“Wish you were here”? Geographies of exclusion: young people, coastal towns and marginality

Living and working on the edge: ‘Place precarity’ and the experiences of male manual workers in a U.K. seaside town

“…Here, singling them out from deprived, inland regions, Argawal and Brunt (2006) highlight some problems common to struggling seaside towns, indicative of ‘multiple deprivations,’ including a long‐term decline in tourism, fishing and other port activities; peripheral geographical positioning and poor transport connectivity that can create a barrier to labour market accessibility; population transience accompanied by a high proportion of housings of multiple occupancy (HMOs); and a high proportion of older, retired, white populations with limited qualifications. Societal effects can include a ‘geography of exclusion’ with a lack of social mobility for younger people in coastal communities (Wenham, 2020) as well as endemic uncertainty over future prospects based on limited work opportunities (McDowell & Bonner‐Thompson, 2020). This and other work (e.g., McDowell et al, 2020) point to the challenges faced by long‐term residents of coastal communities in the United Kingdom in a context where there are few opportunities for secure work.…”

“…We draw on Bourdieu's (1977, 1990) Theory of Practice as a useful frame to highlight how wider contextual conditions (e.g., geographic situation and employment prospects) combine with specific socio‐economic setting to generate ‘ways of being’ and identity formations (i.e., habitus ), which have significance for labour market experience. As Wenham (2020) argues, looking at geographies of exclusion in seaside towns, there is a need to explore material inequalities of particular localities alongside subjectivities in the form of meanings, perceptions and experiences. Here, Bourdieu can provide powerful insight into how the dynamics and conditions of the ‘field’—seen as the setting in which agents and their social positions are located—can generate perceptions and action, potentially reinforcing precarious experiences and conditions.…”

‘There is nothing there’: Deindustrialization and loss in a coastal town

“…The next two sections outline the literature on coastal communities and the impact of industrial ruination. As we will encounter, the similarities in these structural experiences include the loss of employment opportunities, unemployment and social and economic deprivation (Agarwal, 2005; Beatty and Fothergill, 2004; High, 2003; Warren, 2018; Wenham, 2020).…”

Turning around coast-based schools: An interpretive narrative analysis of a report on school reform in English coastal communities

“…The expectation that young people should attend higher education remains understood as the common sense destination for the best pupils (Bridge Group, 2019). For those on the coast, they often have to move away from their community in order to access such opportunities: they undergo ‘geographic disembedding to become “successful”’ (Wenham, 2020, p. 48). This taken for granted notion that urban elites know what is best for young people’s futures, apparently goes unchallenged and is assumed to be as valid for coast-based pupils as it is for those growing up in vastly different contexts such as in the metropole.…”

“…Consequently, they may be challenged when seeking effective ways to fulfil their responsibilities towards their pupils (Passy & Ovenden-Hope, 2019). That is, these teachers have to deal with fact of there being scant coast-based opportunities for skilled employment or higher education for their pupils while willing them to have successful futures and yet, being acutely aware of their reluctance to be mobile, as explained above (Wenham, 2020). Hence, the common sense understanding that the successful are those young people who move on to better lives (i.e.…”