Jessie Kelly

Project title

A Lonely Generation? Exploring the Geographies of Loneliness in Millennials in County Durham

Supervisors

• Professor Helen Jarvis
• Professor Alison Stenning

Research Cluster

Geographies of Social Change

Project description

My research explores the geographies of loneliness by drawing on millennial loneliness in County Durham. It engages with ideas around young adulthood and loneliness, whilst also taking a critical generational approach to explore how the wider social, political and economic context that millennials have grown up and live within may have shaped their everyday relationships and connections. Living and working following the 2008 economic recession and during a period of austerity has meant that millennials are confronted with high rates of unemployment, stagnated wages, difficulty in accessing the housing market, and reduced access to services, which previous generations have not necessarily faced. Based in County Durham, this research seeks to explore how the area’s social geography may have led to these issues being exacerbated for the county’s young people (e.g. deindustrialisation and disinvestment by central government; as well as disproportionate cuts to local government from austerity measures).

I hope through my research I will politicize the topic of loneliness, drawing on the ways governmental decisions; economic and political legacies in County Durham; and the role of individualization on everyday life, relationships, and identities, can all play a role in the geographies of loneliness.