Precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town

This thesis examines how structural violence operates in Shirebrook, Derbyshire UK. Shirebrook is a small post-industrial coal mining town and is typical of such communities in that it is isolated and relied on a single industry for the majority of male employment, and so has characteristics of both...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pattison, James
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/59921/
_version_ 1848799697692524544
author Pattison, James
author_facet Pattison, James
author_sort Pattison, James
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This thesis examines how structural violence operates in Shirebrook, Derbyshire UK. Shirebrook is a small post-industrial coal mining town and is typical of such communities in that it is isolated and relied on a single industry for the majority of male employment, and so has characteristics of both urban and rural locations. This thesis makes a contribution to knowledge by applying urban sociological analysis to a small post-industrial town of the type not typically the focus of urban sociological approaches. Research in post-industrial locations in the UK typically focus only on a narrowly defined white British working-class. This thesis broadens this focus and demonstrates that the conditions of associated with being ‘left behind’ are also experienced by migrants in Shirebrook. Drawing on Wacquant (2008), structural violence is conceptualised as consisting of labour precariousness, declining resources and heightened stigmatisation. These components guide the empirical chapters which draw on data collected from a 15-month multi-method ethnographic study. The thesis demonstrates that it is the young and migrants who are most vulnerable to labour precariousness and that poor-quality work and an ageing population draws migrant labour into Shirebrook. The state and journalistic fields are implicit in the production of territorial stigmatisation in Shirebrook, which intensifies division and competition over access to declining resources. Central to this is that the local authority, framed by a central government funding stream, constructs migration as a social problem in Shirebrook at the expense of broader structural explanations of inequality. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the need for policies that contend with structural inequalities and issues of social justice rather than locally targeted solutions.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:39:47Z
format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
id nottingham-59921
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:39:47Z
publishDate 2020
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-599212025-02-28T14:48:07Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/59921/ Precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town Pattison, James This thesis examines how structural violence operates in Shirebrook, Derbyshire UK. Shirebrook is a small post-industrial coal mining town and is typical of such communities in that it is isolated and relied on a single industry for the majority of male employment, and so has characteristics of both urban and rural locations. This thesis makes a contribution to knowledge by applying urban sociological analysis to a small post-industrial town of the type not typically the focus of urban sociological approaches. Research in post-industrial locations in the UK typically focus only on a narrowly defined white British working-class. This thesis broadens this focus and demonstrates that the conditions of associated with being ‘left behind’ are also experienced by migrants in Shirebrook. Drawing on Wacquant (2008), structural violence is conceptualised as consisting of labour precariousness, declining resources and heightened stigmatisation. These components guide the empirical chapters which draw on data collected from a 15-month multi-method ethnographic study. The thesis demonstrates that it is the young and migrants who are most vulnerable to labour precariousness and that poor-quality work and an ageing population draws migrant labour into Shirebrook. The state and journalistic fields are implicit in the production of territorial stigmatisation in Shirebrook, which intensifies division and competition over access to declining resources. Central to this is that the local authority, framed by a central government funding stream, constructs migration as a social problem in Shirebrook at the expense of broader structural explanations of inequality. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the need for policies that contend with structural inequalities and issues of social justice rather than locally targeted solutions. 2020-03-15 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/59921/1/4258512%20James%20Pattison.pdf Pattison, James (2020) Precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Class Deindustrialisation migration ethnography stigma precarity austerity
spellingShingle Class
Deindustrialisation
migration
ethnography
stigma
precarity
austerity
Pattison, James
Precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town
title Precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town
title_full Precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town
title_fullStr Precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town
title_full_unstemmed Precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town
title_short Precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town
title_sort precariousness, diminished resources, and stigma: urban structural violence in a post-industrial colliery town
topic Class
Deindustrialisation
migration
ethnography
stigma
precarity
austerity
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/59921/