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.

Anoop Nayak is Professor in Social and Cultural Geography at Newcastle University. His main research interests are in the fields of racism, ethnicity, migration and asylum; youth and cultural studies; masculinities, education and labour; whiteness, nationalism and new theories of social class.

In collaboration with Beursschouwburg, Cosmopolis, Brussels Centre for Urban Studies, RHEA Expertisecentrum Gender, Diversiteit en Intersectionaliteit & Brussels Academy