Territorial Stigmatization in Action

Abstract

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.

Slum Tourism and Urban Regeneration: Touring Inner Johannesburg

“…In a recent paper Wacquant et al (2014Wacquant et al ( :1275 have contended that territorial stigma in today's advanced marginality does no longer attract the curiosity of the 'other half'.…”

“…Importantly it is sometimes applied regardless of the actual economic situation in a neighbourhood. Against Wacquant's own observations (Wacquant et al 2014) slum tourism occurs precisely in (some) of those badlands that come to be refashioned as attractions. It seems possible to posit that slum tourism symbolically responds to the formation of areas of 'territorial stigma'.…”

The Question of Responsibility: (De-)Peripheralising Rural Spaces in Post-Socialist Estonia

“…In line with the research on socio-spatial ascriptions (Bürk et al ., 2012;Meyer and Miggelbrink 2013;Wacquant et al ., 2014), it establishes that discourses form an inherent part of polarization processes by influencing individual as well as political decisions and actions . Going beyond that, global coloniality determines that such discourses show consequences in practice by affecting the knowledge formation and subjectivities of colonizers and colonized alike .…”

“…Following this proposal, the paper argues for a decolonial approach as useful heuristic tool to examine the crucial role of discourses in periph-eralisation processes . While the research on socio-spatial ascriptions (Bürk et al ., 2012;Meyer and Miggelbrink, 2013;Wacquant et al, 2014) already establishes that peripheries are materially and discursively (re-)produced, the paper goes one step further by attempting to show that decolonial studies help to analyze how peripheralisation discourses become performative . Based on a critical evaluation of knowledge production mechanisms, they convey that the depiction of peripheries as places lagging behind stems from normative development notions proliferated in hegemonic discourses (Koobak and Marling, 2014) .…”

social construction of neighborhood crime by the news media

“…This stigma is closely tied to the poverty, racial and ethnic composition, and crime prevalent in inner-city communities. It is driven by negative emotions and harsh reactions to these communities due to fear and condemnation, resulting in "the growth and glorification of the penal wing of the state in order to penalize urban marginality" (Wacquant et al, 2014: 1274; see also Wacquant, 2009). Residents of these communities may try to manage this stigma (see Goffman, 1963) through such actions as hiding their address, avoiding interactions outside of the community, and moving away from the community if possible.…”