Comunicación para la reconciliación

This chapter has introduced the reader to the community of Hiraeth through the lens of local history, residents’ narratives, and the Welsh Government’s area-based policy. By exploring the construction of ‘place’ through the Welsh Government’s ‘Communities First’ initiative in contrast to the construction of place achieved by Hiraeth residents, it highlights the shortcomings of the Welsh Government’s approach to communities and poverty. There is little appreciation for the nuances and values attached to being a Hiraeth resident ‘born and bred’, and how this attachment to place is constructed and maintained over generations. The construction of place-making and belonging is a continual, relational, and dynamic process that takes place discursively through residents’ narratives.

In relation to normative social mobility discourses, this chapter has explored the importance and intricacies of place-based attachment in narratives of fixity as opposed to mobility. I used examples from participants’ narratives to demonstrate how both place-based and classed identities are constructed and negotiated through a variety of discursive resources. The importance of anchoring, keeping close, and the passing on of generational knowledge have all been crucial to the creation and maintenance of belonging to Hiraeth. I have also explained the interwoven nature of classed and place-based identities, whilst emphasising that class is relational and a site of political struggle, instead of a hollow shell of a classificatory label. I will now attempt to draw the chapter together, reflecting more broadly on social mobility.

Attachment to place, community, home, family and kinship networks are often overlooked in normative social mobility discourses (Folkes 2018a). However, this chapter illustrates how valuable the born and bred narrative was to residents and how this contributed to identity formation (Taylor 2010). Social networks and kinship ties played a vital role in the everyday ‘communing’ of the community (MacDonald et al 2005; Studdert 2016). The sharing of local discursive resources also became a marker of an ‘insider’, somebody who knows the community

well, and this was a source of pride. As some literature warns about the dangers of ‘socio-spatial entrapment’ (MacDonald et al 2005; Green and White 2007), I would caution against the undermining of these localised attachments, as many residents I spoke to do not see themselves as ‘stuck’ or ‘trapped’.

Seeing long-term place-attachment as ‘backwards’ fails to consider the value of the long histories and relationships created across generations of families living in Hiraeth (Walkerdine 2016). The dominant, idealised notion of the self, endorsed through social mobility narratives, focuses on a self that is singular, contained, and individualised; someone who is forward-propelling, accruing capitals, and investing to enhance their future (Walkerdine et al 2001; Skeggs 2004; 2011). Many of the ‘drivers’ for social mobility focus on individualised solutions to structural inequality, such as investment in your ‘self’ through education and skills (the core focus towards the end of the Communities First programme). Arguably, there are many issues within the community of Hiraeth that need addressing to make it a stronger and healthier community, but these will not be achieved by placing the blame on residents and encouraging them to widen their spatial horizons. This individualised self is not always available or even desirable for working-class communities, as “the concept of value is contingent and situational” (Skeggs 2011, p.509). Therefore, encouraging a need to ‘get out and get away’ ignores the importance of local value systems; and the overwhelming evidence of the pain that can be inflicted upon socially mobile working-class people who have to geographically and psychologically move and readjust (Lawler 2005; Scourfield et al 2006; Mannay 2013a; Reay 2013; McKenzie 2015; Lawler and Payne 2018). The focus on employment and economic growth by the government is questioned by Lang and Marsden (2017) who argue that the notion of ‘success’ needs to be widened beyond economic growth and employability. They highlight that even in places such as London, which has high growth and employment opportunities, severe poverty and inequality continue to prevail (p.10). Instead of encouraging competition between individuals and communities, Lang and Marsden propose a semi-autonomous local economy approach to help promote sustainability and work to eradicate poverty. Investment in place and community underpins this approach, as community well-being is a central tenet. Through resisting the individualism that is propagated in the dominant social mobility discourse, personhood based on relationality flourishes, and doing things together as a community provides ontological security, especially in contrast to the insecurity and uncertainty of neoliberal society (Skeggs 2011; Walkerdine 2016). This can be seen as part of the ‘political struggle’ of class (Tyler 2015).

None of the residents I spoke to framed Hiraeth as holding them back from being ‘successful’ or achieving fulfilment in life. For, as Skeggs (2011, p.509) so neatly summarises:

If we only focus our theoretical gaze on abstractions from the bourgeois model of the singular self we will never be able to imagine or understand how value is produced and lived beyond the dominant symbolic and will repeatedly misrecognise, wilfully ignore and degrade other forms of value practices, person-value and personhood, by default performatively relegating them to the void of valueless.

I am cautious not to overstate my claims and generalise my findings to other working-class communities. However, future research could build upon the analysis provided here to develop theoretical understandings of working-class place-based belonging. I also want to highlight that this is not a romanticised account of a working-class community, as divisions, distinctions and place-attachment ‘trouble’ were constructed in residents’ narratives, which are explored in the following chapter.

CHAPTER SIX

Contradictions and Complexities- Troubled Place-Attachment

and the Creation of Divisions, Distinctions and Boundaries

6.1. Introduction

Having explored the variety of ways in which place-attachment was constructed by Hiraeth residents in the previous chapter, this chapter unpicks some of the complexities present in these narratives. Continuing to emphasise the relational aspect of both class and place-based identities, the chapter focuses on how class and place were constructed, performed, and produced through everyday talk (Benson and Jackson 2012). Often, narratives of place-attachment contained inherent contradictions and frustrations, where localised identities were defended, whilst the community was criticised. Section 6.2 explores some of the divisions and boundaries that were discursively constructed by both community workers and Hiraeth residents, which worked to situate people within the community. These included the ‘dividing line’ of the community that distinguished areas based on housing type and tenure; suspicions of the ‘racialised other’; and the importance of localised and national identities in demarcating who can belong. Section 6.3 examines some of the frustrations, contradictions and place-attachment ‘trouble’ that occurred in these narratives; and I discuss some of the key complaints that residents had about their community before looking at whose voice gets heard when these complaints were aired to local powerholders. The final part of this section draws upon two examples of troubled and precarious place-attachment in relation to locality and social class.

This chapter aims to demonstrate the ways in which class and place-based identities are interwoven, and how this directly impacts upon understandings of the self. Despite strong place- attachment, threats to the community, whether they be outsiders coming in, the lack of respect shown by local powerholders, or the running down of public spaces, are a threat to identity and can bring about shame and impinge upon residents’ sense of respectability (Skeggs 1997; Watt 2006). It is also a threat to the ‘containing skin’ that holds the community together (Walkerdine 2010). The narratives of class, place and belonging drawn upon in this chapter are complex and contradictory in nature, challenging a romanticised view of working-class community belonging. Having argued in Chapter Five that fixity as opposed to mobility is valued in Hiraeth, this chapter further develops understandings of place-attachment by attending to the nuances within these narratives. The chapter concludes with a discussion about what can be learnt from the residents of Hiraeth in relation to policy approaches to social mobility, social cohesion, and community development.