(Dis)Orientations in past, present, and future encounters

This article is based on the Economic and Social Research Council-funded research Fitting Into Place? Class and Gender Geographies and Temporalities that charts gendered, generational transitions from the North East England industrial landscapes of one or two generations ago, to a current present and "regenerated" future. Here, I discuss young women's experiences of and claims to place and belonging, where the central narrative of regeneration/degeneration has foregrounded "crisis in masculinity" in de-industrialized areas. I highlight the importance of attending to young women's experiences of place and responses to regeneration, coded and understood through classed and gendered embodiment and experience. While futurity and mobility are endorsed by regeneration policy, practices, and narratives, class intersects with gender to shape access to and experience of place and acts as a (dis)orientation through past-present-future encounters. The temporal dimensions of (re)generation disrupt a linear chronological experience of space as class and gender impact on the ability to travel through, orientate, and claim space as one's own as a "fit" with (regenerative) futures, as opposed to a misfitting (degenerative) "failure."