Assembling a Typology of Scottish Coastal Communities: Considering policy-making, statistical governance and Assemblage theory

The world’s coastal regions are increasingly valued by society with a large proportion of the global population living by sea. Population geography and demographers have been critiqued for their seemingly limited engagement with coastal and marine planning. Policy-makers have investigated coastal communities as places of decline. This policy agenda presents an opportunity to engage with the socio-economic gaps in research.This paper looks to address the sparse contribution of studies looking at Scotland’s coastal communities. We aim to understand the socio-demographic differences between Scotland’s coastal towns (populations of 1000 -100,000) and how these differences can be explained within the social and economic context through the use of a typology.The typology aims to be comparable with Socio-demographic typologies of other Scottish places. It provides a unique understanding of coastal attributes using a two tiered approach to achieve this. Over 60 socio-demographic variables from the Scottish Census 2011 provide the initial classification by using a K-means cluster analysis. A second tier k-means analysis is introduced to represent issues problematized within coastal discourses. This entails the use of non-demographic data sources to create sub categories within the typology.By examining the typology as both evidence to contribute to coastal planning intervention, and critically as an example of statistical governance (through choice of data that represents coastal issues )we can reflect on the role demography plays in the practice of Assemblage theory in authorising knowledge and policy.