From discontent to discontents. On economic, infrastructural, and cultural dimensions of discontent in ‘left-behind’ places. Results from a case study in Eastern Germany
Larissa Deppisch, Franziska Lengerer, Andreas Klärner
Existing research within the geographies of discontent framework has primarily focused on economic and infrastructural indicators to study and explain discontent in so-called ‘left-behind places’ from a quantitative standpoint. Our research adds to this debate with a qualitative case study approach that allows us to study the experiences and evaluations of the people living in regions that would be considered ‘left-behind’ based on quantitative measures. We conducted expert interviews and group discussions in two regions in eastern Germany, where the rise of the German right-wing populist party AfD has been pronounced and the economic performance is below average. For this presentation, we focused on the group discussions in one of the case study regions – a municipality consisting of a small town and several villages – and presented interim results that we derived from the coding process as part of a thematic analysis (Braun und Clarke 2022). In the presentation, we answered the following questions: 1) To what extent does discontent in so-called "left behind" rural areas differ across dimensions (economic, infrastructural, cultural/political)? And do people of different life stages and economic statuses perceive and evaluate their local situation differently?
In contrast to the negative statistical assessment of the economic situation in the region, participants’ evaluations were more ambivalent. While they generally expressed content with the number of industrial sites and companies in the municipality at present, closures of companies were described as negative signs, leading some of the residents to see the future rather pessimistic. In addition, mid-aged and young people expressed discontent because of the lack of interesting opportunities for jobs or apprenticeships in the municipality.
Our findings for infrastructure show that participants were generally content with the public services in the town centre, but criticised their lack in the villages and insufficient leisure activities for youth were commented by young people. Discontent was also expressed because of poor public transport, which complicated accessing the services in the town centre for those living in the villages, specifically young and old people who are not able to drive. Poorer people additionally criticised public transport ticket prices as too expensive. Similarly, housing prices and rents in the town centre were criticised as not affordable in the group discussions with poorer residents, while the economically better-off groups stressed housing prices and rents in the municipality as attractive because of their affordability.
For the topic of culture/politics, we found that in all groups, residents shared their impression that there was a general discontent with politics at state level and at federal state level among residents. The young and the mid-aged groups additionally criticised the xenophobic local political climate and some of them described difficulties in dealing with xenophobic statements and attitudes in everyday life. At the same time, we identified a number of xenophobic statements in the group discussions with older residents, which were not criticised or contextualised and thus accepted by the participants. Based on these interim results from one case study, we drew three preliminary conclusions. Firstly, we highlighted that residents’ spatial perceptions do not necessarily correspond to the quantitative assessment of the economic and demographic performance of a region. Secondly, our analysis underlined that discontent depends on residents’ life stage and socio-economic status. As a consequence, we thirdly posit that policies for economic and infrastructural improvements of ‘left behind’ rural areas should take into account the life stage and socio-economic status of the residents.
References: Braun, Virginia; Clarke, Victoria (2022): Thematic analysis. A practical guide. Los Angeles: SAGE.