Stigma

Stigma is a social process by which a person or group experiences, perceives or anticipates an adverse social judgement that results in discrimination, exclusion, rejection, blame or devaluation as a result of an enduring feature of identity.

Despite being a commonly used term, stigma is often loosely definined, or used in generalised contexts despite having specific meaning. For instance, stigma and reputation are frequently used interchangeably, even though they describe different phenomena. Whereas reputation is a transmission process that can result in positive or negative beliefs, stigma is a social interactive process with wholly negative effects. In this sense, even ‘bad reputation’ is distinct from ‘stigma.’

Territorial stigmatisation is a concept developed by Loïc Wacquant in the early 1990s. It aims to link subjective experiences of stigma to a structural analysis of how stigma is socially, symbolically, and politically produced on a spatialised level. This idea and the focus it has on a ‘blemish of place’ (in comparison to Goffman’s ‘blemish of character’) has been mobilised frequently in urban studies, in particular by those looking at neighbourhood stigmatisation. Through this lens, we can understand how a single estate or area can be stigmatised.

Stigma has an multivalent relationship with the proliferations poor conditions in the social housing sector. Media representations often gratuitously focuses on coverage that confirms and helps construct an existing image that stigmatises social housing and its tenants. In addition to this, as outlined by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities, stigma against social housing tenants (from providers, local authorities, and more broadly) is often a contributing factor to worsening material conditions and long resolution times.