Coping with Territorial Stigma and Devalued Identities: How Do Social Representations of an Environmentally Degraded Place Affect Identity and Agency?

Fulvio Biddau (), Ester D’Oria and Sonia Brondi
Additional contact information
Fulvio Biddau: Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, University of Padua, 35122 Padova, Italy
Ester D’Oria: Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, University of Padua, 35122 Padova, Italy
Sonia Brondi: Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 30123 Venezia, Italy

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: This article examines people-place relationships in a carbon-intensive area—i.e., heavily dependent on the steel industry and marked by severe environmental degradation—involved in the EU Just Transition Mechanism (Taranto, Italy). Drawing upon a psychosocial perspective grounded on social representations theory, this article focuses on intertwining the sense of place, identity processes, and agency to understand the dynamics of place stigma and identity devaluation. In-depth semi-structured interviews with active residents were thematically and discursively analyzed. The results suggest both theoretical and applied insights. Overall, they highlight a widely shared negative representation of the place related to territorial stigmatization, ambivalent place attachments, and devaluation of place-based and social identities. To cope with such processes and dynamics, identity processes seem to act as self-protective mechanisms both at a personal and social level. The article concludes by inviting a more comprehensive conceptualization of just transition, harm restoration, and related territorial planning to include the psychosocial processes underlying the community’s well-being and identity.

Keywords: devaluation; discourse analysis; environmental degradation; just transition; place attachment; powerlessness; sense of place; social psychology; stigma; victimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2686/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2686/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:2686-:d:1055098

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().