Territorial Stigmatization Research Articles

Trapped or not trapped? An empirical investigation into the lived experiences of the urban poor in Harare’s selected informal settlements

ABSTRACT The role of informal settlements in human development remains contested in urban studies literature. For instance, some existing studies view urban informal settlements as hotspots of social unrest, squalor and precarious residential environments (poverty traps); while others perceive them as places where the poor become resourceful, ingenious, and develop necessary skills to navigate urban life (pathways out of poverty). The absence of systematic evidence on the nexus between informal settlements and human progress hinder sound urban policy practices. This paper examines the role of informal settlements in human development focusing on Hopley, Hatcliffe Extension and Epworth Ward 7–Harare’s three largest informal settlements. The study combines surveys, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions with selected residents from the three neighborhoods. The study reveals that despite feeling ‘trapped’ in conditions of precarious, overcrowded, and insecure housing, coupled with discursive territorial stigmatization, some informal settlement residents are hopeful that their settlements will eventually improve. The ambivalence of Harare’s urban policy toward informal settlements must be replaced by a more positive approach to improve the livelihoods of people living in these neighborhoods.

‘Demarginalising’ a territorially stigmatised neighbourhood?: The relationship between governance configurations and trajectories of urban change

Gentrification and territorial stigma are understood to be closely linked, yet the workings of the governance networks which underlay this relationship have seldom been explored in depth. This paper seeks to develop understandings of this relationship by showing how the interactions which occur in decision-making processes at the local level culminate in particular strategies for regeneration. It draws on interviews and document analysis to map out and examine networks of governance in Middlehaven, a territorially stigmatised area of Middlesbrough, UK, which has been targeted for regeneration, and indicates the methodology used for tracing the emergence of regeneration strategies in order to reveal how gentrification emerges as a policy response to territorial stigma. In doing so, this paper highlights the relationship between institutional arrangements, governance networks, and approaches to urban change in the context of a territorially stigmatised space in a post-industrial town, and indicates how neoliberal governance occurs in practice at the local level. By highlighting how particular strategies of gentrification which gain traction are embedded in local governance configurations, the paper challenges policy approaches to territorially stigmatised spaces which frame gentrification as an inevitable outcome.

The ‘blemish of the past': (un)usual paths of gentrification in a Mediterranean city throughout history

Contemporary gentrification challenges long-entrenched conceptualizations. In particular, in ‘peripheral’ urban contexts of the Global North, the phenomenon is often interwoven with variegated processes stemming from the specific evolution of their historical centers. This paper scrutinizes the transformations of a marginal central district in a Southern Europe ‘peripheral’ city, Catania, named San Berillo. A series of postwar demolitions and reconstructions, followed by the local community’s forced displacement, fueled socio-economic decline and growing rates of territorial stigmatization. Since the early 2000s, some transformations partially modified narratives about the district. By retracing the evolution of San Berillo I deconstructed the role of the ‘blemish of the past’ in (re)shaping old and current imaginaries upon which the district’s identity is built. The aim is to understand, from an historical perspective, to what extent the Haussmann-like postwar demolition and eviction programme can be judged through the lens of gentrification and urban stigmatization, and if contemporary transformations have been shaping a context at risk of being gentrified (or re-gentrified). In so doing, the paper provides novel theoretical insights about gentrification in Southern Europe by mobilizing the concept of intersection to explain the phantom-like gentrification emerging as a (in)visible repertoire of past memories that loom over the district at different levels: as an operational framework for community-led and/or tourism-based initiatives, as a heterotopic discursive practice, as a buzzword for anti-gentrification counter-narratives.

‘They say these are places for criminals, but this is our home’: internalising and countering discourses of territorial stigmatisation in Harare’s informal settlements

In developing countries, people living in informal settlements are subjected to different forms of coercive control such as threats of evictions, exclusion, blocked access to urban services and other types of structural violence. These coercive measures are legitimised through the discursive branding of informal settlements as ‘unplanned’, ‘disorderly’ and ‘dangerous’ neighbourhoods. This paper examines how people living in these denigrated neighbourhoods engage with and resist this territorial stigmatisation. It uses data from key informant interviews (KIIs) with urban elites, in-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) with residents of Harare’s informal settlements. Our analysis reveals that while some informal settlement residents have internalised stigmatising discourses, others resist them through constructing counternarratives that seek to portray their settlements as ‘good places for the urban poor’, thereby creating a positive image of their neighbourhoods in the context of extreme spatial and socio-economic marginalisation. These place-based narratives are rooted in the shared experiences with informality and associational life in a city where such residents are needed yet unwanted. We conclude that while informal settlement residents are aware of their precarity and tenure insecurities, these counternarratives build strong solidarities to resist state-sponsored evictions, arbitrary relocations and other forms of structural violence.

Disamenity effects of displaced villagers’ resettlement community on housing price in China and implication for socio-spatial segregation

In the 2010s, the return of the state in land expropriation and urban (re)development processes has resulted in a new type of neighborhood in urban China, namely, displaced villagers’ resettlement community (DVRC). The government aimed to promote the social integration of land-lost peasants into urban society by placing DVRCs in areas with good accessibility and mixed land-use development. However, some studies found that the territorial stigmatization of DVRCs as poor and uncivilized neighborhoods has caused the depreciation of houses in DVRCs. Does this disamenity effect spill over to nearby houses? If yes, does this disamenity effect vary across space? This research uses Chengdu, the largest city in Western China, as the case study. A big data approach is used to analyze the list price of 53,969 houses and their housing attributes. An ordinary least squares hedonic model is used to determine the effect of the proximity to DVRC on house price at an overall statistical level. Then, a mixed geographically weighted regression model is used to examine the spatial heterogeneity of this disamenity effect. The empirical results support the account that DVRCs depreciate nearby houses. In these underdeveloped suburban areas, the proximity to DVRCs is positively associated with housing prices because of its function as a proxy for the prospective proximity to urban service facilities. These findings indicate that the government trial of social integration promotion is not that successful and help identify areas that require interventions the most to mitigate socio-spatial segregation.

Producing gentrifiable neighborhoods: race, stigma and struggle in Berlin-Neukölln

Through a case study of an immigrant dense working-class neighborhood in Berlin, this article asks how racial and territorial stigmatization figure into state-enabled financialized gentrification and resistance against it. While there is a discussion on territorial stigmatization in the gentrification literature, this debate remains understated in the emerging financialized gentrification literature and rarely connects to race. Debates on resistance to financialization, in turn, while being attuned to the detrimental effects of stigmatization on struggle, pay little attention to the role of the local state as a producer of stigma. In this article I draw together debates on financialization, state-enabled gentrification and racial and territorial stigma to suggest that the local state, through its oppressive classifications and racialized representations of urban space, contributes to preparing the symbolic and material structures on which finance capital is able to flourish, not only by normalizing displacement, but by hampering resistance and demobilizing local working-class communities.

The reproduction of social inequalities at neighborhood level in Salvador, Brazil: Does the spatial proximity to affluent gated communities mitigate neighborhood effects?

ABSTRACT The paper examines the impact of neighborhood effects on individuals’ socioeconomic integration in two peripheral shanty-towns and in three favelas located in Brazil. In the peripheral São João do Cabrito, the individuals’ embeddedness in a homogeneously poor region fosters their social isolation; yet, in Fazenda Grande II/Jaguaripe I, the population’s socioeconomic heterogeneity attenuates neighborhood effects. The individuals’ functional integration vis-à-vis their wealthy surroundings declines toward the periphery of their neighborhood, their chances of integration being conditioned by the shared use of public space, and the surrounding gated communities’ degree of spatial isolation. We discuss three mechanisms that explain neighborhood effects: changes in the support structures, the impact of crime, and territorial stigmatization. We conclude that individuals’ chances of integration mainly depend on the spatial distribution of employment and urban services, rather than on their proximity to affluent neighborhoods.

‘This is our home’: young residents’ representations of Melbourne’s public housing towers during ‘hard lockdown’

ABSTRACT On 4 July 2020, in response to a developing ‘second wave’ of COVID-19 cases, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced that a hard lockdown would be immediately implemented in nine public housing towers in Melbourne, Australia. Approximately 500 police were dispatched to implement this lockdown, with residents prevented from leaving their buildings. Over the next fortnight, young residents in these towers, often from socially- and economically-marginalised communities, emerged as advocates for their fellow tenants, using various social media platforms to broadcast their experiences. In this article, we analyse social media posts published by 28 social media users throughout June and July of 2020, which reported on the experiences of people living within the public housing towers during the hard lockdown. We draw on the concept of territorial stigmatisation tounderstand and frame how a traditionally stigmatised physical space is reclaimed via a digital medium. We explore the potential for young people to use social media to challenge territorial stigmatisation and construct alternate representations of place and community.

‘To stay, serve and witness’ – church politics and British inner cities in the 1980s

AbstractBy analysing the Church of England's 1985 report Faith in the City (FITC), this article demonstrates that the church played a decisive role in shaping the discourse on British ‘inner cities’. Following a brief historical contextualization, the article examines the FITC report itself, how it came about and what arguments the Church of England introduced into the national debate on inner cities, as well as the media and political discussion that followed its publication and the reactions in the religious field. The article argues that the publication was a turning point in the inner cities discourse of the 1980s. It examines how the church succeeded in (re)directing national attention to the topic thereby countering the territorial stigmatization and replacing it with a more positive view focused on the potential of the residents living in the inner cities.

Various Images Versus the Stigma of Large Housing Estates: The Leipzig-Grünau Example

Large housing estates (LHEs) in eastern Germany are often stigmatised in media and public discourses. They are considered symbols of the state-socialist era. Furthermore, LHEs are usually presented as monotonous entities without inner variation, including in scientific literature. This poses the risk of a general and thoughtless stigmatisation of these estates. This paper focuses on the concept of territorial stigmatisation. Although stigmatised from the outside, in many cases the internal image contrasts with the external one. Previous literature indicates four main aspects that need more attention in scientific studies on LHEs and territorial stigmatisation: (1) a longterm perspective including the area’s historical development, (2) the analysis and evaluation of micro-scale data independent of common statistical boundaries, (3) the residents’ perceptions of their living environment, and (4) a more critical reflection in the academic discourse about one’s own role as a knowledge producer. By using the Leipzig-Grünau LHE as an example, we explore, first, how the internal image has changed over time, and second, whether micro-scale differences within the estate can be identified. We draw on findings of a long-term study investigating the development of the Leipzig-Grünau LHE since 1979. The results illustrate that the respective historical context has had a major influence on image generation over time. Furthermore, a micro-scale analysis reveals that even subspaces in immediate proximity differ with regard to socio-demographic characteristics, the housing and neighbourhood conditions and ownership. In particular, the residents perceive their living environment in a more nuanced way, which influences their image of the estate.

The Perforated Welfare Space: Negotiating Ghetto-Stigma in Media, Architecture and Everyday Life

The Danish postwar social housing developments originally epitomized the dawning welfare state, promoting ideals of equity and community. Today, a number of these neighborhoods have come to occupy the reverse role and are publicly represented as “parallel societies,” “ghettos” or even “holes in the map of Denmark,” thus perforating the welfare state as a socially coherent space. Based on a media analysis and field studies in the so-called “hard ghettos,” this paper relates current media representations of disadvantaged Danish neighborhoods to architectural and residential ways of coping with territorial stigma. We argue that media representations of these housing developments contribute to rendering them spatially and socially detached from the surrounding society and that the architectural attempts to open up these housing developments may, in some cases, reinforce the stigma, further perforating the neighborhoods. Residents contest the stigma, yet those who can do so tend to detach themselves from the stigmatized neighborhoods.

Refugee Arrival under Conditions of Urban Decline: From Territorial Stigma and Othering to Collective Place-Making in Diverse Shrinking Cities?

Places affected by urban shrinkage are widely depicted as left behind places characterized by decline and decay. Refugees are generally constructed as victims or ‘dangerous other’. Hence, place-making and negotiations of belonging in shrinking cities are accompanied by multiple layers of stigmatization. Despite this contextual factor and even though many questions related to inter-group relations in shrinking cities are still unanswered, refugee-centered revitalization of shrinking cities is being discussed among city officials, planners and in the scientific community. This paper investigates local discourses on urban shrinkage and refugee arrival as contextual factors for negotiations of place and belonging, and connects to previous studies on the stigmatization of declining cities and the othering of refugees. It uses Nayak’s (2019) concept of re-scripting narratives to analyze whether acts of re-writing apply not only to stigmatizations of place, but marginalized groups as well. The paper finds that while dominant discourses on place are contested and at times re-scripted by local actors, discourses which construct refugees as other are reaffirmed. Confirming previous findings according to which stigma was passed on to other marginalized groups, it concludes that there is a need to consider dominant discourses and their negative impact on social cohesion in debates around refugee-centered revitalization.

Romové jako místní obyvatelé? Přináležení, cikánství a politika prostoru ve vesnici na východním Slovensku

Based on long-term ethnographic research in one eastern Slovak village, this paper explores the complex issue of the role of place in the (self-)identification of Roma. Applying both a diachronic and a synchronic perspective, the author focuses on the mechanisms of the territorialisation of the Roma that led to the preservation of the historical continuity of the Romani settlement and to its territorial stigmatisation. He shows how local identification and position in the residential structure of the village studied here translated into a more enduring differentiation among Roma themselves. The author argues that crucial to understanding this process is the racialised category of 'Gypsyness', through which the Roma were singled out as 'less local'. 'Gypsyness' was also strongly associated with the space of the settlement and at the same time served as a generally accepted reason for its very existence. By setting up their own strategy of social mobility and striving to achieve full-fledged local belonging, the Roma, to a large extent, subscribed to the dominant logic of 'Gypsyness' and thus reproduced it, but they also transformed some of its characteristics, integrating it into their own understanding of their sociability in an environment of historically rooted non-Romani dominance.

Factors Associated With Fear of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Stigmatization in the Elderly

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors associated with the fear of coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID- 19) stigmatization in the elderly in Chungcheongnam-do, Korea. Methods: This study used data of a survey on depression, loneliness, social support, and fear of COVID-19 of the elderly in a province of Korea in July to November, 2020. The sample consisted of 1,485 (female 1,117); mean age 78.3 (6.5) years old. We administered Korean version of the Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form, 6-item De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale, Medical Outcome Study Social Support Survey and experience about COVID-19 infection or fear of stigmatization. Binary logistic regression analyses were performed for evaluating the association between fear of COVID-19 stigmatization and the factors; gender, education level, living with spouse, socioeconomic status, depression, loneliness, and social support. Results: Socioeconomic status and loneliness are associated with the fear of COVID-19 disease stigmatization, and gender and socioeconomic status are associated with the fear of COVID-19 territorial stigmatization. Conclusion: Gender, socioeconomic status and loneliness are the factors for COVID-19 stigmatization in the elderly in Chungcheongnam- do, Korea.

‘The whole of Shirebrook got put on an ASBO’: The co-production of territorial stigma in a former colliery town

This paper draws on data collected from a multimethod ethnographic study to contribute to debates on the production of territorial stigmatisation through the analysis of Shirebrook, UK: a small post-industrial mining town in Derbyshire, which now houses the distribution centre and warehouse of Sports Direct, recently the subject of high-profile scrutiny in the UK over working conditions. Combining semi-structured interviews, participant observation and the analysis of documentary sources, I argue that the territorial stigmatisation of Shirebrook does not emanate from a single source. Rather, multiple institutions and agents converge in the co-production of stigma. The analysis draws attention to local antagonisms and hierarchies in the production of stigma, demonstrating how relatively powerful actors ‘below’ do not simply resist or deflect stigma onto less powerful others, but influence the way that territorial stigma operates, problematising Wacquant's top-down conceptualisation.

The making and unmaking of Tarlabasi, Istanbul: an account of territorial stigmatisation

Territorial stigmatisation has been drawing attention in the past decade as an important concept in analysing the bad reputation of run-down neighbourhoods and how this bad reputation is used and produced by state agencies. Especially, the links between territorial stigmatisation and urban policies that are followed by state-led gentrification processes have been an emerging discussion in this analysis of understanding the phenomenon of stigmatised places. This paper aims to examine the links and relationships between the concepts of territorial stigmatisation, state-led gentrification and state power in the neighbourhood of Tarlabasi in historic Istanbul. The questions this paper responds to through the analysis of Tarlabasi are: What were the motivations of agencies of power to mobilise stigmatisation of Tarlabasi during urban renewal projects? Why did territorial stigmatisation increase during processes of state-led gentrification? How did the inhabitants of Tarlabasi behave in the face of increased stigma? The paper concludes with reflections on the use of territorial stigmatisation as a tool and accelerator for urban renewal/regeneration/transformation projects as well as its use as a mechanism by which to procure consent from the public.

Feeling environmental justice: Pedagogies of slow violence

This paper contributes to scholarship exploring the affective politics of environmental education. Building on Nixon’s (2011) conception of slow violence, I argue that the slow violence of ecological destruction presents not only a representational challenge but also a pedagogical one: how to confront violent systems that degrade and harm particular people and places without reinscribing this damage? Drawing on qualitative research with youth-focused environmental organizations in Camden, New Jersey, I explore two very different responses to this challenge. In an effort to shield youth from the affective injuries of confronting slow violence, pedagogies of immediacy mobilize feelings of personal accomplishment through immediate action in the local environment. By contrast, pedagogies of excavation interrogate the historical and structural underpinnings of environmental injustices and channel associated affects into collective visions for more just futures. My analysis interrogates the racial, scalar, and affective politics at work in these pedagogies and considers the implications for feeling environmental (in)justice. While pedagogies of immediacy are framed as well-intentioned efforts to counter territorial stigma and generate good feelings through individual impact, I argue that such efforts ultimately reinscribe the very deficit perspectives they seek to challenge. These pedagogical differences have material implications in an inequitable and racialized funding landscape, where environmental organizations must compete for resources and may find themselves beholden to the very corporations that perpetuate ecological injuries.

Media coverage and territorial stigmatization: an analysis of crime news articles and crime statistics in Toronto

Media coverage and territorial stigmatization: an analysis of crime news articles and crime statistics in Toronto

Citizen Science in Sweden’s Stigmatized Neighborhoods

Based on the synthesis of outside versus inside perspectives, this paper weighs the positive attributes of the so-called deprived place against its negative media image. Applying the concept of territorial stigmatization, small-scale citizen science was conducted to gain a unique understanding of the Swedish neighborhood from within. With the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 11 in mind, this approach enables researchers to reach otherwise difficult to access young urban outcasts and probe the potential to overcome their community’s lack of political influence. An overlap between local media narratives and urban outcasts’ perceptions of “drug and crime” and “football and school” was revealed. Yet, this first-generation study also painted a somewhat different picture of the stigmatized neighborhood, supplying new insights about places that matter most for marginalized young males. In this Swedish case, their pictures revealed that the local corner market, football court and youth club act as an antidote for the effects of stigmatization. This Our Voice citizen science initiative proved to be a good measure of two communities’ abilities to withstand stigmatization, which is either tainted by false perceptions from the outside or weakened by crime from within. Finally, attempting to bypass structural discrimination, citizen scientists’ findings and researchers’ conclusions were made available to students, colleagues and guests at a poster presentation hosted by Mälardalen University and to concerned politicians from Eskilstuna City Hall as well as the broader public via a local Swedish television station.

A heritage-inspired cultural mega-event in a stigmatized city: Hull UK City of Culture 2017

ABSTRACT While the impacts of cultural mega-events on a city’s projected image have been extensively explored, less attention has been devoted to their role in relation to territorial stigmatization. These events have, in some cases, engaged with issues of stigmatization, as happened in Glasgow (European City of Culture 1990) and Derry-Londonderry (UK City of Culture 2013). This paper explores how built heritage is mobilized through a cultural mega-event in relation to stigma, through a case study of the city of Hull, in Northern England. Despite being among the country’s main ports until the 1930s, Hull suffered from steady structural socio-economic decline, in particular due to the demise of its fishing industry from the 1970s onwards. Hull UK City of Culture 2017 was understood as an opportunity to counter negative external perceptions. Heritage was mobilized to tell the story of the city, engage residents and visitors in cultural activities and boost civic pride. Events in 2017 and beyond promoted heritage learning in innovative ways, also through the spectacularisation of heritage spaces. However, the official evaluation of Hull 2017 shows how positive immediate results were later scaled down, suggesting that these events are not sufficient on their own to counter stigmatization.