala, 2009; Kaiser, 2011, p 49). However, we argue that girls’ 208

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choices to stay should not be interpreted as mere adaptation to a masculine culture but conscious choices to participate in a historical continuum, to partake in local ways of life, and to find one’s own way within the gendered labour market structure.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have highlighted the role of historical consciousness (understood as an orientation process of placing one’s life in a continuum between the past, the present and the future) as an important co-​constructing element in the process of belonging in a place. We suggest that young people’s temporal orientation in relation to local culture and history plays a significant role in young people’s commitment to rural communities. Multiple strands of commitment tie rural young people to their local surroundings, where the past is present in the landscape and everyday life in a myriad of ways, including in the form of long-​standing cultural traditions and social networks of migration. The immanence of the past, family ties, traditions, nature and community co-​constructed the sense of belonging in a place. For the girls of our study belonging was an ongoing process of placing themselves in a cross-​generational continuum that was strengthened through mundane, everyday practices. Most of the accounts represented narratives of contradicting bonds of belonging, as they featured both elements of belonging and non-​belonging. However, a feeling of belonging did not necessarily imply a willingness to build a future in the region defined as the home place. Narratives of detachment refer to those narratives pointing at more definite detachment from the home community, region and rural surroundings. Within this narrative, the rural home place was typically described in terms of memories and childhood but not as a place for the future. Finally, our data included some narratives of strong belonging, where belonging in the rural area was described through multiple bonds of commitment: both in relation to people and to places, which were in many cases marked by the presence of long-​standing family bonds and traditions, most notably traditional uses of natural resources. It is important to recognize that the impact of historical binds is often complicated. While some historical binds –​like historical relationship with natural resources –​may attach the young person more closely to her local community, others –​like local gender roles or social problems –​may result in detachment. Moreover, these bonds were not a thing of the past but actively lived and reinforced by the girls in their everyday lives. What marked the greatest difference between the narratives of belonging was the girls’ orientation in relation to the future. In narratives of strong belonging, the girls situated their futures in their rural surroundings and made strategic 209

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educational and occupational choices that supported their aims of staying in the region or staying in close contact with their local culture. The fluidity of youth is inherently present in the ways in which the girls orientated themselves both temporally and in relation to their rural home regions as places. The longitudinal approach captured these rural young girls in a life phase that is characterized by constant evaluation of possible futures as well as concrete changes regarding education, mobilities and social relations. Accordingly, the girls’ narratives about their home places are also subject to change. Notes 1

2

3

4

The research has received funding from the Finnish Academy project ‘Rural Generations on the Move. Cultural History of Rural Youth, 1950–​2020’ (no. 323105, 2019–​2024) and the University of Oulu funded project ‘NorFlux. Northern Rural Youth in Flux’ (2018–​2022). The Central Finnish girls were recruited as part of a qualitative longitudinal research programme ‘Youth in Time’, which involved five geographically, socially and economically different municipalities in Finland. A total of 129 young people, both boys and girls, were recruited to the programme during their last grade of comprehensive school during the 2015–​2016 school year (for example Vehkalahti and Aapola-​Kari, 2021; Vehkalahti et al, 2021). In Central Finland the follow-​up involved both boys and girls (nine each), but only the girls are included in this analysis. Due to research ethical consideration all names used in this chapter are pseudonyms, and research sites are not revealed. Data from Central Finland consists of 37 group and individual interviews, eight lifeline drawings and eight maps of social relations, produced by nine participants, born in 2000. This data has been collected through six interview rounds between 2015 and 2019. Data from Sámi homeland consists of 29 group and individual interviews, 11 lifeline drawings and 52 photographs, produced by 12 girls, born in 2003–​2004. These interviews have been implemented in three phases during years 2019–​2020 and the additional materials are collected as part of the interviews. In Central Finland photographs brought by the young people to photo elicitation were not saved as part of the data. In Central Finland photo elicitation was connected to drawing of the lifeline. In Sámi homeland this took place as a follow-​up interview conducted after the girls had moved to further studies.

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Johansson, M. (2016) ‘Young women and rural exodus: Swedish experiences’, Journal of Rural Studies, 43: 291–​300. Juvonen, T. and Romakkaniemi, M. (2019) ‘Between mobility and belonging: The meanings of locality among youth in Lapland in the transition to adulthood’, Young, 27(4): 321–​335. Kaiser, N. (2011) Mental health problems among the Swedish reindeer-​herding Sami population: In perspective of intersectionality, organisational culture and acculturation, Umeå: Umeå University. Kaiser, N., Ruong, T. and Salander Renberg, E. (2013) ‘Experiences of being a young male Sami reindeer herder: A qualitative study in perspective of mental health’, International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 72(1). Karlsen Bæck, U.-​D. and Paulgaard, G. (eds) (2012) Rural Futures? Finding One’s Place within Changing Labour Markets, Tromsø: Orkana Forlag. Käyhkö, M. (2017) ‘ “Vähän niinku metän keskellä ja silleen.” Syrjäseutu, yläkouluikäiset tytöt ja tutuksi eletty paikka’, Sukupuolentutkimus, 30(3): 7–​23. Keskitalo, P. (2018) ‘Saamelainen aika-​ja paikkakäsitys pedagogisissa järjestelyissä’, in P. Granö, M. Hiltunen, T. Jokela and J. Aerila (eds) Suhteessa maailmaan: Ympäristöt oppimisen avaajina, Rovaniemi: Lapland University Press, pp 35–​52. Körber, A. (2016) ‘Translation and its discontents II: A German perspective’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 48(4): 440–​456. Kuokkanen, R. (2002) ‘Alkuperäiskansojen diskurssi ja dekolonisaatio’, in S. Lakomäki and M. Savolainen (eds), Kojootteja, Sulkapäähineitä, uraanikaivoksia. Pohjois-​Amerikan intiaanien kirjallisuuksia ja kulttuureja, Oulu: University of Oulu, pp 240–​264. Kuokkanen, R. (2009) ‘Indigenous women in traditional economies: The case of Sámi reindeer herding’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 34(3): 499–​504. Kuokkanen, R. (2020) ‘Reconciliation as a threat or structural change? The truth and reconciliation process and settler colonial policy making in Finland’, Human Rights Review, 21: 293–​312. Lanas, M., Rautio, P. and Syrjälä, L. (2013) ‘Beyond educating the marginals: Recognizing life in northern rural Finland’, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 57(4): 385–​399. Lehtola, V.-​P. (2002) The Sámi People: Traditions in Transition, Inari: Kustannus-​Puntsi. Lehtola, V.-​P. (2015) ‘Sámi histories, colonialism, and Finland’, Arctic Anthropology, 52(2): 22–​36. Lévesque, S. and Croteau, J.–​P. (2020) Beyond History for Historical Consciousness: Students, Narrative, and Memory, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Massey, D. (1994) Space, Place and Gender, Cambridge: Polity Press. 212

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Morse, C.E. and Mudgett, J. (2018) ‘Happy to be home: Place-​based attachments, family ties, and mobility among rural stayers’, The Professional Geographer, 70(2): 261–​269. Nystad, K., Spein, A.R., Mitkija Balto, A. and Ingstad, B. (2017) ‘Ethnic identity negotiation among Sami youth living in a majority Sami community in Norway’, International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 76(1): 1316939. Nyyssönen, J. (2014) ‘Suomalainen koululaitos ja saamelaiskysymys’, in P. Keskitalo, V. Lehtola and M. Paksuniemi (eds) Saamelaisten kansanopetuksen ja koulunkäynnin historia Suomessa, Turku: Siirtolaisuusinstituutti, pp 63–​87. OECD (2008) OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Finland 2008, Helsinki: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Öhrn, E. and Beach, D. (eds) (2019) Young People’s Life and Schooling in Rural Areas, London: Tufnell Press. Paulgaard, G. (2015) ‘Place attachment, unemployment and masculinity in the age of mobility: Young men in the high north’, in S. Thidemann Faber and H. Pristed Nielsen (eds) Remapping Gender, Place and Mobility: Global Confluences and Local Particularities in Nordic Peripheries, Abingdon: Routledge, pp 207–​220. Rantala, J. (2012) Lapset historiakulttuurin kuluttajina, Helsinki: Historiallis-​ yhteiskuntatiedollisen kasvatuksen tutkimus-​ja kehittämiskeskus. Rönnlund, M. (2019) ‘ “I love this place, but I won’t stay”: Identification with place and imagined spatial futures among youth living in rural areas in Sweden’, Young –​Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 28(2): 1–​15. Ruotsala, H. (2009) ‘Is there room for women in the reindeer forest?’, in P. Olsson and H. Ruotsala (eds) Gendered Rural Spaces, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, pp 70–​87. Rüsen, J. (2004) ‘Historical consciousness: Narrative structure, moral function and ontogenetic development’, in P. Seixas (ed) Theorizing Historical Consciousness, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp 63–​85. Saldaña, J. (2003) Longitudinal Qualitative Research: Analyzing Change Through Time, Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Sireni, M., Halonen, M., Hannonen, O., Hirvonen, T., Jolkkonen, A., Kahila, P., Kattilakoski, M., Kuhmonen, H.-​M., Kurvinen, A., Lemponen, V., Rautiainen, S., Saukkonen, P. and Åström, C. (2017) Maaseutukatsaus 2017, Helsinki: Maa-​ja metsätalousministeriö. Smith, L.T. (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd edn, London: Zed Books. Sámediggi (2017) ‘Saamelaisten perinteisten elinkeinojen nykytilanne Suomessa –​Biodiversiteettisopimuksen seurantaindikaattorien taustoitus’. Available from: https://w ​ ww.samediggi.fi/w ​ p-c​ ontent/u ​ ploads/2​ 019/0​ 1/​ Perinteiset-​saamelaiset-​elinkeinot-​2.pdf Sørensen, N.U. and Pless, M. (2017) ‘Living on the periphery of youth: Young people’s narratives of youth life in rural areas’, Young, 25(4S): 1S–​17S. 213

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Stockdale, A. and Haartsen T. (2018) ‘Editorial introduction: Putting rural stayers in the spotlight’, Population, Space and Place, 24(4): 1–​8. TENK (2019) Finnish National Board on Research Integrity 2019: Ihmistieteiden eettisen ennakkoarvioinnin ohje. Available from: https://​www.tenk.fi/​sites/​ tenk.fi/​files/​Ihmistieteiden_​eettisen_​ennakkoarvioinnin_​ohje_​2019.pdf Tervaniemi, S. and Magga, P. (2019) ‘Belonging to Sápmi: Sámi conceptions of home and home region’, in T.H. Eriksen, S. Valkonen and J. Valkonen (eds), Knowing from the Indigenous North: Sámi Approaches to History, Politics and Belonging, London: Routledge, pp 75–​91. Thomson, R. and Holland, J. (2002) ‘Imagined adulthood: Resources, plans and contradictions’, Gender and Education, 14(4): 337–​350. Tuan, Yi-​Fu (1997 [1977]) Space and Place: Perspective of Experience, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Tuuva-​Hongisto, S. (2018) ‘Kotona, maalla, syrjässä: Syrjäkylänuorten haaveita kotiseudulle jäämisestä’, Nuorisotutkimus, 36(3): 23–​37. Valkonen, J. and Valkonen, S. (2019) ‘On local knowledge’, in T.H. Eriksen, S. Valkonen and J. Valkonen, Knowing from the Indigenous North: Sámi Approaches to History, Politics and Belonging, London: Routledge, pp 12–​27. Vehkalahti, K. and Aapola-​Kari, S. (2021) ‘Laadullinen seurantatutkimus nuorista: tutkimusasetelma, menetelmät ja aineistot’, in K. Vehkalahti, P. Armila and S. Aapola-​Kari (eds) Sata nuorta –​sata polkua aikuisuuteen: Laadullinen seurantatutkimus Nuoret ajassa, Helsinki: Nuorisotutkimusverkosto, pp 25–​56. Vehkalahti, K., Armila, P. and Sivenius, A. (2021) ‘Emerging adulthood in the time of pandemic: The COVID-​19 crisis in the lives of rural young adults in Finland’, Young, 29(4): 399–​416. Virtanen, P. and Seurujärvi-​Kari, I. (2019) ‘Introduction: Theorizing indigenous knowledge(s)’, Dutkansearvvi dieđalaš áigečála, 3(2): 1–​19. Wiens, V., Kyngäs, H. and Pölkki, T. (2016) ‘The meaning of seasonal changes, nature, and animals for adolescent girls’ wellbeing in northern Finland: A qualitative descriptive study’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-​being, 11(1): 1–​14. Wilson, S. (2008) Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, Black Point: Fernwood. Worth, N. (2011) ‘Evaluating life maps as a versatile method for lifecourse geographies’, Area, 43(4): 405–​412. Wyn, J., Cuervo, H. and Cook, J. (2019) ‘Expanding theoretical boundaries from youth transitions to belonging and new materiality’, in S. Habib and M.R.M. Ward (eds) Youth, Place and Theories of Belonging, London: Routledge, pp 12–​24. Zanazanian, P. and Nordgren, K. (2019) ‘Introduction’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 51(6): 771–​778.

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Backward Youth? Racist Trolling and Political (In)Correctness among Young People in Rural Sweden Susanna Areschoug

Introduction Ida and Dennis referred to themselves as ‘greaser trash’, an invective associated with people in the countryside who spend large portions of their time servicing and driving old, reconstructed cars. In accordance with stereotypical notions of this ‘unrefined’ rural subculture, Ida and Dennis were outspoken, humorous and provocative. Six months into my fieldwork in their small rural community in Sweden, the three of us sat down to conduct a formal interview. After I had informed Ida and Dennis that the microphone was turned on, Ida enthusiastically started to sing a song from the 1960s with inarguably racist and sexist lyrics. Ida laughed as our eyes met. “Alright”, I said and joined her laughter, “Should we talk a bit about your racism then?” “Yes, I think so”, Ida agreed, nodding her head. The next moment, Ida leaned over the table and whispered into the microphone, “Swastikas for life. Greaser trash, 666, KKK.”. I ignored the provocative references and was just about to start asking my questions when Dennis put the song on speaker. Ida sang along: “A negro came to Stockholm harbor one day, his dick so large that whores would faint.” Quite shocked by the explicit content, I burst into laughter and asked “What is this?” Although Ida and Dennis’ performance fitted neatly with deeply rooted conceptions of backwardness and moral degeneracy connected to their rural dwelling and subcultural expression (Eriksson, 2010), Ida’s and Dennis’ racism seemed so explicit and over-​the-​top. The interview was in a sense a spectacle, so 215

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outrageous that I began to doubt its sincerity (cf Day, 2008). Ambivalently amused, I wondered; were these kids for real, or not? Children and youth are often understood through a lens of futurity that is part of constructing the hope of a nation (Katz, 2008; Ryan, 2011). While young people at times cause public anxieties by pushing established boundaries and threatening the status quo, they may simultaneously be celebrated as symbols for societal development, be it capitalist expansion, climate change consciousness or liberal values. These notions of threat or progression have not only temporal, but also spatial dimensions (Woodman and Leccardi, 2015). Critical feminist geographers have shown that while urban spaces are often depicted as ‘sites of sophistication, progress, creativity and cultural hybridity’ (Vanderbeck and Morse Dunkley, 2003, p 245), rural areas are portrayed as stagnant, conservative and backward. Rural and small-​ town inhabitants are, in turn, often understood as unrefined, uneducated and intellectually inferior. They are trashy, lazy, poor, dirty, uncouth and obsolescent (O’Connell, 2010; Shirley, 2010; Cairns, 2013). Rural inhabitants, particularly rural men, are often seen as being ‘of questionable morality’ (Jarosz and Lawson, 2002, p 9) and argued to be more sexist, racist, homophobic and intolerant than men residing in what allegedly are more progressive urban centres (Eriksson, 2010). Dennis and Ida’s repeated use of the n-​word and other racist and sexist slurs thereby feed into an already established image of rural youth as particularly unrespectable, misbehaved and morally questionable. In Sweden, a country deeply invested in a national imaginary of democracy and egalitarianism (Lundström and Hübinette, 2020), rural youth are not understood as a hope of the future but as a threat to this national self-​image (Gottzén and Franzén, 2020). Ida and Dennis thereby participate in this established derogatory narrative, allowing for the continuous reconstitution of the discourse. In this chapter, I argue that one way of understanding the politically incorrect jokes expressed by Ida and Dennis –​or the denunciation of such humour expressions –​is as ways to talk back to the othering of the rural. Youth resistance against dominant culture and societal control through the breaking of taboos is not a new phenomenon (Hall and Jefferson, 1977; Willis, 1977). In recent years such resistance has emerged as a central practice in contemporary cultural politics on internet sites such as 4chan and Reddit (Greene, 2019). Drawing on a ‘jarring, taboo-​defying rhetoric’ (Condis, 2018, p 101), an online ‘trolling culture’ has developed where deliberately offensive comments are made in order to provoke an emotional response from promoters of ‘political correctness’ and to bring down laughs from likeminded ‘trolls’. Provocations ‘for the lulz’ often deploy an elaborate use of irony, they are dependent on initiated knowledge of the contemporary cultural climate and require high levels of self-​reflexivity, which differentiates it from plain rudeness and make the intention behind the offences difficult 216

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to settle (Hardaker, 2010; Condis, 2018). In this chapter, I show how such trolling practices materialize in social interactions offline and how the specificities of a rural locale, and the subject positions made available there, affect the layers of irony deployed and how ‘racist sincerity’ is interpreted. Drawing on poststructural ethnography (Coffey, 1999), the analysis seeks to understand the contradictory positions that white rural youth inhabit. In particular, it highlights the tension inherent in critiquing racist and misogynist performances of White masculinity –​that reproduce racial hierarchies and ideas of Swedish superiority –​in a place already marked as being on the geographical, social and moral periphery. By deploying the notion of ‘trolling’ –​which I go more into in what follows –​the chapter further troubles the notion of xenophobia as rooted in ignorance by showing how ‘racist’ is not a stable position but a citizenship practice made possible by historic and contemporary processes of inclusion and exclusion from national imaginaries.

Understanding (rural) racism Although structural racism privileges Whiteness in a number of implicit ways (Mulinari and Neergaard, 2014), explicit racism in public discourse is regarded as reprehensible. Due to notions of ‘Swedish exceptionalism’ (Hübinette and Lundström, 2011), through which Sweden is understood as an exceptionally antiracist and egalitarian nation, expressions of explicit xenophobia are often stigmatized. This contradicts the increasing public support of right-​wing, populist parties, such as the Swedish Democrats who hold about 20 per cent of the Swedish votes. Researchers have argued that this conflict is repeatedly resolved by the projection of racist sentiments onto people far away from an allegedly progressive and cosmopolitan centre, onto a rural Other, already conceived of as reactionary and un-​enlightened (Eriksson, 2010). However, the correlation between xenophobia and Swedish rural demography has also been empirically studied and given different explanations. First, research has highlighted xenophobic sentiments as connected to structural conditions like low educational levels, which characterize many rural regions (Wigerfelt and Wigerfelt, 2001). Another explanation is that radical transformations of the (global) labour market due to Western deindustrialization makes it hard for young people to find traditional employment in rural areas (Vallström and Svensson, 2018). These developments have, in turn, been seen to particularly affect young men as traditional masculine norms, for example of providing economically for one’s family, are becoming more difficult to embody (Almgren, 1999). A fourth explanation revolves around the concept of a small-​town mentality that is argued to be connected to racist sentiments. Some argue that rural 217

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commonality may cause suspicion towards newcomers and racialized others (Norman, 2004), while others posit that the marginalization of working-​ class youth from local rural communities create feelings of exclusion that may cause anti-​democratic sentiments to rise (Svensson, 2017). Yet others argue that it is rather the lack of cohesion that may lead working-​class men to the fellowship of racist organization (Rantakeisu et al, 2000). While these analyses are important, this chapter offers another explanation, where rural youth racism is seen as part of a contemporary politics of incorrectness and a youth culture of ‘lulz’ –​that is, deliberately offending ‘urban’ liberal values in order to make likeminded people laugh. Satire and humour have often been connected to liberal and leftist movements and understood as having the potential to positively transform social reality (Willet and Willet, 2014; Jonsson et al, 2020). In contrast, racism and xenophobia have often been argued to be motivated by negative affect, such as resentment, fear and anger (Pérez, 2017). Such bigotry is often assumed to be humourless (Billig, 2001). However, satire, irony, sarcasm and parody are to an increasing extent also being employed by conservative, right-​ wing movements, especially online (Milner, 2013; Malmqvist, 2015; Condis, 2018). Having originated within gamer subculture, the act of ‘trolling’ has become a frequently used strategy in the polarized battle between advocates of ‘political correctness’ and defenders of ‘freedom of speech’. Trolling can be understood as an intellectual game that values quick-​wittedness and aims at provoking a response from people displaying moral self-​r ighteousness and opinions ‘approved’ by the liberal media elite. It is ‘a complex communicative act’ that targets two audiences simultaneously: ‘the victim, who must be convinced that the troll’s inflammatory statement is sincere and thus in need of rebuke, and one’s fellow trolls, who must be able to recognize the actual intended purpose of the post’ (Hardaker, 2010). When the comic content of politically incorrect humour is successfully challenged, proponents often retreat into a defensive stance and hide behind statements such as ‘it was only a joke!’ (Greene, 2019). In this chapter I focus on racist humour and trolling in a particular place: the Swedish countryside. I see space as being ‘shaped and moulded from historical and natural elements’ (Lefebvre, 1976, p 31), and as a political process through which the topography of (un)inhabitable subject positions is produced, involving the interplay between economic interests, political discourses and the more or less conscious desires of individualized subjects. I view this materialization of social relations into commodities and lived experiences as involving ongoing power struggles that contest and reproduce relations of dominance and subordination. In accordance with this, subject positions based on notions of race, gender and class are not to be understood as objective, physical traits of individuals but as the continued construction of racialized, gendered and material difference (Ahmed, 2007). Consequently, 218

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I trouble Whiteness as a generally unmarked racial norm and see it as a subject positioning that ‘shape[s]‌and is shaped by other racial identities and a system of racialised, social and economic privilege’ (Shirley, 2010, p 35). This way of thinking implies that dominance and subordination are not fixed qualities, but flexibly inhabited by different subjects at different times. As this chapter will show, the binary ‘matrix of intelligibility’ that organizes the social (Butler, 1990) is connected to cultural-​political positionings where morality and political ‘correctness’ and ‘incorrectness’ are negotiated by youth as part of the work required to achieve status and intelligibility. Racism, then, is not understood as a property of an autonomous individual, but as moral positionings produced in relation to historical and naturalized relations of power. This analysis is not to be understood as confirming modernist ideals of a rational and autonomous subject (Langmann and Månsson, 2016). I argue, instead, that such normative understandings may lead to further othering of rural youth.

The study and the field The empirical material that this chapter draw on was generated through ethnographic fieldwork with youth in rural Sweden during the fall of 2017 and spring of 2018. The community in which I spent a total of ten months, in the region of Värmland, has a population of approximately 4,000. A majority of the community population is employed in traditional working-​class occupations such as the forest industry, in smaller manufacturing companies or within public services such as education or healthcare. Compared to the national average, the community has relatively low income levels, high unemployment rates and suffers from extensive outward migration. The young people I followed were 14–​16 years old and attended the local lower secondary school where I conducted observations 4–​5 days a week. I took extensive fieldnotes of interactions in different settings, and dialogue between participants has been given further detail through the transcription of tape recordings. Included is also 70 in-​depth interviews conducted with 89 informants. The material was initially coded and thematically organized using broad social categories where events and interactions were interpreted as performative acts of femininity, masculinity, sexuality, social class, place narratives, Whiteness/​racism and so on (Coffey, 1999). Each category was then read intersectionally to display how power relations never work in solitude but have effects on and through each other (Lykke, 2009). For this chapter, I have read for ‘magnified moments’ of explicit racism. That is, metaphorically charged ‘episodes of heightened importance’ (Hochschild, 1994, p 4) where I interpret that domination based on racialization is being claimed, and sometimes disclaimed; moments when subject positioning and moral self-​representation seem to be at stake. 219

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My participants were not a homogenous group; they were differentiated in relation to gender, cultural and economic class position, biography, interests and in how they related to me as a researcher. Having grown up in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, it seemed I epitomized ‘politically correct urbanity’. Similar to how I held preconceived ideas, the youth’s attitudes towards the urban were often projected onto me in our interactions. Some of the youth spoke carefully, wary of how I would interpret them, while others seemed to increase their ‘political incorrectness’ in front of me. I did not respond in a singular, consequential manner to derogatory language but seldom called racism out. Although very uncertain of this strategy, I often reacted by rolling my eyes, sighing or laughing, a response that may have contributed to the continuation of the provocations. This chapter first attends to ways in which racist humour can be used as a (masculine) resource –​and rebuked when faced with (urban) ideals of ‘political correctness’. The analysis is then developed by showing how the ability to claim ‘antiracism’ is enabled or made more difficult by being connected to notions of place and social class. Lastly, I tend to the ways in which rural youth, such as Ida and Dennis, may embody stereotypical notions of ‘rural racists’, understood as a trolling practice that subverts the question of intent, but simultaneously reproduces racial hierarchies.

Racist jokes and sarcasm In math class, Alvin, Hampus and Frida were sitting together, talking. Milla sat in the row in front but had turned around to face them, and me, as I sat slightly behind. Alvin and Hampus were sporty, computer games-​playing boys. They could be characterized as ‘rowdy’ in the sense that they often talked during periods where individual and quiet school work was expected, but they simultaneously performed well in school and often compared their relatively high grades (Nyström, 2012). In this sense, their boisterous competitiveness aligned them with the image of a young and ‘popular’ high-​school masculinity that has been identified in other Western settings (Epstein et al, 1998; Foster et al, 2001; Pascoe, 2007). Frida and, to some extent, Milla could in a similarly gendered way be said to embody a form of ‘school-​sanctioned femininity’ (Sohl, 2014), characterized by middle-​class ideals of being well-​behaved, studious and having a neat, clean appearance (Walkerdine, Lucey and Melody, 2001; Pomerantz and Raby, 2017). While Alvin and Hampus were simply referred to as ‘the boys’, Frida and Milla were part of a group of girls that others in the class continuously called the ‘Stockholm girls’, a representation of girlhood with clear spatial connotations. While the term was mostly used by boys to scorn aspirational and urban-​orientated girls, the girls themselves seldom took it as an insult. 220

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After briefly discussing what to do during recess, Alvin confidently raised his arm in a fast, mechanic movement. The arm was stopped at an angle just between longitude and latitude, his hand and fingers extended to make the point: the Nazi salute. “Milla, do you know what this means?” Alvin asked with his arm still raised. Milla looked back at Alvin with her eyebrows slightly raised, expressing mild scepticism towards Alvin’s choice of gesture. “You don’t know?” Alvin pushed, clearly amused by Milla’s reaction. “Milla, do you know what Ku Klux Klan is?” Hampus asked and started singing, “Stand up and be counted, show the world that you’re a man”. Alvin joined in, “Stand up for your country, go with the Ku Klux Klan”. The two boys kept singing, and they had just finished the second verse, mediating that they will “serve our homeland day and night and proudly wear our robes of white”, when Frida interrupted them: “Do you know that whole song?” she sceptically asked. Hampus and Alvin nodded laughingly. All of a sudden, Alvin looked around and took notice of me. “Oh no! Now she’s writing down that we are racists and that we hate Black people!” Alvin said with ironic distance. “What?!” Hampus also turned around and looked at me, as if only now realizing that I was around. He seemed almost frightened, staring at me with his eyes wide open and lips pressed together. I just smiled and shook my head as to assure them that they had nothing to worry about. “Actually, I can’t be a racist because I have Black friends”, Alvin said with an overly triumphant smile. Hampus did not acknowledge the sarcasm but reassured me and the others that the literal message conveyed by Alvin was true also for him. “Yeah, I actually have loads of Black friends.” Alvin, seemingly aware that this argument is commonly aired as a defence by people accused of racism but seldom successful in public debate, repeated. “And because of that, we can’t be racists, right?” He blinked and nodded towards Hampus, inviting him to also downplay the recent event. A moment later, Hampus started singing the intro-​tune from the children’s television programme Bananas in Pyjamas. He asked Alvin if he knew that song but Alvin ignored him. In this example, the position of ‘explicit racist’ was (temporarily) inhabited by Alvin and Hampus as they displayed several anti-​Semitic and xenophobic manifestations. The Ku Klux Klan lynching mobs and the Nazi salute are widely known expressions of racist and fascist movements and were not recalled by coincidence. The bystanders –​including Milla –​all knew that the boys alluded to charged histories. This example may illustrate how easily deep-​rooted racism and notions of White supremacy can be expressed and reproduced in everyday (rural) settings (see O’Connell, 2010).

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However, the interaction also suggests that this is not always a desirable position; the racist performances were abandoned as the boys acknowledge me (and my notebook) and instead tried to present themselves as being open-​minded (“I have Black friends”). This movement from ‘politically incorrect’ to ‘politically correct’ could be understood in light of research suggesting that language of domination, be it sexist, homophobic or racist, does not necessarily mirror personal convictions or unconsciously expressed prejudice (Greene, 2019). Instead, dominating discourse may also be seen as attempts to be accepted and recognized in a peer group (Jonsson and Milani, 2012). For this reason, narrative researchers argue that in order to under understand –​and challenge –​discourses of domination, words cannot be taken at face value but need to be analysed in relation to what they accomplish in specific contexts (De Fina et al, 2006). In other words, we need to explore ‘what people do with words in specific localities’ (Jonsson and Milani, 2012, p 74, author’s translation). In the youth’s interaction, two seemingly opposite positions were formed following more or less gendered lines: one humorous and provocative inhabited by the two boys, and another, less amused and resistant position, inhabited by the two girls. By not laughing and subtly questioning the rationale behind demonstrating racist ‘knowledge’, Frida and Milla opposed the boys’ performances and embodied a more correct and composed –​in this school context, also feminized –​position. It is difficult to separate the homosocial performance of popular school masculinity accomplished through bold, humorous provocation and ‘explicit racism’. Similar to how Jonsson and Milani (2012) have shown that heterosexual masculinity can be homo-​socially constructed through emasculation of homosexual men, the domination over racial Others can be a way of performing dominant boyhood. By transgressing a taboo, the boys could present themselves as brave and careless in front of the girls who were forced to respond. This resonates with research suggesting that (online) trolling, the initiating of inflammatory content with the intent of provoking others can be seen as ‘an exercise in ascribing gender to oneself and others’ (Condis, 2018, p 16). Condis (2018, pp 9, 15) describes trolling as an intellectual game of emotional manipulation, where the winner(s) is the one who can maintain an air of cool rationality and self-​mastery while successfully baiting others into a (feminized) emotional response. Alvin and Hampus’ racist performances, forcing a response from Frida and Milla, suggests that trolling can also be accomplished in real life. Racist jokes are, then, not simple expressions of racist convictions, but are rather producing positions of privileged Whiteness as they are intertwined with hegemonic, popular masculinity in school. Politically incorrect jokes also produce another subject position, that is, that of the rational, liberal and politically correct opposer of racism, embodied by the two White girls. 222

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However, the classroom interaction also suggests that presenting oneself as an ‘explicit racist’ is not always viable. When Alvin and Hampus acknowledged my presence, they abandoned the position, although in different ways. At the risk of being labelled ‘racist’, Alvin kept calm –​maintaining an air of cool detachment –​by playing on a common trope, ‘We can’t be racists because we have friends who are Black’. This is an example, I suggest, of being well-​informed about what is generally considered politically correct and not; knowledge that successful trolling requires (Greene, 2019). Alvin’s ability to express informed sarcasm when stating “I’m not a racist” thereby allows him to temporarily be a non-​racist and parody this position simultaneously. In contrast, Hampus’ response is more fragile. His gendered dominance is altered when threatened with the label racist. Though I tried to kindly smile, my position (educated, urban researcher, generally-​not-​sexualized woman twice their age) meant that the line for what was possible to say was redrawn. At the risk of having his humorous performance understood as reflecting genuine racism, Hampus distanced himself from the dominating practices and started singing a televised children’s song. Unlike successful trolls, Hampus did not demonstrate the control of Self traditionally associated with masculinity, instead he self-​corrected with innocence and subordination. Both Hampus and Alvin abandoned the position of the ‘explicit racist’, but Alvin’s knowledge about antiracist discourse allowed him to parody often disqualified arguments, thereby keeping his White and masculine status –​reformulated as ‘woke’ –​intact. In this way, racialized, gendered and aged political positions were available and inhabited through explicitly racist performances.

Classed dimensions of racism In the previous example, participants were able to move more or less freely in and out of racist positions as a way of deliberately performing different identities. However, these movements were not as easily performed by everyone. During a geography class, I joined Lydia, Leah, Tyra and Robin in a smaller group room where the theme to be discussed was push and pull factors in migration. Lydia and Leah were close friends and made up the epicentre of the ‘Stockholm girls’. Robin, in contrast, moved in the periphery of the larger boy collective (‘the boys’). Tall and skinny, he promoted himself as smart and studious, drawing on notions of masculine ‘intellectual muscle’ (Epstein et al, 1998) and future trajectories of employment success. Tyra was rougher than her peers in the group. Though her clothes and make-​up were similar to that of the ‘Stockholm girls’, her attitude was less refined. Tyra was not part of any specific group, as she was too careless and easily distracted for the quiet, shy and studious girls; too (politically) outspoken 223

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for the sporty girls on her handball team; and too ‘fake’ for the ‘Stockholm girls’ who argued that she tried to be friends with too many people at once to be considered loyal. “I don’t like them”, Tyra said referring to the migrant subjects in centre of their discussion. “That’s because you’re a racist”, Lydia, the daughter of one of the teachers, proclaimed. “Maybe I am”, Tyra replied, seemingly unbothered by the characterization that by all means was intended as an invective. “But they’re mean”. Lydia immediately continued. “But Tyra, we can’t generalize like that, we can’t talk about them as ‘them’. Some of them are mean, but so are we.” “I just don’t want to have to see them. I don’t understand why they have to be in my face.” “But Sweden is quite an open country. We can’t just shut them up in a house, we need to give them opportunities for work”, Lydia replied. “What is going to become of you when you’re older, Tyra?” Robin asked rhetorically and shook his head. “Immigration is good as long as they behave. We need immigration. We need people who can work in the police force, in healthcare. Give them jobs and opportunities and Sweden will grow. There you go.” He turned and looked at me. “There is some good material for you.” “Well actually”, Lydia responded. “We don’t really have room, there is no space for them.” “What do you mean?” Robin replied, gesturing out the window to the vast areas of forest and farmland easily visualized beyond the school yard. Surprised by Lydia’s change in rhetoric he said: “Do you see how much space we have?” “But I’m just messing with you!” Lydia said. “Jeez, it’s like we’re all easily triggered today.” This comment directed their focus back to their group assignment, but as Robin did not approve of a suggestion Tyra made, she said: “But Robin can you be quiet and let me be smart, for once?” Challenging the general notion of rural backwardness and ignorance of larger societal concerns (O’Connell, 2010; Shirley, 2010), this discussion echoes a contemporary debate about immigration taking place in the Swedish public. Far from reproducing images of rural homogeneity and ‘obsolescence’ (Jarosz and Lawson, 2002), the youth used differing arguments corresponding to different political positions. On the one hand, conservative and xenophobic arguments against immigrants, and, on the other, a mix of humanist, (neo)liberal and profit-​maximizing, economic arguments. These political positions, represented in the youth’s conversation, largely aligned with their socioeconomic status (see Svensson, 2019). The one most critical of immigration, Tyra, had young parents in working-​class occupations, while 224

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the one expressing the most humanist opinions, Lydia, had parents with college degrees. The view that immigration is good for the Swedish economy was expressed by Robin, the boy with the clearest formulated educational trajectory. In this sense, the pattern here confirms research suggesting that (explicit) racism is related to class. Researchers have highlighted the link between racism and the working class since the 1970s, often seeing it as a matter of educational level (Wigerfelt and Wigerfelt, 2001). As rural areas have low access to higher education (Beach, 2018), this link is sometimes used to explain the relatively high levels of racist and anti-​establishment sentiments in areas characterized by depopulation and high unemployment rates (see Wigerfelt and Wigerfelt, 2001). Thus, the different political positions that the participants express could be seen as reflecting differences in socioeconomic background and educational attainment among youth within the rural community. Tyra often voiced a disinterest in schoolwork and also had her ‘intellect’, and thereby her ability to make something of herself in the future, questioned as when Robin wondered “What is going to become of Tyra?”. The marginalization of working-​class youth who stay in rural areas –​ constructed in public and municipal discourse as lazy and unambitious –​ could account for their xenophobic, right-​wing and anti-​establishment sentiments (Svensson, 2017). Tyra’s working-​class position, and her inability to embody what her peers see as a desired future trajectory of social (and spatial) mobility, nuances her xenophobic expressions. For instance, the presentation of immigrants as morally dubious (“They are mean”) can be understood as an invitation extended to Lydia and Robin to form a contrasting ‘us’ to which Tyra can also belong. In contrast, Lydia takes the moral high ground as she admits that “we [Swedish people] are mean too”. By drawing the line of moral demarcation not between ‘Swedes’ and ‘immigrants’, but between people who generalize based on ethnicity (Tyra) and people who do not (non-​racists), Lydia draws on a liberal discourse of equality that may sustain Whiteness as a (morally) privileged category because it is being self-​reflexively critiqued (Ahmed, 2007). The tendency to understand racism as a prejudice that some groups in society are more likely than others to harbour can thus be troubled. Middle-​class people may have learned to present themselves in publicly acceptable ways, as when Robin self-​reflexively addressed me as researcher saying “There is some good material for you”. This does not, however, inhibit racist discourse and racial structures being subtly reproduced through middle-​classed privileges and practices (O’Connell, 2010; Svensson, 2019). This is what differentiates ‘implicit racism’ –​racism for the winners –​from ‘explicit racism’ –​racism for the losers (Mulinari and Neergaard, 2014) and can show how, as Cairns points out, ‘classist assumptions about bigoted rural communities can have the paradoxical effect of sustaining broader systems of 225

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white supremacy by locating the problem of racism within an abject, classed category of whiteness’ (2013, p 643). Differentiating between ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’ racism highlights more subtly reproduced racist structures among people with economic and cultural resources (Mulinari and Neergaard, 2014), but the conceptualization can be troubled as it still reproduces a binary between a self-​reflexive middle class and an ignorant working class. When labelled as a racist, Hampus traded masculine dominance for childlike innocence. Similarly, Alvin avoided the racist position by parodying illegitimate antiracist arguments, and Lydia explained her ‘triggering’ immigration critical joke to the others. In contrast, though Tyra was met with resistance, she offered an ambivalent identification with the racist subject, stating that, “Maybe I am [a racist].” In this sense, (urban) middle-​ class femininity and masculinity enabled a self-​reflexive movement between ‘racist’ and ‘non-​racist’ positionings. If Tyra’s account, then, is supported with reference to her working-​class, anti-​educational background, it could be explained as reflecting actual racist opinions, and not the ‘social manoeuvring’ (Jonsson and Milani, 2012) or trolling (Condis, 2018) attributed to Alvin, Hampus and Lydia’s temporary racism. While the middle-​class and educationally oriented youths’ movements in and out of racist discourse may be seen as a sign of the self-​reflexivity that characterizes the middle classes and cultural elites, Tyra’s claiming of xenophobic sentiments risk being interpreted as fixed and determined by her ‘anti-​educational’ working-​class position. While structural dynamics are used to explain her racism, the stability of the position is naturalized and read as her not being self-​reflective, but in need to be enlightened on liberal values and ‘proper’ morals. It is impossible to determine whether Tyra really ‘is’ a racist or not, and what her xenophobia is a resistance towards. However, other examples from my fieldwork illustrate some of the limitations of conceptualizing explicit racism as an issue of educational attainment, as well as calling into question that self-​reflexivity automatically results in less racism.

Educational moments The idea that racism and xenophobia can be overcome through education is often articulated in Swedish educational political discourse. A number of large, national projects have produced pedagogical material to support schools in their work against xenophobia, as democratic values and human rights are part of the national curriculum. This educational discourse largely draws on a ‘norm critical pedagogy’ that emphasizes structural inequalities based on, for instance, race, gender, sexuality and (dis)ability (Bromseth and Darj, 2010; Martinsson and Reimers, 2020). The pedagogical idea is that by exposing racialized norms, students will change their attitudes and behaviours related to racism and xenophobia (Langmann and Månsson, 2016). 226

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During my fieldwork, teachers did not always expose racializing norms and sentiments, but one student, Terje, was repeatedly targeted as reproducing racism. Terje had a thick accent, dressed in blue jeans, plaid shirts, clogs and liked traditional rural activities, such as hunting, fishing and driving. Just before Christmas, he had “decorated”, as he put it, his school locker with the US Confederate flag. He was upset as he narrated how his teacher Laila had approached him in the hallway and told him to take the flag down, due to its racist connotations: “She came and said ‘Well, the school board has come to a decision, you’re not allowed to keep your flag and I am to express it in a way so that you really understand: we are not to see that shit!’.” I asked why the flag meant so much to him and Terje started a long history of how General Robert E. Lee, a symbol of the American South during the civil war, actually had fought for his family and their land, rather than the southern states. He concluded that the flag did not represent racism, but “the need to defend one’s homeland”. When I asked him what his homeland –​the village that he is from –​needed to be protected from, he replied, “from change”, referring to the spreading of urban, individualistic values and stressful ways of life (cf Shirley, 2010). Similar to how Vanderbeck and Morse Dunkley (2003) suggest the term ‘redneck’ has travelled from its origin in the American South, through the appropriation of the term by youth in other US regions, the Confederate flag has likewise travelled across national borders making it available for people like Terje who seek to produce counter-​narratives about themselves as rural people. Terje felt, however, that the teacher and the schoolboard saw him as stupid, and suspected this was due to his way of ‘doing rurality’. He said: “They see me as if I was stupid. Just like, ‘no you don’t understand Swedish, but if we just swear a little, you’ll understand’.” In this (rural) school locale, Terje embodied an unrespectable masculinity associated with his even more rural village, and his appearance aligned with stereotypes of moral degeneracy and, in this case, racism. The semiotic ambivalence of Terje’s flag could not be accepted by the school board. In critiquing the modernist educational project, Langmann and Månsson (2016) problematize how supposedly liberal and democratic societies construct ‘the enemy’ of this desired social order; pointing out marginalized groups that need to be ‘tolerated’ simultaneously implies that there are individuals who do not need to be tolerated. Boundaries, they argue, are not only drawn between ‘us’ who are normal (for example ‘the Swede’ or ‘the heterosexual’), and the deviant ‘others’ (for example ‘the immigrant’ or ‘the homosexual’), but also against those who ‘we’ should not tolerate (for example ‘the racist’ or ‘the homophobe’). According to this argument, the social construction of this ‘other Other’ cannot be equated with the relation between ‘us’ and the ‘other’; while ‘we’ stand for sameness and 227

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the ‘other’ stand for difference, the ‘other Other’, in contrast, holds an ambivalent position by belonging to neither of these groups. As liminal subjects, they threaten the social order and represent the moral ‘dirt’ that has to be eliminated (Douglas, 1966). In other words, projections of racism onto the rural in the media (see Eriksson, 2010) as well the positioning of Terje as a (more rural) racist Other could be understood as rurality being ‘out of place’ in a liberal, modern nation. The flag itself could be seen as a liminal object. Understood as dirt, or, as Terje’s teacher Laila put it, “shit”, it had to be eliminated as it threatens the (moral) educational project of the Swedish school. The teachers discarded Terje’s interpretation of the flag and informed him –​educated him –​that it is a racist symbol. Drawing on stereotypical images of rural ignorance and backwardness, Laila connected Terje’s rural embodiment and emplacement with his inability to understand and make morally correct decisions. Consequently, he became the other Other, constituting what could not be tolerated within the realms of the school.

Claiming explicit racism This chapter began with Ida and Dennis participating in an interview in which they displayed, were attributed with and claimed racism. Similar to the way Terje was positioned by the school board as racist due to his rural embodiment, Ida and Dennis knew how they were read by people around them. They dressed, like Terje, in blue jeans, plaid shirts and clogs, and the Confederate flag was commonly featured as banners on their cars or on the walls of their rooms. The latter were spaces they showed me through social media, Snapchats that Ida would foliate with swastikas before sending them to me. In contrast to Terje, Ida and Dennis did not reject the positioning of them as racists but rather, explicitly claimed it. At the point of the interview, I had gotten to know Ida and Dennis quite well. Based on our previous interactions, I was expecting (indeed hoping) that the issue of racism would surface during the formal interview so that I could ask about it. Clearly, Ida and Dennis did not disappoint but offered a blatantly racist performance from the start. “N*****-​Joe, N*****-​Joe, Finish hookers here for you, she will take a cocky cock, until it sprays her, hard as rock” Ida continued singing. Not sure of how to interpret the spectacle that Ida and Dennis were putting on, I shook my head and smiled at the same time. “Okay, is this racist?” I asked. “No”, said Dennis. “No, I don’t think so” Ida concurred. “How is it not?” I asked.

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“Because it’s a cosy song” Dennis answered and burped into the microphone which derailed the conversation slightly. “Why do you guys keep saying n*****?” I asked, trying to return to the topic. “You know that –​I know you know that –​it comes across as racist.” “N***** is what it’s always been called and that’s how it’s going to be” Ida said. “If they choose to be easily offended then let them because this is the way it is. We don’t live in Stockholm, we don’t walk around with these pink crop tops that say ‘Feminist’.” Dennis laughed, supporting Ida’s comment. “Is it only in Stockholm you find antiracist people?”, I asked. “There are students here at the school who are antiracists.” “Yes, but they are Stockholm-​wannabes”, Ida opposed. “Me and Dennis, we are greaser-​trash, we’re still living in the 20th century and we live in Värmland, it’s like … what the fuck.” Some themes are reoccurring. A masculinized ‘rural’ is again made to symbolize obsolescence and moral degeneracy while a feminized ‘urban’ is understood as the centre of social justice movements. However, Ida’s derogatory way of speaking of the ‘Stockholm girls’ as ‘wannabes’ further alludes to allegedly in-​authentic ways of performing femininity, both in this locale and elsewhere. According to Ida, antiracism is primarily associated with girls in Stockholm and the embodiment of urban (feminist) femininity (that is, attention to antiracism and feminism is brought about by directing attention to oneself, through the use of feminized clothing such as pink crop tops). Ida’s critique is thereby double layered; it is both directed at girls in her school who aspire to urban ideals and thereby deidentify with the rural (‘Värmland’) and at the politically correct ‘front’ put up by allegedly liberal, urban citizens (feminists such as me). What is different here is that Ida and Dennis do not attempt to escape the stereotype of the ‘rural racist’. Instead, they turn their performance into a caricature where the whole point seems to be for others, adult authorities or urban oriented peers, to wonder whether they are ‘authentic racists’ or not. George Test (1991) has argued that satire ‘exploits the ability of irony to expose, undercut, ridicule or otherwise attack indirectly, playfully, wittingly, profoundly, artfully. The double-​edged nature of irony –​the said and unsaid –​contributes to a confusion over both intentions and meaning’ (Test, 1991, quoted in Greene, 2019, p 34). Trolling ‘for the lulz’ makes use of such ‘hyper-​ironic’ and ‘hyper-​distanced’ modes of discourse (Milner, 2013, p 74) to provoke politically correct sensibilities into emotional reaction and rebuke. The blatant racism expressed during the interview forced me to question Ida and Dennis, to ‘expose’ their racism (“Why do you keep saying n*****? You know that it comes across as racist”), while the parodic

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character of the display made me doubt their sincerity, and ‘allowed’ me to laugh with them. As the internet axiom ‘Poe’s Law’ suggests, ‘in the absence of an author indicating their intentions, it can be difficult to distinguish between extremism and satire, which is to say extremism and a parody of extremism’ (Greene, 2019, p 50). While the intentions of Ida and Dennis’ racism are difficult to assess, the effect is a destabilization of the border between allegedly liberal and reactionary embodiments. Without suggesting that I represent all self-​proclaimed ‘social justice warriors’, I swallow the bait by questioning them, only to join them in the racial violence of laughter. With their sarcasm, Ida and Dennis not only bring ambivalence to otherwise stabilized understandings of who ‘is’ racist, but also expose the inauthenticity of my White antiracist identification, otherwise so easily aligned with my embodied urbanity. In this sense, Ida and Dennis’ use of satire could be understood as that which gives them permission to express ‘non-​ironic’ feelings of exclusion from positive national imaginaries while it, nevertheless, reproduces racial hierarchies and distance between them and racialized others (Pérez, 2017).

Conclusion In this chapter, I have discussed how racism and xenophobia, far from being essentialized qualities of rural youth, can be understood as part of a ‘matrix of intelligibility’ (Butler, 1990; Jonsson and Milani, 2012) that includes moral positionings. Middle-​class privileges, such as educational attainment, enables youth to move in and out of racist discourse in order to accomplish different kinds of status, such as (White) popular, high-​school masculinity or (White) school-​sanctioned and ‘urban’ femininity. Working-​class, rural youth, on the other hand, are more often read as harbouring genuine racist and obsolescent opinions and thereby constitute that which cannot be tolerated within the national imaginary. However, the analysis also shows that racist rural embodiments can be read as part of a contemporary cultural politics of trolling. The urban-​oriented middle class may embody progressive and liberal values, while implicitly reproducing racist structures –​acting as if ‘we’ are aware of racism as an oppressive system, while blaming (rural) others for not knowing better. Norm critical pedagogy directed at explicit racists could be seen as an act of curing ‘them’ from their outmoded world view. The rural youth in this chapter, however, seem to know very well what they are doing. As I have shown, trolling by parodying the figure of ‘the rural racist’ can be used to expose the hypocrisy of (White) liberal embodiments. In this chapter, rural youth are subverting national imaginaries of self-​ righteous, urban political correctness (Lundström and Hübinette, 2020), while simultaneously reproducing racialized hierarchies and White privilege. 230

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This racism does not automatically follow from their material position –​it is not a matter of ‘racism for the losers’ (Mulinari and Neergard, 2014) –​ but is an ascribed positioning that comes with an identification with rural, working-​class masculinity, or ‘greaser trash’. It is well-​informed of politically correct discourse, sophisticated and artful; it is a highly reflexive, embodied game of trolling. References Ahmed, S. (2007) ‘A phenomenology of whiteness’, Feminist Theory, 8(2): 149–​168. Almgren, S. (1999) Rasister, skinnskallar, patrioter och fosterlandsälskare. En studie om ungdomar i Vålberg, deras rasistiska ungdomsstil och angrepp mot invandrare, Karlstad: Karlstad University. Beach, D. (2018) Structural Injustices in Swedish Education Academic Selection and Educational Inequalities, Cham: Springer International Publishing. Billig, M. (2001) ‘Humour and hatred: The racist jokes of the Ku Klux Klan’, Discourse & Society, 12(3): 267–​289. Bromseth, J. and Darj, F. (2010) Normkritisk pedagogic. Makt, lärande och strategier för förändring, Uppsala: Uppsala universitet. Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge. Cairns, K. (2013) ‘Youth, dirt, and the spatialization of subjectivity: An intersectional approach to white rural imaginaries’, Canadian Journal of Sociology, 38(4): 623–​646. Coffey, A. (1999) The Ethnographic Self, London: Sage. Condis, M. (2018) Gaming Masculinity: Trolls, Fake Geeks, and the Gendered Battle for Online Culture, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Day, A. (2008) ‘Are they for real? Activism and ironic identities’, Electronic Journal of Communication, 18(2–​4): 3–​19. De Fina, A., Schiffrin, D. and Bamberg, M. (2006) Discourse and Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Douglas, M. (1966) Purity and Danger, London and New York: Routledge. Epstein, D., Elwood, J., Hey, V. and Maw, J. (1998) ‘Schoolboy frictions: Feminism and “failing” boys’, in D. Epstein, J. Elwood, V. Hey and J. Maw (eds) Failing Boys? Issues in Gender and Achievement, Buckingham: Open University Press, pp 3–​19. Eriksson, M. (2010) (Re)Producing a Periphery: Popular Representations of the Swedish North, Umeå: Umeå University. Foster, V., Kimmel, M. and Skelton, C. (2001) ‘What about the boys? An overview of the debates’, in W. Martino and B. Meyenn (eds) What About the Boys? Issues of Masculinity in Schools, Buckingham: Open University Press.

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Willis, P.E. (1977) Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, Farnham: Ashgate. Woodman, D. and Leccardi, C. (2015) ‘Time and space in youth studies’, in J. Wyn and H. Cahill (eds) Handbook of Children and Youth Studies, Singapore: Springer, pp 705–​721.

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At the Margins: The Persistent Inequalities of Youth, Place and Class Rob MacDonald

Introduction If one of the main roles of Youth Studies is to throw light on continuity and change in the life-​worlds of young people and, as a consequence, in society at large (MacDonald, 2011), there is obvious value in being able to observe these processes over a longer period than normally provided for by one, individual study. In this chapter I offer some new analysis and reflection –​in respect of youth and place –​drawing on studies I have done over 40 years in rural and/​or marginalized localities in the North of England. Even this short historical perspective suggests a number of conclusions about the significance of place for young people and how this has changed, or not. It also helps us reflect a little on what scholars can learn from long-​term engagement with questions like these. The chapter draws on three examples, beginning with my doctorate from the 1980s (MacDonald, 1988).1 This was about youth unemployment in rural areas. At that time in the UK, very little had been written about rural youth. The PhD showed how place made immediate ‘the structure of economic opportunities’ for young people, how it generated different degrees of attachment, and how it contoured local class identities that tell you ‘who you are’ and ‘what you can do’. In short, place conditioned the choices and opportunities of transitions to adulthood. This argument is developed in the two subsequent examples. The Teesside Studies of Youth Transitions and Social Exclusion (conducted from the early 1990s onwards) uncovered how, even in deeply deindustrialized towns that carry the heavy weight of negative labelling and social stigma, there can exist positive, class-​based 235

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cultures of inclusion. The final example is current and stays with Teesside. It shifts attention to how inequalities of place interact with the inequalities of a more democratic but still stratified higher education system. The focus here is on the ‘non-​traditional’, ‘first generation’ university students of ‘the missing middle’. Made geographically immobile by multiple cultural, social and material influences, they are limited to their local, small-​town university and its weak graduate labour market. For them, the financial, emotional and psychic costs of getting a degree are high while the returns and chances of upward social mobility appear to be low. Using these examples I conclude that young people’s identities and transitions have undoubtedly become less fixed; they have ‘opened up’ partly because of the pressures and opportunities of globalization. Nevertheless, place still operates in powerful, complex and multiple ways, and at different scales, in shaping young people’s attachments, aspirations and future possibilities. This may be particularly true for young people ‘at the margins’.

Growing up in rural areas: local class distinctions and differential attachment My PhD sought to explore youth unemployment in rural areas as a counterpoint to the dominance of studies of ‘the urban’ in UK youth research in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the ideas it engaged with seem pertinent still in Youth Studies, particularly in relation to the renewed interest in how place intersects with other sources of division and disadvantage in shaping patterns of belonging, and mobility and immobility (for example Harris, 2018; Cuzzocrea, 2018; Farrugia, 2019; Habib and Ward, 2019; Nayak, 2019). It also addressed the recurrent question of how best to integrate studies of youth (sub)culture and studies of youth transition (see Coles, 1986; Furlong et al, 2011) ‘by examining the cultural responses of young people to the structures of opportunity facing them as they leave school and search for work’ (MacDonald, 1988, p 6). One immediate observation we can make, then, is that some of the central points of debate in contemporary Youth Studies returns us to some of the core concerns of earlier decades. Place was as central to early criminological versions of ‘subculture’ –​that were embedded in studies of the American city and immortalized by the Chicago school (see Bulmer, 1984) –​as it was to the new subculture theory of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in Britain in the 1970s. Phil Cohen’s foundational paper (1972) insisted that the changing local community of East London was fundamental to its emergent youth cultures. Place was certainly significant to the youth transitions research that then came to prominence in the 1980s. Again, the focus was on 236

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urban youth. Sharply rising youth unemployment was accompanied by violent urban disorders in major UK cities. Fears about ‘a lost generation’ and the failure of normative transitions to adulthood spurred successive UK research programmes from the 1980s to the 2000s. The effect of local labour markets was a key theoretical interest; locality was found to sometimes outweigh social class in predicting post-​school labour market fortunes (Ashton et al, 1982). Neither these transitions studies nor the CCCS subculture studies had much to say about rural youth. Various theoretical and empirical absences were noted in the subsequent critique of the CCCS (for example Clarke, 1982) and one of these, in my view, was their lack of attention to youth subculture ‘in provincial and/​or rural areas away from London and the urban centres’ (MacDonald, 1988, p 17). Investigating the role of place in young people’s lives, combining youth culture and youth transitions foci, and, specifically, remedying the lack of attention to rural young people in both ‘traditions’ of youth research were the main theoretical motivations for my PhD study, Youth Unemployment in Rural Areas.2 It was set in North Yorkshire and used quantitative and qualitative methods.3 For reasons of space, I will use the qualitative material from just one site, Whitby, here. This is a geographically isolated place (“you’re so cut off here, it’s so small”; Caroline, 18), set away from major transport routes and bigger towns, and poorly served by public transport (for example as a young researcher reliant on buses and trains, the 50-​mile York–​Whitby journey took three hours each way). Previously a successful fishing port and holiday destination, Whitby had undergone long-​term economic decline and, by the early 1980s, it suffered from high rates of unemployment, particularly outside of the summer tourist season. The PhD survey found that well over one-​quarter of 17-​year-​olds were not in employment, education or training. So, what did it find in respect of place and young people’s transitions and identities? Two things stood out. First, the socioeconomic history and the then current conditions of the place fed a strong, localized, cultural orientation that stressed the importance of ‘getting on’ (in school) in order to ‘get out’ (of Whitby). That good jobs were scarce and unemployment a problem was part of the widely shared local knowledge of residents, young adults included. In other words, many Whitby young people adapted culturally to their immediate economic opportunities by adopting a strongly instrumental attitude to schooling (Brown, 1987). Paul (17) insisted: “there’s just no options. You can’t seriously think about looking for a job in Whitby. I’m pleased now that I stayed on at school; it’s the key to getting out of Whitby, to getting into university and getting out”. As Paul Willis put it, qualifications acted as a ‘ticket to travel’ (1979, p 185). The perceived alternatives were ‘slave labour’ Youth Training Schemes,4 ‘dead-​end jobs’ or the boredom of ‘the dole’. Nevertheless, as we will see in the next part of the chapter, young people’s feelings about 237

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place are often complicated and sometimes paradoxical. Whitby was an ‘unemployment blackspot’ but interviewees could also highlight its peaceful and picturesque qualities. For a minority, attachment to home, to family and to friends engendered a strong desire to stay. Scott (18) declared that he was definitely not leaving, because he had “loads of mates here that were all like cousins. Half of ‘em are cousins [laughs]!”. Thus, there were mixed feelings among Whitby’s young people about staying or leaving. For the majority (and for all the middle-​class young people I interviewed), the aesthetics and attractions of home were outweighed by an instrumental motivation to ‘get on by getting out’ (by leaving to go to university). A second significant finding was that young people operated with an intense sense of social geography and local difference. The anthropologist A.P. Cohen argues that the ‘ethnography of locality is an account of how people experience their difference from others’ (1985, p 2). My interviewees articulated this difference in the language of ‘East Siders’ versus ‘West Siders’ (referring to the sides of the river that runs through Whitby) expressing, as they did so, an inchoate but powerful class sentiment. My PhD coined the concept of ‘locale’ to help theorize the significance of class and place in young people’s sense of themselves (and difference from others), their identities and places in the world, and their imagined futures. Potentially, a ‘locale’ could be a housing estate, a constellation of streets, a side of town; a geographic quarter that carries a social meaning (MacDonald, 1991). Not described on Ordnance Survey maps and invisible to passing visitors, ‘locales’ feature in those ‘maps of meaning’ that help shape the social world of locals. Thus, in Whitby, this East–​West division was inflected with alleged differences in: dialect/​accent; in social status (‘East-​siders’ as ‘poor’ or ‘unemployed’, ‘West-​siders’ as ‘toffs’); in behaviour/​morality (‘East-​siders’ were labelled as violent, criminal and of low aspiration; ‘West-​siders’ were regarded as ‘snobs’, unfriendly and not ‘down to earth’); in housing type (‘slum’ council versus ‘posh’ private); and in attitudes to education (whether pupils strived and achieved at school or not –​‘swots’ in ‘East-​side’ terminology). Very rarely was the direct language of social class used. It was hidden behind a common vocabulary of social distinction expressed through a micro-​geographical divide. These labels and reputations gave identities to young people and helped them explain and act in their world. ‘Locale’ set ‘horizons for action’. It was always the (middle-​class) young people from the ‘West-​side’ (or the outlying villages) who talked about ‘getting on and getting out’. ‘East-​siders’ operated with a more alienated attitude to school and wanted to quit school for ‘the real world’ as soon as possible (Willis, 1979). That is what ‘East-​side’ people did. Rather than ‘getting out’ they expressed a strong sense of working-​ class loyalty to place; ‘staying put’ and ‘getting by’ underpinned their post-​16 transitions. 238

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The strengths of working-​class community, the ‘left behind’ and how ‘the worst place’ is the best place My second example picks up this theme from my PhD research. It is about young people and the strengths of working-​class community and is drawn from research that I have undertaken with colleagues over the last 25 years, in Teesside, North East England. These Teesside Studies of Youth Transitions and Social Exclusion were qualitative, long-​term, sometimes longitudinal studies of youth transitions (broadly understood) for young people growing up in some of England’s most deprived wards (for example Johnston et al, 2000; Webster et al, 2004; MacDonald and Marsh, 2005; Shildrick et al, 2012; MacDonald et al, 2020).5 It is rare these days to see ‘strength’ coupled with ‘working-​class community’. More common are adjectives like ‘depressed’, ‘poor’ or ‘forgotten’, and most recently, the ‘left behind’.6 Attached to communities in the disadvantaged peripheries of the North, the ‘left behind’ are discussed from afar, not from within, and occupy places that the UK government now says require ‘levelling up’. They voted enthusiastically for ‘Brexit’, so the narrative goes, in rejection of –​and much to the bemusement of –​a Remain-​voting, London-​based, middle-​class, liberal consensus. The label carries the implication that ‘we’, the rest of us, have managed to happily steam ahead but somehow, perhaps by chance or by their own lack of vigour, ‘they’ have been left floundering. Because ‘we are all in it together’, charity demands that ‘we’ must now help ‘them’ ‘catch up’. The problem here is that ‘the left behind’ soubriquet effaces the central, active role of uneven capitalist development and neoliberal government in putting some to the fore and some to the back, in maintaining inequality, in dispossessing the working-​class –​and in making places and people marginal (MacDonald and Shildrick, 2018). Middlesbrough sits at the centre of Teesside, a de-​industrialized conurbation in North East England. It is a place emblematic of the so-​called ‘left behind’. The neighbourhoods of East Middlesbrough –​a main site for our research over the years –​recorded the highest ‘leave’ vote in the UK, at 82.5 per cent (BBC, 2017). While never a ‘Global City’ in the current usage, it boomed in the 19th century to become a major international centre for heavy engineering, iron and steel and chemical production. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Indian railway system are just two examples of the global reach of this remarkable industrial success. From the 1970s, the flight of capital and national government mismanagement led to a decline that was as rapid and remarkable as its rise. Teesside was made peripheral to national and global economies; it is now regularly listed as ‘worst’, ‘least’, ‘bottom’ in government indexes of multiple deprivation, in TV programmes about the least desirable place to live, in surveys of anti-​depressant prescription, 239

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in assessments of local authority resilience to austerity cuts, and in analyses of the ‘worst place to grow up as a girl’ (Thornton, 2007; see MacDonald and Shildrick, 2018). These stigmatic mappings and deficit terminologies, and the middle-​class condescension of the ‘left behind’ label, misrecognize the strengths of working-​ class communities (Fraser, 2001). We see this in the way that well-​meaning social welfare professionals describe their working-​class ‘clients’ as ‘hard to reach’ (when this, in fact, is a product of institutional practice, social distance and middle-​class mores) and who repeat nonsensical tropes about ‘families where no-​one has had a job for three generations’ (MacDonald et al, 2014). The participants in these Teesside Studies were not ‘hard to reach’ –​but sometimes they were reluctant to participate, feeling that there was little noteworthy about their lives. Young people here resisted –​with a flat denial or a ‘so what’ shrug of the shoulders –​a description of their neighbourhoods as being among the top five most deprived from over 8,000 in England. They listed all that was good about where they lived, or they named nearby places they thought were worse. As with my doctoral research, young people could describe, at micro-​level, sociocultural maps of their locales (parts that were ‘safe’ and ‘quiet’ or ‘rough’ and ‘scruffy’): “where my Mum lived, her road’s very quiet and it is a nice place but you go round the corner and it’s like Beirut!” (Marje, 23).7 In doing this, in making close comparisons –​ sociologically and geographically –​they could see places that were the same or ‘rougher’. To them, subjectively, there was nothing unusual about places that were described objectively as extremely deprived. Their ‘housing and family careers’ demonstrated a strong attachment to place that was explained as an outcome of positive affective relations between friends, families and neighbours. Extended families lived locally. People knew each other. The fact of ‘knowing and being known by people’ was critical to positive assessments of these Teesside neighbourhoods and coping with their acknowledged problems (for example problems associated with the local drug-​crime economy). It helped if one was tied into local networks of reciprocity. Zack (23) put it like this, capturing the ambivalence of this attachment to place: ‘Every time I come back here [his neighbourhood], it’s home. As soon as I see the A66 [leading into Teesside], I know I’m home and I feel dead relaxed, as if it’s a weight off your shoulders. … I don’t like the place! You’re secure, that’s what it is. It’s a security blanket; the place where you were raised. Every area is different. Areas with money –​if you’ve got loads of money you’re respected. … Round here, it’s if you’re hard as fuck [tough/​violent]. Or if you’re a drug dealer, you’re respected. If you do [positive] things within the community, you’re respected. … You have to be involved in the circles of knowing people, 240

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knowing the people. There is hard people in every estate. … You have to know the big, well, not just the big people but the kids that are knocking about on the street, do you know what I mean?’ Young adults described localized networks of mutual support of the sort that is forgotten about in policy and media discourse about ‘the left behind’ and the supposed ‘lacks’ and ‘low aspirations’ of working-​class life. Middle-​ class localities where private, nuclear family-​centred ways of living prevail often lack this sort of neighbourly, on-​the-​street, social life but they are never described as ‘poor neighbourhoods’. This working-​class ‘bonding social capital’ had enormous value for people. It enabled friendship and care in tough moments; protection from crime or, if not, informal ‘restorative justice’; access to cheap and/​or illegal goods; loans of money; informal childcare; and job-​search tip-​offs and recommendations. This was a strong, class-​based culture of belonging, identity and inclusion that made life liveable in objectively harsh material conditions. Paradoxically, this positive sense of belonging could simultaneously inhibit working-​class young people from making transitions away from the harsh conditions in which they lived, holding them in their geographical, psychic and social class space. It was hard to imagine taking steps away from the accepted identities and ways of being of Teesside’s estates (for example to become a student at university) or leaving for a more buoyant labour market. Annie (24, Orchard Bank Estate), for instance, had to confront what she called “the Orchard Bank Attitude” and “the bickering and bitching” of other young mothers who felt that Annie’s enrolment on a university access course meant that she “thought that she was summat” (that is, was superior to them). Annie said: “I just didn’t want to stay in the same rut all the time, nothing ever changes, going down the plug hole with everyone else.”

Class and place in UK higher education: ‘the opportunity university’? So, what happens to young people like Annie, who become ‘non-​traditional’ students? This is the third and final example of the chapter. It draws on my work and teaching experience as well as my research, and highlights the way that inequalities of class and of place interact with ‘extended’ youth transitions and with government policies about higher education expansion, with particular implications for the ‘missing middle’. The need better to include ‘the missing middle’ in research and theory is another recurring theme in Youth Studies. Recent interventions (for example Roberts, 2011; Roberts and MacDonald, 2013; Irwin, 2020) continue many of the arguments of an earlier generation of scholars, myself included, who wanted to avoid a simplistic binary of ‘resistant’ versus 241

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‘conformist’ youth (for example Clarke, 1982; Jenkins, 1983; Coles, 1986; MacDonald, 1988). The aim was to better include ‘the invisible majority of ordinary working-​class pupils’ (Brown, 1987) or, as Kev, one of my PhD participants, described himself, “the ordinary, everyday people”. There are differences in definition (see Woodman, 2013) but my preference is for one that allows for the investigation of that ‘set of transition routes and identities’ that exist below ‘traditional middle-​class, inclusionary paths from school to “better universities” ’ and above the ‘exclusionary “poor transitions” of “the NEETS” and worst-​off sections of the working-​class’ (MacDonald, 2011, p 433). Importantly, this enables examination of the experiences of ‘the missing middle’ in a now massified higher education system, thus opening up to critique research and policy-​thinking that presumes extended education through university is constitutive of a ‘successful’ youth transition, promoting it as such to the whole youth population. Universities, in the UK and more widely, have been transformed from an ‘elite’ destination for the highly privileged to one more widely available. In 1968, around 6 per cent went to university in the UK, compared to around half the age group 50 years later (49 per cent in 2018). Accompanied by a ‘voodoo sociology’ (MacDonald, 2016) that individualizes responsibility for success and failure, going to university has been marketed as the route for personal advancement and social mobility (to good jobs and prosperity in adulthood) and as a necessity for economies which are said to be increasingly dependent on highly skilled workers (Brown et al, 2011). This has had enormous implications for both the people who ‘consume’ higher education (that is, young adults, who are the most likely age group to be students) and for the places that provide it (the towns and cities where this massive expansion of universities has been located). In the sociologically oriented, emergent ‘critical university studies’ literature (for example Waller et al, 2017), there has been very little examination of the impact on places of university expansion. There is not the space here to discuss in any depth the relationship between universities and the towns/​ cities in which they are located, but there is general agreement in the policy literature that universities can be ‘important hubs for their local area, boosting employment and spending’ and playing influential roles in terms of social and cultural life (Universities UK, nd). That said, some universities are more ‘local’ than others. The richest universities vie with each other for the top places in rankings of ‘world universities’, for globally mobile faculty and for the ‘best’ international students. Their immediate geographic hinterland is less important for them than the global market place. On the other hand, the raison d’être and ‘value’ of some UK institutions is more easily measured at a local scale. In places that are economically disadvantaged, universities can play a very significant role vis-​à-​vis the local economy and ‘from the point of view of the government’s levelling up agenda … places that are 242

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lagging behind economically are sometimes especially dependent on their local university’ (UCU, 2020). For instance, in ‘Middlesbrough, Stoke and Swansea … at least 5% of local jobs are linked in one way or another to the local institution. In the North-​East, there are more people directly employed in higher education (20,000) than there are in car manufacturing (9,000)’ (UCU, 2020). Usually, such jobs are relatively high quality and well-​paid: the average salary at the University of Sunderland (in the North East of England) is more than a third higher than the city average (UCU, 2020). In general and to date, the policy consensus is that universities are ‘good for’ the places in which they are sited. The UK policy consensus would also hold that going to university is ‘good for’ young adults and their life chances. Overall, possessing a university degree means that one is more likely to be in employment, to be in a higher skilled job and to receive a higher salary (Department for Business and Innovation and Skills, 2016). These are calculations of averages, however, that hide inequalities by gender, ethnicity, disability and the subject and category of degree (Department for Business and Innovation and Skills, 2016). The relevant data also comes in part from an historical period when a degree was a rarer commodity. Now we have an over-​supply of graduates; the fatal flaw in the ‘knowledge economy thesis’ is that it overestimates the global demand for highly educated labour (Keep and Mayhew, 2010), and, I would add, that fails to consider the uneven geographic demand for such labour. The UK government’s Higher Education Committee (2014) estimates that 70 per cent of graduates will never earn enough to pay back their student loans. It is not preposterous to conceive of this as ‘mis-​selling’ on an industrial scale. This mismatch in supply and demand signals a crisis in youth transitions in the UK. The financial costs of doing a degree rise (with hefty tuition fees) yet their value falls as the labour market becomes saturated with graduate jobseekers. But the necessity of doing a degree persists, including for ‘the missing middle’ who must compete in a labour market where employers ‘bump down’ and recruit ‘surplus’ graduates into non-​graduate occupations. In response, ‘traditional’ middle-​class students accumulate other markers of class distinction to separate them from the mass of ‘new’ graduates: worthy ‘gap year’ projects, internships, postgraduate degrees, ‘polish’, ‘character’ (Ingram and Allen, 2019). In the 1980s, scholars argued that the wide roll-​ out of youth training schemes served only to ‘warehouse’ school leavers, pushing the problem of youth unemployment up the age range, until aged 18 (Coles, 1995). The current situation bears comparison: with the expansion of universities in the 2000s have we delayed the problem to age 21 and relabelled it graduate unemployment and underemployment? Within the emergent sociological and policy literature on student experience and graduate outcomes, there has also been relatively little attention paid to the effects of place (in combination with class) in creating 243

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inequalities. Even though specific degree courses and universities are rarely named explicitly as being of lower worth,8 there is a patent social stratification of UK universities codified in undergraduate entrance requirements and in regular league tables that rank some as ‘better’ than others.9 The so-​called ‘top universities’ are the richest ones10 and remain crucial to the reproduction of the British ruling class, providing a conveyor belt to the upper echelons of the media, the arts, law and government. One important way that place matters in this is that middle-​class students possess greater ‘mobility capital’ (Moret, 2017). Geographically mobile, well-​resourced students can still benefit from the high-​status universities and graduate opportunities of the metropolitan centres. The benefits are much less certain for the less mobile, geographically peripheral, ‘non-​traditional’ students of ‘the missing middle’. Teesside and its university provide an excellent example of the way that inequalities of place and class combine to contradict the easy narrative that university equals ‘success’. Prior to a dose of amorphous corporate rebranding in the 2010s, Teesside saw itself as ‘The Opportunity University’, recruiting large numbers of working-​class students (Teesside University, 2001).11 It still has the highest proportion of students from ‘deprived white working-​class backgrounds’ (28 per cent; nearby Durham University has 4 per cent; BBC, 2019). These statistics are reflective of the socio-​spatial stratification of the UK higher education system –​and of the socioeconomic and geographic marginality of Teesside. Teesside sits well down university league tables (95th out of 130 in The Complete University Guide, 2021) and the town of Middlesbrough is also held in low status, as I discussed earlier. As a result, the university has some of the lowest rates of participation from non-​local students and among the highest rates of graduates who stay local (Swinney, 2017). This shows the relative immobility of Teesside University students. Typically, they are from Teesside, go to the local university (often while remaining living at home), and then stay in Teesside afterwards. Teesside might be an extreme case, but it is far from alone in these patterns of ‘marginalised, commuter-​student mobility’ (Finn, 2020). These are patterns that reflect the sociology and economy of class and place: ‘Over three times more students in the lowest social class group commute from home, compared to the highest group. … Students in northern regions of England, especially the North East, are much less likely to be mobile compared to those in the south’ (ESRC, 2018, p 2). Thomson and Taylor (2005, p 1) show how ‘localities have their own particular economy of mobility’ with ethnicity, gender, sexuality and social class being important in this. In Teesside, the new students of the ‘missing middle’ were made geographically immobile by multiple cultural, social, psychological and material constraints, or, putting it more positively, they felt and expressed strong, working-​class bonds of attachment to their homes, families and 244

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neighbourhoods (of the sort we uncovered in our Teesside Studies). There was no ‘town and gown’ divide here. My students at Teesside University were not so distant, sociologically, from my research participants from the estates of Orchard Bank and Primrose Vale.12 They had friends and family here; they had their own children in local schools or older relatives to care for. They had mortgages and rents to pay. It was very rare for students not simultaneously to be employed, sometimes in several part-​time jobs (often jobs which started before and continued after being a student). All this meant that their local university was the best –​and only –​option. This has important repercussions for transitions post-​university. Teesside is a perfect example of a place that has less demand for graduate labour than the amount that is supplied. Duncan (2017) surveyed this problem, finding that most Teesside University graduates did get jobs, but many were part-​time and 27 per cent went into ‘non-​g raduate jobs’ (for example in childcare, bar and restaurant work, and social care).13 A law degree, for instance, was strongly correlated with becoming a shop assistant. Intriguingly, taking a view of the whole labour market allowed Duncan to link this problem of graduate underemployment to high rates of youth unemployment in Teesside (over twice the national average at the time). Graduates taking non-​graduate jobs ‘displaced’ lower skilled workers –​into unemployment. Duncan also estimated that as many as two-​thirds of current and foreseeable job vacancies jobs in Teesside required qualifications below graduate level. Thus, there is ‘significant underemployment of well-​qualified people in Tees Valley, with science graduates, for instance, working as school laboratory technicians and in call centres’ (Tees Valley Unlimited, 2014). Ainley and Allen (2013) describe this pattern of increased educational engagement and credentialization, in a context of diminishing returns and graduate underemployment, as like ‘running up a down escalator in a class structure gone pear-​shaped’. What of the people behind these statistics and trends? To finish this section, I’ll give just one example. Rebecca (22), a pseudonym,14 graduated with a BSc in Youth Studies (Hons) from Teesside University. She was a strong student, just short of a first-​class degree. I provided references for her job applications and she would email to keep in touch about progress. This message was roughly ten months after graduation: I have FINALLY got a job! It’s as a temporary education assistant with a wildlife centre. It’s not exactly what I wanted to do but good for now and sounds like it will be good fun! Have been volunteering with a youth work agency –​they will be gone [closed down] at the end of this month … I will be gutted. I loved working with the kids, really taught me a lot. Anyway, just thought you might be interested in what’s going on! Feels so good to be employed, I start on Monday 245

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and can’t wait! It’s good to know that my degree might eventually get me somewhere! Ha ha. Rebecca’s story was not unusual. Post-​2010, government austerity measures ravaged the sort of employment gained by the new graduates of ‘the missing middle’ (for example in education, the health service, local government and third sector, social welfare organizations). Places like Teesside and people like Rebecca were particularly hard hit by this ‘hollowing out’ of the labour market (BBC, 2010; Sissons, 2011). For instance, youth work jobs virtually disappeared in Teesside (and our courses to educate and qualify youth workers were duly closed). So, graduates looked for anything they could find, ‘bumping down’ into non-​graduate jobs. Rebecca’s new job was part-​time, temporary, minimum wage and only required ‘good’ secondary school-​level qualifications, normally gained at age 16. In this section I have explored some of the implications of the policy-​ driven expansion of UK higher education –​for the young people that ‘consume’ it and for the places, the towns and cities, that have hosted it. In respect of the latter, the policy narrative tells a story of success and of the importance of universities for local economies. Less is said of the potential distorting effects on labour markets of a localized over-​supply of graduate labour. In respect of the former, we see again how young people’s agency is bounded by their ties to place and by their class position, and how –​when these facts meet up with the already class-​based stratification of a massified higher education, this can confound the orthodoxy about ‘successful’ youth transitions. Contemplating ‘the missing middle’, Woodman (2013) asks ‘what does “success” mean when extended educational transitions feed high levels of graduate un-​and underemployment?’ This is a very important question. Rebecca’s answer conveys a down-​to-​earth stoicism typical of her class. For now, she celebrated the fact of securing a job that she might enjoy, and which connected to her ambition to work with young people, while knowing it was insecure and way below her level of education. She was getting by, hoping for something better but pleased to finally have something.

Conclusion: what has changed and what has stayed the same in young people’s experiences of place? I suggested at the start of this chapter that it might be beneficial to take a longer view of social change and continuity in the life-​worlds of young people. Before offering some summing up and conclusions, I offer a brief reflection on Youth Studies scholarship. As hinted at in the chapter, there certainly seems to be continuity –​some repetition –​in several of the themes and issues that occupy us as youth scholars. Recent calls for ‘new agendas in youth research’ around place, or mobility, or belonging (for example Farrugia, 246

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2014; Harris, 2015; Robertson et al, 2018) perhaps pay insufficient attention to the long significance of place in the history of Youth Studies, back to the foundational texts and key studies, in both the youth (sub)cultural and the youth transitions traditions of research. Similarly, it is doubtful that dividing the field into these ‘two traditions’ carries as much descriptive weight these days but calls for their better integration have been regularly made from the 1980s to the 2010s (for example Coles, 1986; MacDonald, 1988; MacDonald et al, 1993; Furlong et al, 2011). In the same vein, current arguments about the need for ‘a new agenda for youth research which would hold a mirror to experiences in the middle’ (Irwin, 2020) replicate ones from earlier decades. Sarah Irwin, in 2020, is as correct about the policy and academic value of scrutinizing the situation and transitions of the ‘missing middle’ as Steve Roberts was in 2011 and Bob Coles was in 1986. My point is not to suggest that any of these agendas are ‘wrong’ but to raise a question for our field of study about whether this ‘recurrence of pre-​occupations’ hints at a weakness in collective, intergenerational learning and some reticence to build, as social scientists, on previous studies and theoretical developments. But what about continuity and change in the life worlds of young people? In this chapter I have drawn on three examples from research (and teaching) undertaken over several decades –​what do they tell us about youth and place? Obviously, one can point to examples of social change. For many young people, identities have become increasingly ‘global’ and cosmopolitan under the influence of consumer culture and information technology that create virtual, boundaryless worlds (Nilan and Feixa, 2006). To be freed from the weight of local tradition –​to be ‘people from anywhere’ uprooted from the narrow confines of class and place –​is encouraged and celebrated (Goodhart, 2017). The imperative to be mobile is now said to be a critical component of a new youth condition (Farrugia, 2015), with policy rhetoric routinely positing place attachment ‘as a serious hindrance to successful realisation of aspiration’ (Evans, 2016, p 501). Spatial mobility is equated with social mobility. And, because of the democratization of higher education participation in the UK, ‘going to uni’ has become part of the normal repertoire of possibilities in the transitions of that large swathe of young people that straddles across fuzzy lower middle-​class/​working-​class cultural boundaries: ‘the missing middle’. But we can also see strong evidence of continuity in the way that place, and inequalities of place, impact in multiple and complex ways upon young people’s lives; on their cultural identities and transitions to adulthood. First, and overall, as all three examples in this chapter show, ‘the local’ still matters regardless of powerful globalizing forces. Young people are not equally mobile on a global stage and many people still feel they come from ‘somewhere’ rather than just ‘anywhere’ (Goodhart, 2017). This may be particularly true for young people ‘at the margins’ (in sociological and 247

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geographical senses). Indeed, the continuing salience of place in young people’s lives is evidenced by a surge in youth social geography over the past 20 years (for example Nayak, 2003; Valentine, 2003; Kraftl et al, 2012). Geographers have been better than sociologists in specifying the different scales of place (Hopkins, 2010). So, second, we can see that the very immediate can have profound significance for young people’s identities. Where we come from –​home and origins –​ still matters in defining who we are, and what we become and do. The small ‘locales’ of home, of the sort that I uncovered in rural North Yorkshire in the 1980s, can set our class identities, worldviews and imagined futures in ways that are far from small in their repercussions. That similar patterns of close territoriality were reported in older British and American subcultural studies (for example Whyte, 1943; Patrick, 1973) does not make my PhD finding a quaint antique. Comparable patterns of spatial attachment and division are reported in recent UK youth gang research (Ralphs et al, 2009), in policy reports about young people’s access to jobs and services (Kintrea et al, 2008), and in current scholarship about youth and marginality (for example Wenham, 2020). Third, moving up in geographical scale, it is in their local labour markets that youth confronts the structure of opportunities that prevails for them. Such opportunities are unevenly scattered in space. This is an obvious point, but it pins down the critical importance to Youth Studies of comprehending how young people’s agency is structured by the conditions around them. A study by Lupton et al (2021, p 109), for example, confirms how UK school-​leavers’ opportunities for jobs, education and training differed dramatically ‘even between localities within the same local authority areas’. As we saw with the Whitby example, local labour markets with diminished economies can sometimes expel young people who are in transition to work and adulthood, with accompanying class cultural lessons about ‘getting out to get on’ (provided that they possess the necessary class and educational capital). Fourth, places can push young people away but they can also tie people in. There are good reasons, worthy of more considered policy reflection and certainly less middle-​class consternation, why many working-​class young people feel attached to the places that they come from. Working-​class places that are undoubtedly deprived and maligned as ‘left behind’ can also be full of communality, neighbourliness and the sort of social capital that keeps people afloat. Young people in Teesside’s most deprived wards turned lowly deprivation indices and tabloid stigma on their head, extolling the virtues of their home estates. They provided a corrective to those condescending narratives that fail to see the strengths of working-​class communities and the value in staying. There is a double bind, however. For working-​class young people, geographic immobility can sometimes entrench social immobility. 248

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Fifth, also deserving of greater political and policy recognition, and moving up to the national and international scale, is a crisis in youth transitions that is hidden behind a dominating discourse of individual aspiration, responsibility and credential-​collecting where effort, achievement and qualification in youth no longer underwrites rewarding, secure employment in adulthood, let alone upward social mobility. The widening of opportunities for higher education beyond the elite reveals some of the same, old inequalities continuing in new ways (Furlong and Cartmel, 1997). Place matters here; there is an uneven geography to ‘the opportunity of university’, exemplified by the case of Teesside University. So, the experience and benefits of university are not equal, with league table rankings reifying and signalling this hard social stratification. Young adults’ classed connections to place are one, relatively under-​theorized element of this inequality. The over-​supply of graduate labour has implications for all students (and for all young workers) but, predictably, the problems of unemployment and underemployment are keener for marginal places with unpropitious graduate labour markets, and for the new students of the ‘missing middle’, than they are for the traditional, middle-​class beneficiaries of higher education. The privileged find new ways to maintain their privilege. Although my example here was from Teesside in North East England, these are global problems not just local ones (see Roberts, 2009). Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

This remains largely unpublished. This c­ hapter –​over 30 years later –​is only the third ‘output’ from my PhD; a dismal ‘metric’! North Yorkshire is a large, shire county with a rural economy largely dependent on agriculture and tourism. To the north, it borders the more densely populated, industrial conurbation of Teesside, with Middlesbrough being the biggest town here. I remain greatly indebted to my PhD supervisor, Bob Coles, and dedicate this chapter to him. I am also grateful to the 1,000 16–​19-​year-​olds who were surveyed by postal questionnaire, and to the 100 young people –​mixed by gender, by class and by post-​ 16 activity –​who took part in one-​to-​one or small group interviews. All names used are pseudonyms. Space precludes discussion of Youth Training Scheme experiences but the comments of one interviewee, Rita (16), stay with me. Having told the Careers Officer that she wanted “to work with animals –​at the riding stables or maybe with cats and dogs”, her placement “was at the abattoir, and then at the butchers”. The participants in these studies were predominantly White British and were young working-​class women and men who lived in the extremely deprived neighourhoods of East Middlesbrough. The circa 200 participants in the earlier studies were in their late teens and early twenties and some were ‘followed up’ into their thirties in later projects. On the very day I was writing this section of text, and pertinent to discussion in the next section, the BBC ran a news item entitled ‘Poor white teens in “left behind” towns not going to uni’ (BBC News, 26 January 2021, https://​www.bbc.co.uk/​news/​educat​ ion-​55804​123). 249

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7

8

9

10

11

12 13

14

How we explain the persistence of ‘Beirut’ (40 years after the Lebanese Civil War) as an English cultural signifier of danger and devastation is a fascinating question. Why not ‘Belfast’ or ‘Baghdad’ or ‘Mogadishu’? The current UK government seeks to do exactly this; to ‘defund’ some courses because of their allegedly poor labour market returns (Hazel, 2020). This hierarchy is not so obvious to ‘non-​traditional’ students and their families who lack the historical cultural capital to know the ins and outs of the ‘best’ A-​level subjects, courses and universities. Gaining an accurate picture of university assets is not easy but using publicly listed endowments shows that Cambridge and Oxford head ‘the rich list’ (£6 and £7 billion respectively for 2019) –​with Teesside University, for instance, not figuring at all in the top 50 listed universities: https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​List_​of_​UK_​universities_​by_​ endowment This inclusive political mission was a main reason for wanting to work there for most of my career; an experience that informs the observations and arguments in this part of the chapter. Indeed, in one or two cases research participants were also (or became) my students. ‘Graduate destinations’ are part of the metrics used to rank universities so it is predictable that universities will seek to ‘game’ the system. In 2017, Teesside University was admonished by the UK Advertising Standards Authority for stating that it ‘was the top university in England for long-​term graduate prospects’ because it gave a ‘misleading picture of the reality’ (Northern Echo, 2017). ‘Rebecca’ gave permission for this message to be used here.

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MacDonald, R. (1988) Youth and Unemployment in Rural Areas, unpublished PhD thesis, University of York. MacDonald, R. (1991) ‘Youth, class and locality in rural England’, Youth and Policy, 33: 17–​27. MacDonald, R. (2011) ‘Youth transitions, unemployment and underemployment: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?’, Journal of Sociology, 47(4): 427–​444. MacDonald, R. (2016) Voodoo Sociology, Unemployment and the Low-​pay, No-​pay Cycle, Blog for SARF. Available from: http://​www.the-​sarf.org. uk/​voodoo-​sociology/​ MacDonald, R. and Marsh, R. (2005) Disconnected Youth? Growing up in Britain’s Poor Neighbourhoods, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacDonald, R. and Shildrick, T. (2018) ‘Biography, history and place: Understanding youth transitions in Teesside’, in A. Nilsen, F. Devine and I. Irwin (eds) Transitions to Adulthood through Recession, London: Routledge, pp 74–​96. MacDonald, R., Banks, S. and Hollands, R. (1993) ‘Youth and policy in the 1990s’, Youth and Policy, 40: 1–​10. MacDonald, R., Shildrick, T. and Furlong, A. (2014) ‘In search of “intergenerational cultures of worklessness”: Hunting yetis and shooting zombies’, Critical Social Policy, 34(2): 199–​220. MacDonald, R., Shildrick, T. and Furlong, A. (2020) ‘ “Cycles of disadvantage” revisited: Young people, families and poverty across generations’, Special Issue of Journal of Youth Studies Special Issue: Andy Furlong’s Legacy for Youth Studies, 23(1): 12–​27. Moret, J. (2017) ‘Mobility capital: Somali migrants’ trajectories of (im) mobilities and the negotiation of social inequalities across borders’, Geoforum, 116: 235–​242. Nayak, A. (2003) Race, Place and Globalization, Oxford: Berg. Nayak, A. (2019) ‘Rescripting place’, Antipode, 51(3): 927–​948. Nilan, P. and Feixa, C. (eds) (2006) Global Youth? Hybrid Identities, Plural Worlds, London and New York: Routledge. Northern Echo (2017) ‘Teesside University criticised over misleading adverts’, 15 September. Available from: https://​www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/​news/​ 15660750.teesside-​university-​criticised-​misleading-​adverts/​ Patrick, J. (1973) A Glasgow Gang Observed, London: Eyre Methuen. Ralphs, R., Medina, J. and Aldridge, J. (2009) ‘Who needs enemies with friends like these? The importance of place for young people living in known gang areas’, Journal of Youth Studies, 12(5): 483–​500. Roberts, K. (2009) Youth in Transition: Eastern Europe and the West, London: Palgrave.

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Index References to figures appear in italic type; those in bold refer to tables. References to endnotes show both the page number and the note number (71n2). A activism, environmental and political  77–​95 actor-​network theory  118 adjacent mobility  26, 28, 32 agency  34, 118, 248 individualist conceptions of  60 agribusinesses  57–​58 agriculture  agricultural aspirations of young people in the global south  58–​60 agricultural training programmes  7, 60, 61–​62 in Australia  46, 47–​48 in Finland  199 in Myanmar  82, 86 organic farming  68–​69, 70 permaculture  89–​90, 91n2 in Punjab, India  66–​69 youth choosing to be involved in  70–​71 ‘agripreneurs’  57 alcohol consumption  116 in coastal towns  160 drinkscapes in  121, 122–​123 geographical imaginary of  117 in the home  125–​126 masculine drinking practices  120 pre-​drinking  130n6 reasons for not enjoying  123–​125 by young people in Finland  204 Anderson, B.  118, 119 antiracism  220, 229 aspirations  6, 44 adjusted  63–​64 agricultural aspirations of young people in the global south  58–​60 aspirational strategies of rural youth  42–​43, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54 of families  66–​69 post-​school  44 assemblages  118, 119–​120

asylum seekers  crossing Mexico–​US border  150 Honduran  10, 143, 144–​151 mobilities of  144–​151 young Central American  143 see also migrants; refugees atmospheres  118–​119 B belonging  197, 209 and becoming  23 contradicting bonds of  202–​204, 209 detachment, narratives of  201, 205–​206, 209 drinkscapes and sense of belonging 130 local politics of belonging in Bendigo, Australia  110 mobility, rootedness and  10–​12 (non)belonging  103–​111 practising  106–​108 resources for  109 rural places, belonging and not belonging  195 strong belonging, narratives of  201, 206–​209 trans-​rural  104, 105–​106 village pubs and sense of belonging  128 border controls  140, 141 Bourdieu, P.  43, 51 habitus  42 ‘Brexit’  239 C capital  81–​82 captivity  147 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS)  236, 237 Chicago school  236 choosing upper secondary school  26, 27, 31–​33

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cities  peripheries within  6, 21–​39 youth studies in  4–​5 class  inequalities of  235–​255 and place  in higher education  241–​246 in young people’s sense of themselves  238 climate change  142 and drought in Australia  46–​47 in Myanmar  86–​87 coastal towns  ageing population in  160 alcohol misuse in  160 criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults in  160 displacement pressure through tourism and regeneration  169–​170 drug and alcohol misuse in  160 educational attainment of disadvantaged young people in  160 growing up in  156–​174 labour market transitions in  163–​165 local labour markets in  163 mental health of children in  160 mobility in  170–​171 precarity and uncertainty in  165 regeneration activities  171 young women in  161 Cohen, A.P.  238 Cohen, Phil  236 commercial drinking establishments  see drinkscapes community attachment  177 Creswell, T.  144, 151 D deforestation, in Myanmar  85 Deleuze, G.  79 deprivation, indicators of  159–​160, 162–​163 displacement, refugees and asylum seekers  140 affective  169 forcibly displaced persons, mobility of  140 of youth through tourism and regeneration  169–​170 distant mobility  26, 28 domestic violence  142 drinking spaces and places  see drinkscapes drinkscapes  9, 116–​134 lighting practices  126 rural  116–​134 creation of  127–​129 young people’s engagement with  120 and sense of belonging  130 sensory atmospheres  130 smell of  125 soundscapes of bars  125 suburban  116–​134

creation of  122–​126 young people’s engagements with  119–​121 drought  142 drug misuse  160 drug trafficking  143 drunkenness  125 E education  in Central Finland  199–​200 educational choices  and geographic locations  23 and transitions  21–​39 environmental adult education (EAE)  77, 88, 91 mobility patterns of students based on place of residence and school location  26 mobility patterns in transition to upper secondary education  34 and overcoming racism and xenophobia  226 in Sámi homeland  200 school choices and trajectories  23 territorial distribution of the educational supply  29–​30 upper secondary education  31–​33 urban mobility and educational transitions  22 see also higher education educational identities  6 employment  the ‘missing middle’  246 in Launceston, Tasmania  188 environmental activism  8 in Myanmar  77–​95 environmental adult education (EAE)  77, 88, 91 environmental degradation, in Myanmar  85 ‘epistemological fallacies’  167 ethnography of locality  238 extortion  145–​146 extremism, and satire  230 F family migration research  177 farming  see agriculture fishing  107–​108 food insecurity  89 food production  107 food sovereignty  89 forestry,  199 Frankfurt school  198 Furlong, A.  167 G gender  masculine drinking practices  120 and mobilities and migration  141 role in movements and non-​movements  149–​150 rural, masculinized  229

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geographic ‘disembedding’  161, 162, 168 geographical inequalities  157–​159 Giddens, A.  3 global economic competitiveness  3 global North  1, 3, 15 resettling refugees in rural and regional locations in  96 stages of modernity in economies of  2 global South  3, 15 young people’s agricultural aspirations in  58–​60 youth from the  81 globalization  2 graduates  over-​supply of  249 underemployment of  245 ‘greaser trash’  215 ‘Green Revolution’ agriculture  60 Guattari, F.  79 H habitus  42–​43, 50, 53, 54 rural  42, 46, 54 higher education  class and place in  241–​246 employment in  243 ‘missing middle’ in  242 under-​representation of social groups in  52 see also agriculture; education; universities historical consciousness  196, 198, 205, 209 historicizing space and place  12–​15 home ownership,  175–​192, 183 housing  affordability  175, 184, 192 complexities of housing in regional centres  183–​186 low income status, unemployment and housing affordability  186 property market, Australia  190 rental housing  185 I identities  global and cosmopolitan  247 mobility, rootedness and belonging  10–​12 immobility  11–​12, 147, 151, 176–​178 implicit racism  225, 226 individualization thesis  2–​3 inequalities  education and aspiration on the margins  5–​7 geographical  157–​159 of youth, place and class  235–​255 irony  229 K ‘knowledge economy thesis’  243 L labour market  local labour markets  237, 248

in deprived coastal towns  163 ‘missing middle’ competing in the  243 and post-​2010 government austerity measures  246 ‘left behind’  239, 240, 248 linked lives perspective  178 locales  238 of home  248 M marginality, spatial  117 margins  1 creation of  2–​4 educational aspirations on the  5–​7 locations of  4–​5 within urban spaces  15 Massey, D.  2, 118 material places, spatiality and sensory embodiment of  7–​10 Merleau-​Ponty, M.  118 middle classes  choosing upper secondary school  31, 35 mobility of students when enrolling for upper secondary education  28 and racism  225, 226, 230 migrants  223–​224 Central American migrants  137–​155 mobility of  138–​141, 143 perceptions of  139 see also asylum seekers; refugees migration  Central American migration from mobility perspective  137–​155 family migration research  177 forced migration and displacement  140 gender, mobility and  141 as marker of social status  64 mobility and  138–​141 mining  49 ‘missing middle’  236, 241, 244, 246 competing in the labour market  243 employment gained by  246 in higher education system  242 situation and transitions of  247 mobility  2, 247 adjacent  26, 28, 32 class mobility  167 in coastal towns  170–​171 complexities of staying and returning  178 and control over mobility  140 digital forms of  139 of forcibly displaced persons  140 gender and  141 immobility  151, 176–​178 and migration  138–​141 ‘mobility capital’  244 movement  152, 150–​151 practices of  144–​145, 151 rootedness and belonging  10–​12

258

Index

social class and  165–​169 spatial  247 total immobility  147 and urban infrastructure  139 urban mobility and educational transitions  22, 27–​31 violence and  145–​146 monoculture  86 multi-​sensory perception  119 N natural environment  aesthetics of the landscape  105 belonging with/​in  111 first encounters with  103–​104 intergenerational attachment to the  8 (non)belonging in the  103–​111 practical engagement with  106–​108 as quiet and peaceful  104–​105 refugee youth and the  99–​101 safety and engaging in recreational practices  108 spending time in nature  202–​203 weather  103 neoliberalism  141–​142 networks, for asylum seekers  149, 151 nightscapes, young people’s avoidance of  129–​130 (non)belonging  and connections of refugees to natural environment  103–​104 in the natural environment  103–​111 politics of  109–​111 and young people’s experiences of regional resettlement  102–​103 see also belonging non-​mobility  26, 28, 32 non-​movement  152 non-​representational theory  8 nostalgia  100 O offshore resettlement schemes  112n1 online trolling  216–​217, 222 organic farming  68–​69, 70 P participatory arts-​based research  102 permaculture  89–​90, 91n2 place attachment  11, 81, 161, 177 placemaking  116 place(s)  historicizing space and  12–​15 importance for forcibly displaced people  99 inequalities of  235–​255 material places, spatiality and sensory embodiment of  7–​10 role in shaping youth educational choices and transitions  21–​39 sense of  81

as spaces for meeting and sharing  118 young people’s experience of  246–​249 political economy analysis  80–​81 precarity and uncertainty, in deprived coastal towns  165 public transport  109, 110 absence of  45 as barrier to social engagement  128 R racism  105, 215, 219, 230 classed dimensions of  223–​226 education and overcoming  226 explicit  222, 225, 226, 228–​230 implicit  225, 226 popular school masculinity and  222 rural  217–​219 trolling and political (in)correctness among rural Swedish young people  13–​14, 215–​234 and xenophobia  218 racist humour  220 and sarcasm  220–​223 and trolling  218 racist jokes  see racist humour ‘redneck’  227 refugees  education challenges of resettled youth  98 Karen refugees  101 Kurdish Syrian refugees, first impression of NE England  103 lack of employment opportunities for resettled youth  98 material engagement with their locality  9 off shore resettlement programme  97 in regional resettlement locations  96–​115 Syrian refugees, first impression of NE England  103 Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme  97, 102 in urban Australia  100 see also asylum seekers; migrants regeneration, displacement pressure through  169–​170 relations between school supply, school choice and student mobility patterns  6, 24–​25 rural and smalltown inhabitants, depictions of  216 rural areas  236–​238 rural backwardness  224 rural place attachment  10 rural racism  217–​219, 229 rural students in Australian higher education equity policy  40–​56 rural youth unemployment  14, 235, 236 S Sámi people  197 education in Sámi homeland  200 importance of families and kinship  198

259

YOUTH BEYOND THE CITY

language  206 traditional livelihoods of  200 young women in Northern Finland  13 satire  229 school choices and trajectories  23 territorial boundaries, impact on school choice  35 sensory atmospheres  118 social change  247 social class  and choosing upper secondary education  34 and mobility  165–​169 social inequalities  157 social mobility  247 social relations, geography and construction of  118 social space, and youth aspirations  6 sociology of youth  2, 3 space(s)  beyond cities  2 historicizing space and place  12–​15 role in shaping youth educational choices and transitions  21–​39 spatial attachment and division  248 spatial justice  35 spatial mobility  247 spatiality and sensory embodiment  7–​10 strategic compromise  49–​52 strategic innovation  47 students, mobility patterns in transition to upper secondary education  34 suburban drinking cultures  see drinkscapes

discourse in educational policy, Australia  6–​7, 41 unemployment  14, 235, 236, 237, 245, 249 low income status, housing affordability and  186 in Punjab, India  60 in rural areas  14, 235, 236 Youth Unemployment in Rural Areas  237 United Nations, Human Development Index  92n6 universities  league tables  244, 249 and the local economy  242 social stratification  244 university enrolment in Australia  41 see also higher education upper secondary education  mobility and choosing  32 social class and choosing  31–​32 territorial presence of educational supply  33 urban migration  59 urban mobility and educational transitions  22, 27–​31 adjacent mobility  28 distant mobility  28 non-​mobility  28 urban peripheries  36 urban segregation  26 urban spaces  4 depictions of  216 Urry, J.  10, 138–​139

T Teesside Studies of Youth Transitions and Social Exclusion  235, 239, 240 temporalities  15 historicizing space and place  12–​15 territoriality of course supply  26, 27 time–​space distanciation  3 total immobility  147 tourism, displacement pressure through  169–​170 training schemes  164–​165 transitions  educational choices and  21–​39 labour market in coastal towns  163–​165 from lower to upper secondary education  25–​26 post-​university  245 urban mobility and educational  22, 27–​31 youth  236, 239, 249 trans-​rural belonging  104, 105–​106 trolling  13–​14, 216–​217, 218, 222, 229, 230 U underemployment  249, 245 seasonality and  165 under-​representation, of social groups in higher education  52–​53

V village pubs  117, 119, 127–​129 age and gender hierarchies in  120 atmospheric assemblage of  127 furniture and sense of belonging  128 perception and experiences of rural inhabitants of  121–​122 and sense of belonging  128 socio-​spatial division in saloon and main bar  127 view of intoxication in  129 Whiteness in  130n3 violence  119 and crime, experienced by Central American migrants  138 domestic violence  142 and mobility  145–​146 vocational education and training (VET) programmes,  6, 29–​30, 35 W Wacquant, L.  22 welfare state  157 Whiteness  217, 219, 130n3 women  gendered discourses on acceptable behaviour for  120

260

Index

rural exodus of  195 working class  attachment to place  248 bonding social capital  241 housing and family careers  240 racism and  225, 230 strengths of  239–​241, 248 urban spaces  24 X xenophobia  217, 218, 226, 230 Y youth  (sub)culture and studies of youth transition  236

in agriculture  58, 70 definition of  12 educational choices and transitions  21–​39 from the global south  81 inequalities of  235–​255 and place attachment  11 spatial inequalities and contemporary youth  157–​159 youth social geography  248 Youth Studies  246, 247 youth transitions  236, 239, 249 and spatiality  156–​174 youth unemployment  14, 245 in rural areas  14, 235, 236, 237

261

Johanna Wyn, The University of Melbourne

Signe Ravn is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Melbourne.

This interdisciplinary collection charts the experiences of young people in places of spatial marginality around the world, dismantling the privileging of urban youth, urban locations and urban ways of life in youth studies and beyond. Expert authors investigate different dimensions of spatiality including citizenship, materiality and belonging, and develop new understandings of the complex relationships between place, history, politics and education. From Australia to India, Myanmar to Sweden, and the UK to Central America, international examples from both the Global South and North help to illuminate wider issues of intergenerational change, social mobility and identity.

DAVID FARRUGI A AND SIGNE RAVN

David Farrugia is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle.

YOUTH BEYOND THE CITY

“This timely and comprehensive book dismantles the margins of youth research. It reveals new geographies of labour and cultural experience beyond the existing spatial boundaries of urban and rural.”

By exploring young lives beyond the city, this book establishes different ways of thinking from a position of spatial marginality.

ISBN 978-1-5292-1204-4

9 781529 212044

B R I S TO L

@BrisUniPress BristolUniversityPress bristoluniversitypress.co.uk

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YO UT H B E YO N D T HE C I T Y T HI N K I N G F ROM T HE MARG I N S E D I TE D BY DAV I D FA RRU GI A A N D S I G N E RAV N