'It Still Felt Like I Was Going to the End of the Earth': Race, Identity, and Community Formation in a Seaside Town

Through large-scale empirical fieldwork, Burdsey addresses the cultural politics underpinning minority ethnic identities and communities in a particular seaside resort. The chapter explores the diverse material, affective and emotional connections that exist for minority ethnic residents in the town, together with their myriad journeys and rationales for moving there. Through Burdsey’s notion of coastal liquidity, the chapter reveals the uneven, contextual, and multidirectional nature of migration processes and settlement at the seaside. The ontological linkages between racialised bodies and the English seaside, and the (re)production of, and challenges to, these dis/connections in minority ethnic as well as dominant popular imaginations are addressed. The chapter also uncovers the complexities and nuances characterising practices and perceptions of integration, isolation, social networks, and community formation.