Examine the Argument That Identities of Place Can Be a Source of Inclusion and Exclusion

Examine the argument that identities of place can be a source of inclusion and exclusion

Identities of place refer to geographic locations and their meanings in relation to how people live, work, socialise and establish themselves in them. The way they effect the shaping of individual and collective identities plays an important part of who people think they are and who they become, which invariably has an impact on societies and how they function as a whole.   In relation to this, this essay will look at social inclusions, which refer to people’s allocation to specific rights and social exclusion, which refers to disadvantages and inequalities in certain rights of groups or numbers of people.   Whilst identities of place can provide inclusion for their inhabitants in regards to access to employment, healthcare, education and resources, they can also create exclusions with respect to housing, environment and status, which this essay will attempt to examine.

Between 1831 and 1841 Manchester’s population grew by 71 %, causing it to be described as the ‘shock city’ of its time (Briggs, 1990). Industrialisation drove large numbers of people from the countryside into the city, hopeful perspectives for better incomes and with that better lives were giving people all the reasons necessary to take this drastic step. With increasing numbers of inhabitants and decreasing space, life in the cities changed for many families and individuals.   Although the city provided a wide spectrum of opportunities to the broader public in respect to employment, ways of life, environment and connections people made with each other as well as with the space and things they were surrounded by and had to deal or engage with on a day to day basis ( Steve Hinchcliffe, Making Social Lives, 2009, p. 212), it also gave room for certain exclusions amongst groups of people. For example, as described by Friedrich Engels (Engels, 2005, [1845]), a clerk who came to work in Manchester in the 1840s,...