Creating active citizens? Emotional geographies of citizenship in a diverse and deprived neighbourhood

Abstract

National and local governments in Western Europe formulate normative notions of active citizenship to regulate the attitudes and behaviours of their subjects. Focusing in particular on diverse and deprived urban neighbourhoods, local interventions target residents’ presumed lack of attachment to the neighbourhood and their alienation from ‘mainstream’ white middle-class society. This paper argues that – contrary to policy assumptions – residents are emotionally attached to and engaged with their neighbourhood. However, their everyday practices of citizenship fall short of the standards prescribed by policy-makers. These two perspectives intersect and clash in the local neighbourhood centre. Staff members of this semi-governmental intervention mediate different citizenship conceptions by creating personal relations with participants while simultaneously reinforcing dominant norms. The findings highlight the messy and ambiguous reality of neighbourhood governance and underscore that local understandings of citizenship can simultaneously work with and against policy frameworks.