Afterword: Citizenship and the politics of (im)material stigma and infrastructure

Abstract

This afterword to the Urban Vulnerabilities: Infrastructure, Health and Stigma special issue highlights two cross-cutting themes that are addressed by all the articles in the issue, and that have the potential to make a significant contribution to debates within urban studies. First, I reflect on how the articles reveal the inseparable connections between infrastructure and stigma, demonstrating both as political and material processes that are inter-dependent and mutually constitutive. Consequently, it is urgent to bridge disciplinary siloes in bringing these scholarly debates into deeper conversation in ways that recognise the materiality of stigma and the politicisation of infrastructure (and vice versa). Second, to a greater and lesser extent, the articles all reveal the centrality of citizenship to the capacity of both urban dwellers and the state to negotiate and/or restrict access to infrastructure, and to perpetuate and/or challenge the impacts of stigma. While the connections between infrastructure and citizenship are explored in my recent work on infrastructural citizenship, the articles in this collection demonstrate the importance of temporality and scale in understanding how citizens negotiate their material and political rights.

The Narrative Cores of Neighbourhood Reputation as Revealed by Temporal Discourses

“…We constructed narrative cores based on our research data from Ristinummi and Olympiakortteli, and these cores were recognised as major reasons for the neighbourhoods' reputational statuses. Nostalgia, incidents, progress, stance, and territory emphasise the process whereby a neighbourhood generates its own reputation through certain narrative cores that are a driving force for storylines, story fragments, and myths that amplify and contest each other (Wacquant et al 2014;Pinkster et al 2020;Jupp 2021;Baumann & Yacobi 2022;Lemanski 2022). Identifying narrative cores as part of neighbourhood development and policy decision-making processes helps planners and city developers recognise problematic reputational issues and their root causes.…”

“…There is an extensive academic discussion of neighbourhood reputation and stigma (e.g. August 2014;Wacquant et al 2014;Jensen et al 2021;Baumann & Yacobi 2022;Lemanski 2022). A negative reputation can have far-reaching effects on a neighbourhood.…”

“…The implications of such reputations, whether elevating or dispiriting, affect people's perceptions of themselves and their communities, since neighbourhoods position residents as mentally and physically part of a city (Wacquant et al . 2014; Waerniers 2017; Baumann & Yacobi 2022; Lemanski 2022). Perceptions and interpretations of the state of a neighbourhood vary depending on the observer, time of visit, and duration of residence in the area.…”

Book review forum: Infrastructure

“…Feminist and legal geographers, working in and on the urban, have illustrated through recent years what can be gained by applying such perspectives to socio-legal themes, concepts and objectives, which are much often taken for granted and unquestioned, such as the notion of ‘citizen’ and/or ‘citizenship’ (see, e.g. Lemanski, 2022). By unpacking what these concepts and legal categories really mean, to whom and in which cases, we might develop a clearer picture of how and when the law does come into play.…”

Houselessness, Infrastructural Exclusion, and Stigmatization

“…Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, at least 14,301 Brazilian families were evicted within the same period. 4 About the correlation between infrastructural abjection and stigmatization seeBaumann (2021);Baumann and Massalha (2022);and Lemanski (2022).…”