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.

This paper draws on a multidisciplinary study of state policy, housing provision, and the social question in Porto, Portugal, over the past half century, combining ethnography, in-depth interviews, and a survey of local families. It examines the trajectory of one of the city's largest and most notorious public housing estates to map out how transformations in its social composition and in the mix of state action have affected how residents deal with the disparaging public image attached to their place of residence. Against analytical simplification, we spotlight responses to territorial stigmatization that muddle the 'exit-voice' or 'conformity-rejection' dichotomies and reveal the social parameters that determine the symbolic boundaries, sociability patterns, and daily faceto-face interactions found in this housing estate. Strategies of 'subsistence sociability' and 'focused avoidance' have enabled local families to cope with the spatial taint hovering over their bairro while avoiding both the high costs of exit and the uncertain investment in collective action.

ResumenEste breve artículo presenta el número temático ofrecido por la revista Environment & Planning A, la cual se basa en el marco analítico elaborado por Wacquant en su obra Urban Outcasts (2008) y en las actividades del Leverhulme Network on Advanced Urban Marginality con el objetivo sintetizar y estimular las investigaciones sobre el vínculo triangular entre el espacio simbólico, el espacio social y el espacio físico en el extremo inferior del espectro urbano. El concepto estigmatización territorial une el modelo elaborado por Goffman sobre el manejo de la "identidad deteriorada" con la teoría del "poder simbólico" desarrollada por Bourdieu para así capturar cómo un lugar estigmatizado puede afectar a residentes de barrios menospreciados, a sus vecinos, operadores comerciales, burocracias ciudadanas al nivel de impacto local, especialistas en producción cultural (periodistas, académicos y políticos), funcionarios públicos y políticas públi-cas. Este estigma espacial es un fenómeno nuevo y distintivo que se cristalizó a fines del siglo pasado junto con la disolución de los barrios de relegación (2008) Abstract This short article presents the thematic issue of the Environment & Planning A journal, which builds on the analytic framework elaborated by Wacquant in Urban Outcasts

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This article tries to broaden the research agenda on territorial stigmatisation. It reviews some theoretical arguments on the relevance of a relational sociological reading of the processes of territorial stigmatisation, and proposes a study of these processes during a period of political revolution and social instability, through discussion of the case presented by the city of Porto, Portugal, in the mid-1970s. Based on the study of institutional archives, ethnographic work in several neighbourhoods, and semi-structured interviews with social actors involved in these processes, the article describes the urban and housing conditions of inner city Porto’s working-class boroughs in the first three quarters of the 20th century and discusses the forms of political and social resistance taken up by residents from the most dilapidated neighbourhoods following the revolution of April 1974. The sociological analysis of the actions that gave origin to the voice of the residents in the historic centre of the city in this period reveals significant interaction with the processes of territorial stigmatisation, via organised collective resistance.