“Esto no son las 3000!”: Creating, reproducing and contesting territorial stigma

The rise of neoliberal policies promoting deregulation and a free-market economy that rose in the 1970s have reshaped countries across the globe. This economic shift was followed by a population migration from the rural to the urban space. But as the urban landscape changed – with its promise of a more egalitarian life – citizens' experiences of inequality shifted from labour struggles to their daily lived experiences. Undesired members of society were segregated to the urban peripheries, from where they were forced to claim their right to the city. Place, race and poverty collided, giving rise to a new phenomenon: territorial stigma. Territorial stigma is the negative public image of a specific place. While the term has illuminated the degradation of working-class communities in Western societies, it has also homogenised and reduced the experiences of its inhabitants, obscuring their agentic and creative practices to resist exclusion. Understanding how territorial stigma evolves can shed light on how social inequality is sustained and contested in the city. This study aims to understand how territorial stigmatisation is produced, reproduced and contested using a case study design of a longstanding marginalised community in Seville, Spain: Polígono Sur. Analysing archival, media and interview data, this study shows the role of the state and the media in producing symbolic and social boundaries – leveraging material boundaries and artefacts – that get reproduced in the marginalised community. Unlike previous research findings, this project also showcases how residents of Polígono Sur respond to territorial stigma in varied ways, contesting, downplaying, and blurring those same boundaries. This project contributes to the territorial stigma literature by showcasing that boundaries are not static but relational. It also highlights the unintended consequences of both the state and residents' actions in their boundary work efforts.