Territorial Stigmatization and Territorial Destigmatization: A Cultural Sociology of Symbolic Strategy in the Gentrification of Parkdale (Toronto)

Abstract

Territorial stigmatization is one of the most powerful concepts for understanding how social, spatial and symbolic processes are intertwined in producing contemporary urban inequality. Through a detailed case study of Parkdale, a Toronto neighbourhood that has been profoundly shaped by its long association with poverty, single room occupancy housing and psychiatric survivors, this article works at the points of intersection between the rapidly expanding literature on territorial stigmatization and wider social scientific interest in gentrification‐led displacement. Drawing on archival research, participant observation and interviews with residents, it demonstrates how territorial stigmatization, and a new allied concept, territorial destigmatization, operate in Parkdale. Territorial stigmatization and destigmatization work across three dimensions: legal, material and discursive. Using conceptual tools from cultural sociology to foreground symbolic elements of these three dimensions, two strategies of territorial destigmatization are delineated: one that operates in concert with gentrification‐led displacement, and the other that works to symbolically reinscribe stigmatized persons and housing forms. To complement and sharpen territorial stigmatization research, recent findings from studies of stigma are integrated to show how psychiatric survivors and housing advocates in Parkdale use territorial destigmatization to offset gentrification‐led displacement.

Re-wilding Parkdale? Environmental gentrification, settler colonialism, and the reconfiguration of nature in 21st century Toronto

“…Focusing on the Parkdale-High Park area of west Toronto, the study extends existing scholarship on gentrification in the area (i.e. Epstein, 2018;Horgan, 2018;Keatinge and Martin, 2015;Kern, 2010;Masuda et al, 2012;Mazer and Rankin, 2011;Slater, 2004;Teelucksingh, 2009;Whitzman and Slater, 2006). This literature has focused on the race and class-based dynamics through which a single-family ownership model of housing has been privileged, both by market forces as well as by the active intervention of municipal governments (Slater, 2004;Whitzman, 2009).…”

“…In July of 2016, a local herbalist and naturopathic doctor based in the Roncesvalles Avenue shopping district of north Parkdale advertised a 'Plant ID walk through High Park' as follows: Targeted towards a new influx of 'hip', 'boutique' natural health consumers (Parish, 2017(Parish, , 2019 in one of Toronto's most diverse and income polarized neighbourhoods (Epstein, 2018;Horgan, 2018), the event promised to connect participants to the medicinal and wellness value of local plants at their doorsteps. Clearly the idea that such medical treasures could be found surrounding us right here in the city was intended to inspire and impress enough that the curious and the health conscious would consider parting with (up to) 20 dollars.…”

New Research on Housing and Territorial Stigma: Introduction to the Thematic Issue

“…While housing has a prominent place in the literature dealing with territorial stigma, the focus is placed on those living in public or social housing developments that are owned and managed by municipal, state, or national government entities (e.g., Watt & Smets, 2017). However, there are other forms of housing, as well as other forms of tenure, that are also stigmatized and will also need consideration: for instance, barrio, favela or "slum" dwellings (Bredenoord, van Lindert, & Smets, 2014;Ferguson & Smets, 2010), manufactures housing and mobile homes (Kusenbach, 2009), Single Room Occupancy (SRO) residences (Horgan, 2018), and, in some contexts, even privately rented homes and apartments (Vassenden & Lie, 2013).…”

#WeAreBeneficiaries: Contesting Poverty Stigma Through Social Media

“…While not figuring prominently within Wacquant’s initial work, subsequent analyses have drawn attention to contestation and resistance through counter‐discourses and spatial interventions (e.g. Cuny ; Garbin and Millington ; Horgan ; Kirkness ; Kirkness and Tije‐Dra ; Maestri ; Quieros and Pereira ; Rogers et al ). Multiple accounts have described how resistance and contestation were fostered by residents’ shared sense of ownership, belonging, and attachment to place.…”