“You don't go there”: Spatial Strategies of Stigma Negotiation in a Post‐Industrial Town

Abstract

This paper draws on a multimethod ethnographic study, conducted between 2016 and 2017 in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, England-a small and relatively isolated deindustrialising colliery town-examining how residents negotiate living in stigmatised territory. In doing so, microspatial strategies of distancing, avoidance, and deflection are illustrated, revealing how residents reassign and deepen stigma in particular locations within a stigmatised territory. This highlights the relationship between social and physical space, and while spatial strategies of negotiation do not mitigate stigma, they do (re)produce internal social hierarchies within a place that is homogenised from the outside through disparaging narratives. A key contribution reveals the significance of the racialised production of space in shaping how territorial stigma is negotiated within this distinct socio-spatial location. Residents use strategies to redirect the stigma toward those seen as out of place and draw attention away from sticky sites of racialised urban stigma towards symbols of unspoilt rural Englishness.

The damages of stigma, the benefits of prestige: Examining the consequences of perceived residential reputations on neighbourhood attachment

“…Residents who perceive the residential blemish often suffer feelings of shame, humiliation, self-estrangement, meaninglessness, social anguish and frustration with the stigmatising narrative (Contreras, 2017; Slater and Anderson, 2012; Wutich et al, 2014), ultimately encouraging them to develop socio-symbolic strategies of submission to cope with spatial denigration (Wacquant et al, 2014). The strategies adopted by the residents of stigmatised areas include mutual distancing, self-isolation, dissimulation or lateral denigration (see also Garbin and Millington, 2012; Halliday et al, 2021; Pattison, 2023; Pereira and Queirós, 2014; Pinkster et al, 2020; Verdouw and Flanagan, 2019), all of which are an indication that the perception of a negative residential reputation can degrade local attachments.…”

Concealed Stigmatization: Resident Experiences and Practices in Area-Based Development in Gårdsten

“…Wacquant et al (2014) use the adjective sticky to describe the effects of territorial stigmatization, although they do not develop the term as a concept. Others scholars have developed stickiness as a concept to identify how territorial stigmatization sticks more to certain residents (Pinkster et al, 2020) or places in a stigmatized town (Pattison, 2023). Troels Schultz Larsen and Kristian Delica (2019) use the term stickiness to describe how territorial stigmatization has a sticky nature 'which at times becomes so attached to a given space that even successful area-based initiatives or regeneration plans do not seem to affect public perceptions of the place' (p. 549).…”

“…Connecting littering to the behaviour of certain groups of othered and racialized residents constructs these groups of residents as being partially responsible for the (continued) stigmatization of the neighbourhood (Hicks & Lewis, 2020;Wacquant, 2008) and thus becomes a way for a person to assert their own moral position in relation to litter. This is a form of internal stigmatization that connects neighbours' behaviour to dirt and stigma (Jensen & Christensen, 2012;Palmer et al, 2004;Pattison, 2023;Wacquant, 2008). Some informants made an explicit connection between litter and negative outside views of the neighbourhood.…”

“…Although not all residents internalize stigmatization, studies have found evidence of internal neighbourhood stigmatization, where residents blame the stigmatization coming from outside the neighbourhood on neighbours who they believe exacerbate the stigma (Contreras, 2017;Jensen & Christensen, 2012;Palmer et al, 2004;Pattison, 2023;Pereira & Queirós, 2014;Verdouw & Flanagan, 2019;Wacquant, 2008). James Pattison (2023), studying the stigmatization of a small town, found that internal stigmatization by residents can focus on specific places, whereas the stigmatization coming from outside focused on the whole town. Similarly, Julia Verdouw and Kathleen Flanagan (2019) show that residents from a stigmatized neighbourhood identified a specific area in the neighbourhood as particularly problematic.…”