Boundaries, Belonging and Resilience in Territorially Stigmatised Urban Communities

Urban environments are increasingly characterised by dynamics labelled under umbrella terms segregation and gentrification, pointing at polarising and homogenising tendencies. Especially large-scale migration has created parallel urban realities that are unevenly distributed in cities. However, the communities labelled as marginalised and stigmatised form a diverse network of urban complexity with high levels of transnational connectedness. The sense of marginalisation is often coupled with a powerful sense of belonging and resilience to accommodate rapid dynamics of urban transformation.

This session will look into lived realities of stigmatised urban communities from a comparative perspective that acknowledges the globally networked character of movement of people, goods and ideas, a kind of shadow anthropocene, that is only rarely recognised in the mainstream analyses of global urban developments. The aim is to explore the shared attributes and dynamics of stigmatised urban communities but also to focus on their ways of responding to renewal processes that contribute to divisive urban dynamics and disintegration of the sense of community. The methodological focus of the session is on qualitative research but we welcome also papers that address these questions using other approaches.