Belonging, place and identity in the twenty-first century

This chapter shows how upward social mobility is possible for those who want to remain relatively geographically immobile with a strong attachment to place, despite this seeming at odds with a twenty-first century reflexive individualism. In using narratives from families living in Wigan, Northwest England, stories of place, class and gender contextualise social mobility over three generations of ‘ordinary’ families’ lives showing how belonging in place and social mobility are not necessarily mutually exclusive ways of being in the modern world.