White lines: Race, place and belonging in the post-industrial periphery

This paper focuses upon young people and everyday forms of belonging in ‘post-Brexit’ Britain. It is argued that some of the ideas surrounding superdiversity and everyday multiculturalism need to be recalibrated in light of the marked divisions and unspoken feelings that have come to underpin Brexit. The study seeks to engage with the social forms of stratification that exist in so-called ‘left behind’ places and the feelings of attachment and
alienation found in the post-industrial localities of Sunderland, UK. Drawing upon mobile methods and urban ethnography with young people I explore the specificity of place and how this interconnects with ideas of belonging and exclusion. Critical to this is the diversity of youth experiences, where rights to the city can be underscored by white lines of territoriality that continually compose and refigure the landscape anew.