Social and spatial inequalities between and within core and peripheral regions have re-emerged as a major economic and political issue in developed economies. Such divisions have generated economic and social discontent and growing levels of political support for populist and nationalist parties in peripheral regions, particularly certain old industrial areas. This turmoil fuelled the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US as well as support for the Rassemblement National (National Rally) and Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) in France and the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany. In response, researchers, commentators and politicians have voiced concerns about the places 'left behind' by globalisation, technological and economic change. While welcome in increasing the political visibility of social and spatial inequalities, the 'left behind' category risks hiding and over-simplifying the different experiences and development paths of people and places. The aim of the project is to develop a new understanding of demographic and socio-economic change in peripheral regions, examining the circumstances and prospects of places and people currently categorised together as 'left behind'. It will advance understandings of peripheralisation as an on-going process driven by the geographical concentration of people and prosperity in large urban centres alongside the decline or stagnation of other regions. The research is concerned with inner peripheries defined by their disconnection from external territories and networks, particularly urban regions and intermediate areas close to cities experiencing demographic and socio-economic stagnation or decline. Taking an approach that compares the experiences of France, Germany and the UK in their western European context, the research has four objectives: i) To understand the distinctive circumstances and development pathways of peripheral regions, overcoming the tendency to subsume different kinds of places beneath the broad category of 'left behind'; ii) To assess the relationships between the population dynamics of peripheral regions and socio-economic, health and political outcomes, covering both people moving from, and staying within, peripheral regions to redress the existing research bias towards migration between regions; iii) To examine the livelihood activities and practices of residents in peripheral regions, remedying the neglect of how 'ordinary' people deal with peripherality; iv) To identify new policy responses that combine conventional and alternative perspectives, moving beyond the reliance upon growing larger cities and spreading their prosperity to surrounding regions. Using a range of research methods and a cross-national research design, the research team will address these objectives by undertaking the following tasks: i) Identifying and categorising peripheral regions across western Europe to identify their different pathways of development and the key dimensions and processes of concentration and peripheralisation, drawing upon international and national secondary quantitative data; ii) Investigating the different experiences and outcomes for people moving from, and staying in, peripheral regions in France, Germany and the UK using secondary quantitative data; iii) Examining people's everyday livelihood strategies and practices in peripheral regions through six neighbourhood case studies (two per country) based on semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation, livelihood infrastructures mapping, and focus groups; iv) Assessing current and informing future policy approaches to address the varied situations of peripheral regions through analysing secondary documentation and key actor interviews. v) Synthesising findings, relating them to the overall project aim and objectives, and writing up the project's research outputs (8 international journal articles, 1 monograph and policy report).

The creative economy is often celebrated for its contribution to the economy, in the form of job creation, the night-time economy, cultural tourism, and intellectual property. It contributes to policy and practice in terms of urban regeneration, education, and soft power diplomacy, as well as quality of life and life satisfaction. It is feted as being a driver for social mobility, and for the progressiveness and belief in meritocracy of the workforce. However, research has also revealed the significant exclusions from this picture: the creative workforce demonstrates substantial inequalities in terms of social class origin, gender and ethnicity. Moreover, existing research has demonstrated the low chances people from working class origins have of entering the creative economy workforce did not change significantly between 1981 and 2011, despite huge changes in the social structure of English society. Cultural consumption too is strongly stratified according to social class and ethnic group. The lack of representativeness amongst those that that create and commission of culture is the subject of sustained debate in public, policy and industry circles. There are also important inequalities in the geographical distribution of cultural investments. This research builds on recent AHRC-funded projects to explore each of these dimensions of exclusions from the creative economy in turn, in three linked work packages: - Work package one will explore the relationship of audience members from Black and Minority (BAME) ethnic groups to the programming of cultural institutions, how they feel that their culture is represented by these institutions, and how this relates to their cultural lives overall. I will analyse how this interacts with their own social class and education, traditional predictors of cultural participation. - Work package two will explore how cultural consumption is contextualised by the places that people live in, by analysing the cultural participation of those that relocate: how does moving to an area with more or fewer cultural services, or other measures of cultural intensity, affect the cultural lives that people report? How does this relate to the factors that we know affect whether people being report being culturally engaged, such as education and being taken as a child? Previous research found that those with lower probability of attending a venue are more negatively affected by a lack of local opportunities to do so. - Work package three will develop a more nuanced understanding of how social mobility into creative employment varies geographically, comparing Scotland to England and those raised outside London to those who grew up in the capital. In addition I will look for explanations of the high rates of people leaving the creative workforce, to better understand the barriers to maintaining a career in the creative economy. This fellowship builds on successful previous work with The Audience Agency, a creative sector support organisation that is at the centre of research into the relationships between audiences and venues. It partners with a new independent research organisation, the Centre for Towns, which offers academic research and analysis in support of the viability and prosperity of towns across the UK. Each partner organisation will contribute to the research design stage (focusing on work packages 1 and 2, respectively), will offer advice on protocols and operationalisation, access to data that they have developed, and a platform for dissemination and impact through inclusion of the research in at least one event, and will publish a public-facing report which summarises the research findings. The Audience Agency will in addition offer advice on and access to networks for recruiting participating venues for the audience research.