Whewall, Sam; Keating, Avril; (2025) 'We need a few more places to go': Youth, place & belonging in English seaside towns. Presented at: British Sociological Association Annual Conference 2025: Social Transformations, Manchester, UK.

Slideshow BSA 2025 - SW & AK.pptx - Supplemental Material Download (23MB)

Abstract

This paper examines young people’s sense of belonging in English coastal towns. Popular imaginaries of England’s coastal towns evoke nostalgic memories of sea, sand and ice-cream. Yet, many are reeling from decades of stark economic decline. Today, young people growing up in some coastal towns in England face the prospects of low-wage and precarious employment, low-level qualifications and skills, a degraded built and natural environment, and the stigmatisation of their towns in policy and media discourse as ‘left behind’ ‘ghost towns’ that are ‘on the margins’. Drawing on participatory, interview and coproduction data with over 100 young people across four coastal areas, this paper considers how young people’s sense of belonging is shaped (and in some cases weakened) by their: leisure opportunities; use of and exclusion from public space; safety; opportunity structures; and the marginalisation of their towns in relation to elsewhere. In doing so, we elucidate complicated perspectives on belonging, tied up with uncertain mobility aspirations and, commonly, a lack of hope regarding the future of these towns. The paper illuminates much needed qualitative perspectives of coastal youth (which have until recently been lacking in academic and policy research), and contributes to broader conceptual and theoretical discussions about the complex nature of young people’s belonging to place.

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