Left behind? Precarity, stigma and migration in a post-industrial colliery town

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This fellowship will facilitate the publication of my PhD research in high-ranking academic journal and the submission of funding bids to support my burgeoning academic career. I have already begun to establish myself as a researcher and teacher but need to develop publications to demonstrate my abilities to funders and employers. This fellowship will also enable me to construct a timely, novel and essential research project on post-Brexit Britain. Finally, this fellowship will also enable me to communicate PhD research findings amongst the communities I studied which will enhance the potential impact of my research and future co-production.My PhD research investigated class, race and migration in Shirebrook, Derbyshire - a small and relatively isolated former colliery town. As part of the regeneration work intended to offset the impact of the colliery's closure, Shirebrook has become the home of Sports Direct's main distribution warehouse. The vast majority of the 3,000 warehouse workers are Eastern European migrants who are low-paid and employed on temporary recruitment agency contracts. Sports Direct has also been at the centre of well-publicised controversies relating to working conditions, which includes constant surveillance, bullying and daily body searches. Their working conditions stand in sharp contrast to the way in which Shirebrook colliery was central to the development of the town and played a significant role in the cultivation of local social citizenship via the Coal Board's active engagement in everyday life. In fact, despite being located in Shirebrook, Sports Direct draws the majority of itsworkers via two employment agencies based in Mansfield and contributes little to daily life in Shirebrook. My PhD research revealed that, although it was migration that was constructed as the social problem affecting the town by local and central government, it was broader structural inequalities that were most at issue. This manifested in increasing tensions in Shirebrook between established and migrant residents, and also led to locally focussed policies designed to tackle social issues which are actually symptoms of much broader structural inequalities.The political terrain is rapidly changing in Shirebrook and the surrounding area, even in the short-period since my thesis submission in 2019. The 2016 EU referendum saw one of the largest leave votes in the country in Bolsover (70.8%); and the general election in December 2019 saw Bolsover elect a Conservative candidate based on the party's election promise to 'get Brexit done' for the first time since it became a constituency in 1950. Sports Direct's use of agency workers and Shirebrook's ageing population means that migrant labour is drawn into Shirebrook to meet the staffing demands of the warehouse. Changes in freedom of movement from 1 January 2021, likely to include an earnings threshold, will effectively cut off Sports Direct's labour supply of low-wage workers from Eastern Europe. Therefore, the research I have already done in Shirebrook provides a strong basis for future novel research to investigate the impact Brexit will have on small towns, and will provide valuable knowledge on post-Brexit Britain. The proposed research will consider the impact on both Shirebrook and Mansfield into whose local labour market Sports Direct has been drawn.My aims are to: Submit publications and present my findings at international conferences to further establish a research profile and develop academic networks Develop a funding proposal for future research in Shirebrook, submitted to the ESRC New Investigator Grant and Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship Engage and share research findings with non-academic stakeholders in order to develop networks and impact opportunities Take on further training in order to develop my overall academic skills