England Town Research Articles

Political legitimacy after the pits: Corruption narratives and labour power in a former coalmining town in England.

This article examines the erosion of political legitimacy in ex-mining towns in England. Political sociologists and political scientists have long taken an interest in the politics of coalmining areas, which were characterised by high strike rates and militant left values. More recently, the question of legitimacy in these areas has resurfaced, as now-deindustrialised pit towns register unusually high levels of political discontent and disengagement compared to areas with similar economic and demographic profiles. In interviews and group discussions with 93 residents of the former mining town of Mansfield, England, I find that many express ideas that profoundly challenge the system of representative democracy in its current form, with almost one in three participants understanding politics primarily through the frame of corruption. Drawing on an emergent literature which casts corruption talk as a moralised discourse of political in/exclusion, I argue that the corruption frame is best understood as the inversion of a now-defunct symbolic economy. As workers in pit towns no longer received the same tokens of care from their representatives, reflecting their reduced power, many came to understand the political system as corrupt and illegitimate.

Gender, Paid Employment, and Deindustrialization in New Towns in North-West England, c. 1970–1990s

Abstract Existing research into the deindustrialization that afflicted northern England and Scotland during the twentieth century has focused predominantly on men’s experiences of unemployment and strikes. In contrast, this article examines the relationship between women’s employment and deindustrialization through the lens of three new towns in north-west England. Skelmersdale, Runcorn, and Central Lancashire were established during the 1960s and 1970s, partly with the aim of attracting employers and workers to a region experiencing industrial decline. Competing constructions of women’s work, both paid and unpaid, informed how the towns were planned, managed, and experienced. The new towns widened employment opportunities for female workers, but they did not significantly reshape gender roles because women remained responsible for housework and childcare while men were conceptualized as breadwinners. To explore this contradiction, the article analyses archival material produced by the development corporations that planned the new towns, alongside original oral history interviews conducted with women who lived and worked in them. It argues that even in situations of deindustrialization and rising male unemployment, women’s jobs did not displace men’s. Rather, the new towns represented a continuation of and a departure from existing patterns of employment, demonstrating that state-led urban development was fraught with gendered tensions.

Movers, returners and stayers: the role of place in shaping the (im)mobility aspirations of young people in coastal towns

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the role of place in shaping the (im)mobility aspirations of young people in coastal towns. In the Global North, youth mobility has become a normalised part of the journey to higher education and ‘cosmopolitan’ adulthood. However, we argue that this is only part of the story for young people in coastal towns in England. Many of these coastal towns now face persistent socio-economic and infrastructural challenges. Against this backdrop, many coastal youth feel that they are marginalised within their towns, and that the town itself is on the margins - culturally, economically, and geographically. This sense of marginality simultaneously propels youth out-migration and stigmatises those that stay behind. The stigma associated with staying overlooks the fact that some young people do not aspire to be mobile, preferring instead to stay because of their familial, social, and place-based attachments. To make this argument, we draw on qualitative data we co-produced with young people in two coastal towns in North East Lincolnshire. In these data we identified three types of mobility narratives (Movers, Returners and Stayers) that help us to contribute to the existing literature on youth (im)mobility aspirations and place-based sociology of youth.

Urbanity, Decline, and Regeneration in Later Medieval England: Towards a Posthuman Household Microhistory

Abstract It is proposed that combining a microhistorical approach with the frameworks offered by household archaeology and posthumanism provides a way of rethinking what urbanity means in archaeological (specifically later medieval) contexts. This approach is deployed to challenge generalising approaches which obscure the complexity, vibrancy, and generative capacity of past urbanities. Focussing on the question of the fortunes of later medieval small towns in England, a posthuman household microhistory of two households in the town of Steyning (southern England) is presented. This demonstrates how a focus on the practices undertaken by, and relational constitution of, households can reveal difference and open new avenues for understanding past urbanity.

Factors influencing urban greenspace use among a multi-ethnic community in the UK: The Chalkscapes Study

In the UK, there are disparities in the use of urban greenspaces, particularly among low-income, ethnically diverse communities. Determining how populations interact with greenspaces and the barriers and facilitators that influence use remains pertinent to improve access. This study aimed to examine how people who reside in an ethnically diverse community use and engage with urban greenspaces and, drawing on the COM-B model (capability, opportunity, motivation, and behaviour), aimed to assess the potential barriers and facilitators that influence use. A cross-sectional survey, conducted across two ethnically diverse towns in southeast England investigated greenspace usage, including activities and reasons for using greenspaces and included the Brief Measure of Behavior Change (COM-B). The survey was shared online via Qualtrics and widely disseminated in the local community via bilingual fieldworkers and community networks. The sample comprised 906 participants (60.7 % female; mean age 38 ± 16.37 years). The findings revealed that the use of greenspaces was low with around 33 % visiting greenspaces frequently (at least once a week). Older people, those with higher levels of deprivation and/or those from a minority ethnic background were all shown to be the lowest users of greenspaces. The findings also confirmed that the types of activities and reasons for visiting greenspaces were shown to vary by a range of socio-demographic characteristics. The COM-B model was shown to be a useful explanatory framework with physical capability and motivation identified as significant predictors of frequency of greenspace use. We now encourage future research to consider what factors underpin motivation and the opportunities to use greenspaces, and how these vary across the wider population.

Community engagement in a seaside town: evaluation of Good Grief Weston festival.

Festivals play an important role in improving death and grief literacy, enabling members of the public to engage with these often-sensitive topics. Good Grief Weston festival was co-designed and delivered with the community in Weston-super-Mare, a coastal town in South-West England with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage but rich community assets. It was held in person over 8 days in May 2023. To evaluate the reach and impact of Good Grief Weston festival and gather data to inform future festivals. Mixed methods evaluation (survey and focus groups). Online and paper surveys assessing participants' characteristics and experiences were administrated during and after the festival. Survey participants who indicated their willingness to participate were invited to attend a focus group. Focus groups were recorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Data were collected by trained community co-researchers. Approximately 3000 people attended the festival. Of 204 completed surveys, 64.5% were from women, age range ⩽15 to ⩾75 years; 88.2% identified as White; 14.9% deaf, disabled/with a chronic condition; 18.9% neurodivergent; 9.0% gay, bisexual or queer. Festival participants were entertained (70.9%), inspired (68.5%), felt part of a like-minded community (54.3%), talked to someone new (49.2%), learnt about grief/bereavement (34.3%), shared or expressed experiences (30.3%) and found out about local support (19.7%). 71.3% reported that they felt more confident talking about grief after attending. Median experience rating was 5 (IQR 0; possible range 1 = poor to 5 = excellent). In free-text comments, participants expressed appreciation for the festival and described benefits in attending. Two focus groups were conducted (n = 8 participants, all women), lasting c.1.5 h. Focus groups added rich descriptions of the festival's value, and data to inform the next festival. Findings suggest festivals of this nature can play a central role in a public health approach.

Children's experiences of care on walking and cycling journeys between home and school in Healthy New Towns: Reframing active school travel

The Healthy New Town programme in England set out to ‘put health into place’ by supporting the design and construction of healthy places to live, including by creating safe environments for active travel. To explore the impact of this approach, this study examined how children and their families experienced school journeys in two contrasting Healthy New Towns in England, one an affluent new town in the early stages of construction and the other more economically deprived and established. We undertook photo-elicitation and go-along interviews with 24 children aged 7-12 years and semi-structured interviews with 17 caregivers. We found that experiences of care were important for children's school travel. In the ‘deprived’ town, opportunities for children to care and to be cared for were enjoyed, facilitated by routes with limited traffic, pockets of ‘nature’, and possibilities to encounter meaningful others. For families living in a town under construction, the need to negotiate unfinished travel infrastructure, and a sense of being ‘in limbo’, was experienced as an absence of care by planners and developers. Interventions to promote children's active travel should consider the role of care-full planning in facilitating walking and cycling journeys.

Housing Support Services and the Strengths-Based Approach: Service-User and Staff Perspectives

This study aimed to identify main themes in the accounts of individuals encountering homelessness and staff who supported them, in a low-income South-East England town. It explored whether such themes were compatible with the adoption of a strengths-based approach by the local homelessness services. Thirty-one individuals in temporary accommodation and 19 staff were interviewed using a semi-structured schedule. Thematic analysis of the service user accounts identified five themes—Challenging Backgrounds, Effective Provision, Room for Improvement, Strengths, and Aspirations. An equal number of themes emerged from the thematic analysis of the staff interviews—Focus on Trauma and Mental Health, Service User Variability, Service User Involvement, Hard-Working Staff, and Improving Material Conditions. Both sets of narratives supported the adoption of a strengths-based approach by the local services, as they emphasized service user competencies, the importance of co-production, and the necessity to consider context in understanding the experience of homelessness. Including a range of stakeholders, future research needs to follow-up these services after they fully adopt a strengths-based approach.

Casual culture and football hooligan autobiographies: popular memory, working-class men and racialised masculinities in deindustrialising Britain, 1970s–1990s

ABSTRACT This article explores the development of an important subculture which has received scant academic attention: football’s casual movement of the 1980s. By analysing hooligan autobiographies, it investigates how the casual look spread from Merseyside and Manchester in the late 1970s to encompass every major city and town in Britain by the middle of the following decade. It delineates the attractions of the hooligan firms and shows how, through their use of ritualised violence they fought to become hegemonic in working-class communities. It explores how two key myths about football hooligans became dominant in the popular memory of the 1970s and 1980s. First, the hooligan became uniquely associated with racism in the popular imaginary. The second dominant myth was that the widespread consumption of the drug ecstasy during the acid house and rave years between c.1988 and 1992 saw the end of terrace violence. While the autobiographies largely provide support for the latter, the former is more complex. Via the analysis of the testimony of black and white football hooligans, I show that the racist/hooligan couplet did important ideological work to conceal the degree to which racism continued to figure in British football, into the 1990s, despite the decline in football-related violence.

Urban Government and the Early Stuart State: Provincial Towns, Corporate Liberties, and Royal Authority in England, 1603–1640, by Catherine F. Patterson

<i>Urban Government and the Early Stuart State: Provincial Towns, Corporate Liberties, and Royal Authority in England, 1603–1640</i>, by Catherine F. Patterson

Interaction between English and Irish as a Factor of Irish Migration in 14th–15th Centuries

Based on the analysis of the acts of the Irish Parliament, patent lists and charters of the English king, as well as petitions, the author identifies the main directions of interaction between the English and the Irish in the 14th-15th centuries, and examines the privileges of coastal towns in southern Ireland. Factors of migration are established. Attention is paid to the connections between landlords, established through client-patronage relationships and land grants. The relevance of the topic is due to the underestimation in historiography of the degree of connections between England and Ireland, which were a determining factor in choosing the country for migration, as well as the lack of works on the specific problem. Source analysis demonstrated that interaction was established not only in the sphere of trade and law, but also at a cultural and everyday level. The author concludes that the active development of trade in the Irish Sea, the spread of English legislation and language, helped the Irish adapt more quickly in coastal towns in England. The emigration of Irish people from four counties to England, in turn, stimulated internal migration of native Irish to Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare.

Samespace: Creating a new entrepreneurial space in a rural town

Samespace is a new coworking venue created in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Located in a small town in North-East England, it was founded by an entrepreneur who wanted a better working environment to run his own business. The case focuses on sources of self-identified opportunity recognition and the transferability of entrepreneurial skills to address personal needs. As the business has become established, opportunities for the next phase of growth are explored in relation to the need for collaboration with different actors, including some whose business model may be quite far removed from one's own. The teaching note relates to the nature of opportunity and new venture creation as well as aspects of entrepreneurial growth. Drawing on coworking as a contemporary growth sector in the rural economy, it is suited to final-year undergraduate and masters’ level courses in entrepreneurship. The case study also provides a valuable example of entrepreneurship for students of rural development and rural economies in other disciplines such as geography, social and political sciences or economics.

Authenticity and recognition: Theorising antiracist becomings and allyship in the time of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter

The confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd in America and a global Black Lives Matter response triggered anew the global struggle for racial justice. Using cyber, remote, and in-person ethnographic methods, this paper explores racial identity, allyship and processes of becoming during the spring and summer of 2020. Building on theories of ‘the struggle for recognition’, I situate becoming within the interplay of what I call epistemic, affective and reciprocal authenticity. Within this project, I address identity, redistribution and the reconfiguration of conceptual distinctions between justice and dignity. The analysis reflects a time of racial tension in a provincial Northeastern town in England, UK – a predominantly white and marginalised location. I amplify the personal testimonies, conversations and written words of three quite different activists to highlight the nuanced refractions of lived experience and a developing antiracism. These collaborators reveal how their antiracist becomings, in the light of 2020 events, incorporate affective, epistemic and reciprocal authenticities that bring to the fore new potentialities for racial justice, white allyship and recognition.

Evaluating trace elements in urban forest soils across three contrasting New England USA towns and cities by pXRF and mass spectrometry

Urban forest soils perform important ecosystem services, such as the sequestration of potentially toxic elements, but some can serve as a source for human exposure if ingested or eroded by wind. Assessment of trace elements in urban soils through traditional methods is costly but portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) can allow for rapid screening for hazardous concentrations. Our objectives were (1) evaluate trace elements (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn) at 460 locations in and around urban forests across three town and cities in New England and across multiple land-uses, (2) evaluate accuracy and precision of pXRF compared with traditional digestion-inductively coupled plasma analyses, (3) determine if pXRF measurements are improved by processing the soil (oven drying, rock fragment removal, and organic matter (OM) removal). Our findings show that urban forest soils have extensive Pb accumulations (42 out of 460 with >200 mg/kg), while As and Zn exceeded regulatory limits in limited outlier samples. Urban forest soils adjacent to multi-family residences have higher Pb and Zn concentrations than recreational and open lots. Fortunately, Cd, Cr, and Cu were far below hazardous concentrations. Our comparisons suggest pXRF measurements of Cu, Pb, and Zn can be considered accurate while Cd and Cr may be screened by pXRF. However, As should not be considered qualitative nor quantitative due to 70% type 1 (false positive) error on samples. While the accuracy and precision were nominally improved through soil drying, removal of rock fragments, and removal of OM (<5% decrease in relative error), our results show processing soil samples is likely not needed.

More than just 'free heroin': Caring whilst navigating constraint in the delivery of diamorphine assisted treatment.

In 2020, drug related deaths in the United Kingdom (UK) reached the highest rate in over 25 years, with hospitalisations and deaths particularly impacting people who use illicit opioids such as heroin. Treatment systems are increasingly required to be innovative to engage the most vulnerable at risk from premature morbidity and mortality. Heroin Assisted Treatment (HAT) is an alternative treatment modality for people for whom more traditional forms of opioid substitution therapy, such as methadone, have been ineffective. Middlesbrough, a town in the North-East England, was home to the first service in the UK to implement HAT outside of a clinical trial setting which closed for operation in November 2022. Qualitative in-depth interviews with patients and health care providers (n=17) involved in the delivery of HAT were undertaken during 2021. This paper focuses on the health care provider interviews, the majority of which took place remotely. Interviews were audio recorded and thematically analysed. Health care providers navigated multiple layers of constraint during HAT implementation and delivery. We explore this in relation to three themes: 1) Negotiating risk and safety within treatment 2) More than a prescription: care beyond diamorphine 3) Internal and external delivery barriers and impact on treatment acceptability, identity and longevity. Negotiating and managing risks of polysubstance use was a complex task. Benefits regarding access to holistic care, improved therapeutic and social relationships were recognised by practitioners. The rigorous delivery schedule was the biggest barrier to engagement. Outside the treatment room, socio-structural factors posed additional challenges. Despite some operational complexities, health care providers viewed HAT as an effective method of engaging a high risk population with drug treatment services, with holistic benefits for clients over and above the treatment of opioid dependency. Findings will inform advocacy and innovation for future HAT interventions in England.

Political Theory and the Volunteer: Lessons from Kahn’s Ethnography of ‘Our Unhappy Politics’

AbstractThis article offers a reading of Paul Kahn’s Democracy in Our America that places this intimate “work of local political theory” in a central position in the landscape of his political thought. The article argues that the figure of the volunteer, as it appears in the volume, holds a space for love and meaning—and for political happiness—that secures for it a critical role in the system of beliefs and practices that sustain self-government in the United States. That framing draws the volunteer into relationship with Kahn’s thinking about the family, the veteran, and law. But it also means that the erosion of the volunteer spirit that Kahn traces in his own New England town of Killingworth, Connecticut, is best understood as the loss of the site of action that reflects a reaching for political meaning beyond self-interest and, with it, the loss of the possibility of self-government. Reading the volunteer as a powerful placeholder for the erotic at the heart of the political—and then tracing eros and happiness through Plato, Freud, and Arendt—this article reconstructs Kahn’s link between our unhappy lives and our unhappy politics.

Teacher retention in challenging schools: please don’t say goodbye!

ABSTRACT This research study investigated the factors that encourage teachers to remain working in challenging schools. It focuses on nine school case studies: one secondary and two primaries in three different areas of deprivation: an inner city; ‘pockets of poverty’ within a shire county and a coastal town in England. Drawing on one-to-one interviews with the headteacher, and focus groups with long-serving staff, the data revealed the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for staff. School leadership—an extrinsic factor—provided recognition of teachers’ efforts (intrinsic). Relationships with pupils (intrinsic) had an impact on pupil behaviour (extrinsic). Collegial relationships (extrinsic) supported teachers’ resilience (intrinsic). Accountability in terms of inspection and external tests (extrinsic) had an adverse effect on teachers’ autonomy (intrinsic). The factors which were particularly salient in encouraging teacher retention in high-need schools were: making a difference to pupils, the wider community and society; creating positive relationships with pupils; supportive colleagues and feeling valued by school leaders. The article concludes by recommending that the leaders of challenging schools create a nurturing environment which values teachers, recognises the gruelling nature of high-need schools, fosters relationships between pupils and teachers and encourages staff friendships leading to collegial support.

Oath-taking and the politics of secrecy in medieval and early modern British towns

AbstractIn premodern Britain civic officials took oaths in solemn ceremonies in full view of their colleagues and fellow citizens. This article examines oaths ranging from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries from 31 towns in England, Scotland, and Ireland to demonstrate how officials were ritually enjoined to keep secrets. Oaths were public acknowledgments that secrets were going to be kept. The act of governing necessitated the keeping of secrets to ensure the protection of the town's interests. But oath-taking was also a concession to the idea that governing required a degree of transparency for the ruling elite and other authorities to appear legitimate and incorruptible.

Mine land reclamation, mine land reuse, and vegetation cover change: An intriguing case study in Dartford, the United Kingdom

Dartford, a town in England, heavily relied on industrial production, particularly mining, which caused significant environmental pollution and geological damage. However, in recent years, several companies have collaborated under the guidance of the local authorities to reclaim the abandoned mine land in Dartford and develop it into homes, known as the Ebbsfleet Garden City project. This project is highly innovative as it not only focuses on environmental management but also provides potential economic benefits, employment opportunities, builds a sustainable and interconnected community, fosters urban development and brings people closer together. This paper presents a fascinating case that employs satellite imagery, statistical data, and Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC) calculations to analyse the re-vegetation progress of Dartford and the development of the Ebbsfleet Garden City project. The findings indicate that Dartford has successfully reclaimed and re-vegetated the mine land, maintaining a high vegetation cover level while the Ebbsfleet Garden City project has advanced. This suggests that Dartford is committed to environmental management and sustainable development while pursuing construction projects.

Solving the riddle of the sands: How to regenerate England’s struggling seaside towns

Some seaside towns in England are among the very poorest parts of the country. How has this happened, after a century of rapid growth? And what can be done, first to stop and then to reverse the cycle of decline which has affected them, even in the context of climate change having an impact on coastal places? This paper looks at the history of seaside towns in three phases: a century of rapid growth; 50 years of dramatic decline; and the current state of fragile recovery. It examines the causes of that decline in terms of economic recession, social imbalance, physical dereliction and disconnection from the transport network. In the absence of a national strategy for seaside towns, it proposes a locally led agenda for regenerating England’s struggling seaside towns, looking first at strategic imperatives and then at a number of practical actions. It draws throughout on real-world examples.