Rethinking the sociology of stigma

Abstract

Stigma is not a self-evident phenomenon but like all concepts has a history. The conceptual understanding of stigma which underpins most sociological research has its roots in the groundbreaking account penned by Erving Goffman in his best-selling book Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963). In the fifty years since its publication, Goffman's account of stigma has proved a productive concept, in terms of furthering research on social stigma and its effects, on widening public understandings of stigma, and in the development of anti-stigma campaigns. However, this chapter argues that the conceptual understanding of stigma inherited from Goffman, along with the use of micro-sociological and/or psychological research methods in stigma research often sidelines questions about where stigma is produced, by whom and for what purposes. As Simon Parker and Robert Aggleton argue, what is frequently missing from is social and political questions, such as 'how stigma is used by individuals, communities and the state to produce and reproduce social inequality' (2006, p. 17). This chapter expands on Parker & Aggleton's critique of the limitations of existing conceptual understandings of stigma, through and an examination of the anti-stigma campaign 'Heads Together'. This high-profile campaign launched in 2016 seeks to 'end the stigma around mental health' and is fronted by members of the British Royal Family (Heads Together, 2017). By thinking critically with and about this campaign, this chapter seeks to both delineate the limitations of existing conceptual understandings of stigma and to begin to develop a supplementary account of how stigma functions as a form of power (see Link and Phelan, 2014). It is the argument of this chapter that in order to better the role and function of stigma in society, we need to develop a richer and fuller understanding of stigma as a 'cultural and political economy' (Jessop, 2009). The final part of this introductory chapter, details the chapters to follow, and the contribution they collectively make to the project of rethinking the sociology of stigma. In rethinking the sociology of stigma this collection has been specifically motivated by: 1) how reconceptualising stigma might assist in developing better understandings of pressing contemporary problems of social decomposition, inequality and injustice; 2) a concern to decolonise the discipline of sociology by interrogating its major theorists and concepts; and 3) a desire to put class struggle and racism at the centre of understandings of stigma as a classificatory form of power.

On the Stickiness of Territorial Stigma: Diverging Experiences in Amsterdam’s Most Notorious Neighbourhood

“…The aim of this study has been to understand how residents in the Amsterdam Bijlmer differentially experience and negotiate processes of territorial stigmatisation. The neighbourhood’s notoriety is found to operate as a powerful force in residents’ everyday lives (Tyler and Slater ; Wacquant ). Time and again residents are made aware of the negative racial, cultural and material stereotypes associated with their neighbourhood in their interactions with the outside world and through its portrayal in the media (Arthurson et al ; Van Gent and Jaffe ).…”

“…Residents in the newly constructed housing projects mobilised the built environment to re‐inscribe place as an ordinary, suburban neighbourhood (Cairns ; Nayak ), functioning as an additional identity marker that served to distance them from negative cultural stereotypes. In this respect, the benefits of urban renewal are clearly unequally distributed: not only is stigma often used by governing actors to justify area‐based interventions, displacing social renters and attracting more affluent residents (De Koning ; Kipfer ; Tissot ; Tyler and Slater ), these new residents also disproportionally benefit from material improvements because it enables them to develop counter‐narratives against blemish of place. In the research literature, this role of the materiality of place—in both the production and renegotiation of territorial stigma—has so far received little attention.…”

“…At the same time, they collectively raise important questions about the fundamentally unequal power relations in processes of territorial stigmatisation and the limited possibilities for residents to ultimately influence or change externally imposed, negative narratives (Kipfer ; Wacquant ). In this respect, Tyler and Slater (:735) note that stigma “functions as a form of power” which serves to reproduce existing social (and spatial) hierarchies and justify social injustices. Considering territorial stigma, we argue that such unequal power relations are not only manifest in the external production of stigma by governing institutions and social media, but that they may also be present within a marginal neighbourhood in the diverging lived experiences of residents.…”

“…This includes a shortlist of notorious neighbourhoods, whose names are nationally—and in some cases internationally—known, and which are imagined as different and disconnected from the rest of the city (Dikec ). Residents in these iconic neighbourhoods are confronted with stigmatising labels and negative narratives in their everyday lives (De Koning and Vollebergh ), in newspapers (Glasze et al ), social media (Butler et al ), popular culture (Arthurson et al ; Van Gent and Jaffe ) and urban policies (Kipfer ; Tyler and Slater ). Representations of these neighbourhoods reproduce an imagined moral geography of the city, drawing boundaries between “here” and “there”, “us” and “them”, and “good” and “bad”.…”

Food banks and the production of scarcity

“…The number of food banks has also expanded dramatically, from 56 Trussell Trust food banks providing a three-day supply of food to the equivalent of 40,989 people in 2009-2010, to more than 2,000 Trussell Trust and independent food banks providing in excess of 1.6 million food parcels in April 2019 (Butler, 2017(Butler, , 2019. Notably, the single most common reason for using Trussell Trust food banks is a problem relating to benefits (Trussell Trust, 2019) and the growth of its network has closely mirrored the chronology of welfare reform (Beck, 2018).…”