Recent years have seen an extraordinary resurgence of interest in the process of gentrification, accompanied by a surge of articles published on the topic. This article looks at some recent literature - both scholarly and popular - and considers the reasons why the often highly critical perspectives on gentrification that we saw in earlier decades have dwindled. Whilst a number of reasons could be put forward, three in particular are discussed. First, the resilience of theoretical and ideological squabbles over the causes of gentrification, at the expense of examining its effects; second, the demise of displacement as a defining feature of the process and as a research question; and third, the pervasive influence of neoliberal urban policies of 'social mix' in central city neighbourhoods. It is argued that the 'eviction' of critical perspectives from a field in which they were once plentiful has serious implications for those at risk from gentrification, and that reclaiming the term from those who have sugarcoated what was not so long ago a 'dirty word' (Smith, 1996) is essential if political challenges to the process can be effective. Copyright (c) 2006 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2006 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

This theme issue of Environment and Planning A builds on the analytic framework elaborated by Wacquant in Urban Outcasts (Polity Press, 2008) and on the activities of the Leverhulme Network on Advanced Urban Marginality to synthesize and stimulate inquiries into the triadic nexus of symbolic space, social space, and physical space at the lower end of the urban spectrum. The concept of territorial stigmatization weds with Bourdieu's theory of 'symbolic power' Goffman's model of the management of 'spoiled identity' to capture how the blemish of place impacts the residents of disparaged districts, the surrounding denizens and commercial operators, street-level public bureaucracies, specialists in cultural production (such as journalists, scholars, and politicians), and state officials and policies. Spatial taint is a novel and distinctive phenomenon that crystallized at century's end along with the dissolution of the neighborhoods of relegation emblematic of the Fordist-Keynesian phase of industrial capitalism. It differs from the traditional topography o f disrepute in the industrial city in that it has become autonomized, nationalized and democratized, equated with social disintegration, racialized through selective accentuation, and it elicits revulsion often leading to punitive corrective measures. The sociosymbolic strategies fashioned by the residents of defamed quarters to cope with spatial denigration span a panoply ranging from submission to defiance, and their adoption depends on position and trajectory in social and physical space. Territorial stigmatization is not a static condition or a neutral process, but a consequential and injurious form of action through collective representation fastened on place. By probing how it operates in different urban settings and political formations, the contributors to this issue advance our empirical understanding of the role of symbolic structures in the production of inequality and marginality in the city. They also suggest the need for public policies designed to reduce, not only the burden of material deprivation, but also the press of symbolic domination in the metropolis.

No abstract

Stigma is not a self-evident phenomenon but like all concepts has a history. The conceptual understanding of stigma which underpins most sociological research has its roots in the groundbreaking account penned by Erving Goffman in his best-selling book Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963). In the fifty years since its publication, Goffman's account of stigma has proved a productive concept, in terms of furthering research on social stigma and its effects, on widening public understandings of stigma, and in the development of anti-stigma campaigns. However, this chapter argues that the conceptual understanding of stigma inherited from Goffman, along with the use of micro-sociological and/or psychological research methods in stigma research often sidelines questions about where stigma is produced, by whom and for what purposes. As Simon Parker and Robert Aggleton argue, what is frequently missing from is social and political questions, such as 'how stigma is used by individuals, communities and the state to produce and reproduce social inequality' (2006, p. 17). This chapter expands on Parker & Aggleton's critique of the limitations of existing conceptual understandings of stigma, through and an examination of the anti-stigma campaign 'Heads Together'. This high-profile campaign launched in 2016 seeks to 'end the stigma around mental health' and is fronted by members of the British Royal Family (Heads Together, 2017). By thinking critically with and about this campaign, this chapter seeks to both delineate the limitations of existing conceptual understandings of stigma and to begin to develop a supplementary account of how stigma functions as a form of power (see Link and Phelan, 2014). It is the argument of this chapter that in order to better the role and function of stigma in society, we need to develop a richer and fuller understanding of stigma as a 'cultural and political economy' (Jessop, 2009). The final part of this introductory chapter, details the chapters to follow, and the contribution they collectively make to the project of rethinking the sociology of stigma. In rethinking the sociology of stigma this collection has been specifically motivated by: 1) how reconceptualising stigma might assist in developing better understandings of pressing contemporary problems of social decomposition, inequality and injustice; 2) a concern to decolonise the discipline of sociology by interrogating its major theorists and concepts; and 3) a desire to put class struggle and racism at the centre of understandings of stigma as a classificatory form of power.

's contributions to the study of gentrification and displacement are immense, not just when measured in theoretical development, but in analytical rigour, methodological influence, cross-disciplinary relevance and intellectual-political commitment to social justice. However, his contributions have been conveniently missed in the disturbing 21st-century scholarly, journalistic, policy and planning rescripting of gentrification as a collective urban good. This paper charts and exposes the politics of knowledge production on this pivotal urban process by critically engaging with recent arguments that celebrate gentrification and/ or deny displacement. I explain that these arguments not only strip gentrification of its historical meaning as the neighbourhood expression of class inequality; they are also analytically defective when considered alongside Marcuse's conceptual clarity on the various forms of displacement in gentrifying neighbourhoods. Understanding and absorbing Marcuse's crucial arguments could help critical urbanists breach the defensive wall of mainstream urban studies, and reinstate a sense of social justice in gentrification research. 'In 1999 my landlord doubled the rent in the apartment but we didn't understand why.… My rent went from $750 to $1200. So he almost doubled it. There were five other families in the building, one from Ecuador, one from Columbia … worked in factories all of their lives, lived there for about 28 years; we were there for 8 years.… My apartment was taken over by a couple and their cat. So that's what he wanted. He always said he wanted to put trees on the block.… He put trees on it, fixed the gates and then sends everybody a letter saying the rent doubled. It wasn't that he wanted to make it nice for us. That's where gentrification affects people. He was making it look better and fixing it up but he was doing it with a mission to put in luxury condos for other people.' (A displaced New York tenant quoted in Newman and Wyly, 2006, p. 44) 'In particular, gentrification needs to decouple itself from its original association with the deindustrialisation of metropolitan centres … and from its associations with working-class displacement.' (Butler, 2007, p.162) 'Since the fifties, town and country planning legislation has, in essence, been anti-planning legislation.… [D]evelopment H