The symbolic (re)production of marginality: Social construction, internalization, and concrete consequences of territorial stigmatization in a poor neighborhood of Santiago de Chile

Martín Alvarez and Javier Ruiz-Tagle

Housing Studies, 2024, vol. 39, issue 2, 352-375

Abstract: Territorial stigmatization is a socially-constructed, symbolic representation of a place created and manipulated by external agents, which, once established, becomes decisive for the future of that place and its residents. This discredit is wide and perdurable and operates ‘from above,’ in the media, public officials, and part of academia, and ‘from below,’ in everyday interactions. Through a qualitative case-study in Santiago de Chile, mainly based on interviews and participant observations, this article shows the entire process of stigmatization: how these symbolic representations are socially constructed by different actors; how they are assumed in the discourses of residents, with a variety of reactions that include submissive internalization, naturalization, and a politicized challenge; and how these representations trigger the abandonment from several actors, which is conceptualized by residents as living in ‘Red Zones’ of chronic institutional abandonment. We finish suggesting that stigmatization operates as an institutional mechanism that intervenes in the relationship between poverty concentration and the emergence of social problems.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02673037.2022.2100325 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:chosxx:v:39:y:2024:i:2:p:352-375

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/chos20

DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2022.2100325

Access Statistics for this article

Housing Studies is currently edited by Chris Leishman, Moira Munro, Ray Forrest, Alex Schwartz, Hal Pawson and John Flint

More articles in Housing Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().