‘Whaur are you fae’: Class Identity over time and place Scottish Government – Tackling Multiple Deprivation in Communities 2 June 2009 Douglas Robertson Department of Applied Social Science

Class and space Research question arose out of the obvious failings of Scottish housing regeneration policy Scottish housing regeneration policy – Area based, strict neighbourhood focus – Primarily physical focus, but recently increasing managerial focus – Community connection, underplayed and not understood Community connection, but underplayed and not understood Definitions – Neighbourhood – Community Cultural dimensions of class - Bourdieu: Habitus, capital plus field = practice

Places: Riverside, Raploch and Randolph Road

Constructing and sustaining of place identity  Construction of neighbourhood  established at an early stage in each neighbourhoods development  historically, socially, culturally defined - ‘imagined’ Anderson  Neighbourhood identity proved resilient to change  underpinned by class and social status  based on historic ‘male’ employment patterns  reinforced by physical characteristics, house style, type and tenure  impact of ‘Right to Buy’ - indicative of broader social changes  Religion no longer a key marker  but still remnants of deep seated anti-Catholic / Irish attitudes  social class still pre-eminent  Class demarcation and discrimination was very evident  internal differentiation  external perceptions stronger

Construction and the sustaining of community  Women in home and family settings are core to sustaining community, through child rearing, facilitating community activities  working women had diminished such networking  Family networks, friends and neighbours accorded varying degrees of importance in constructing and sustaining of community  Older people provided a degree of historic continuity for neighbourhoods, an ‘imagined community’ constructed through the lens of nostalgia - connects the past history of place

Demise of community  Community is rooted and constructed in mundane and the everyday interaction  Understanding of what constitutes community has altered over time  ‘golden age’ to atomised and individualised present  Sense of community was also found to be very fragile, declining and threatened, but also still valued

Demise of community  Increasing individualism causing decline of community  move to individualised, or atomised family existence  increased use of cars, ‘out of town’ shopping and resultant loss of ‘street culture’  local impact of broader social changes  Increased plurality of value systems not tested, given these communities are not multi-cultural  Irony in that the most aspirational neighbourhood had no obvious community focus, nor sense of community

Class positioning  Relative class positions of Raploch, Riverside and Randolph Road stable, had undergone little change  Where you ‘come fae’ still has similar meaning  That is not to say change has not happened - Riverside  Identity best expressed via language of class  Raploch ‘poor’, ‘rough’ and ‘working class’  Riverside ‘respectable’ now ‘middle class’  Randolph Road ‘aspirational’ and very ‘middle class’  Class identity had been set down before the houses were built  influenced planning and design expectations for them  Residents recognised greater internal diversity than was evident to outsiders  ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’  Freud’s notion of the ‘narcissism’ of minor difference is helpful here  Again, external perceptions stronger, and in caricature

Conclusions Study details how class identities were originally conceived, created and subsequently maintained – Pre-existing attitudes about a neighbourhoods class status determined the social ambitions set for that new housing and, therefore, what sort of people were considered appropriate for that locality. – How communities are ‘planned’, then established, sets a robust physical and social template which has a very long and sustained impact on neighbourhood identity – provides a classic example of ‘path dependency’ – Thus reinforces and sustains the pre-existing social ordering of Stirling neighbourhoods: Bourdieu’s social theory has great relevance – Neighbourhood identity has incredible longevity, Raploch’s identity dates back 550 years

Conclusions Study improves our understanding of how class determines neighbourhood identity and thus long term life experiences of residents Reveals how class identity acts against the ambitions of housing renewal projects, thus ensuring limited impacts

Conclusions This work has relevance to the regeneration or creation of communities, and offers challenges to the current ‘mixed communities’ agenda Also presents a challenge to the current social segregation agenda pursued by housing/deprivation policy Class and social discrimination do matter – Core to setting the planning ambitions for new or renewed neighbourhoods – Very much the ‘spectre’ which lurks in the shadows of regeneration table Full report from Joseph Rowntree Foundation