Northern Exposure: Race, nation and disaffection in post-Brexit Wakefield

The ESRC Project (2018-2022), Northern Exposure: Race, Nation and Disaffection in 'Ordinary' Towns and Cities after Brexit set itself the task of challenging simplifications about diversity and social polarisation that predominate in the political sociology of Brexit and after. It was based on a wide range of oral history interviews with mainly elderly residents in four typical mid-sized towns in the North of England and extensive co-productive fieldwork with local authorities and third-sector actors there.

The presentation will offer both an introduction to the human geography and political landscape of the North of England, as well as a detailed study of two marginal, socio-economically deprived locations in the South Yorkshire district of Wakefield that might be assumed to be archetypes of post-industrial decline and associated White English political disaffection.