Historizing the production of territorial stigmatization: A review of the literature

While the past decades has seen a massive political and media driven focus on neglected neighbourhoods and housing estates, bordering a moral panic, it is only recently that scholarly attention has been paid towards the territorial stigmatization of these neighbourhoods. During the last ten years we have witnessed a steep increase in the academic publication on Territorial stigmatization and its consequence; however there seem to be a rather large fragmentation in the different approaches, which makes for fragmented discussions and a confusing debate. Secondly the focus of the majority of the literature has been on the effects of territorial stigmatization rather than its actual production. This article brings structure to the debate and cast light on the production of territorial stigmatization by analysing a corpus of 119 publications from peer reviewed academic journals. Building on this corpus of past research and empirical findings the analysis shows that territorial stigmatization is not a new phenomenon as is sometimes suggested and the paper documents that it is a global phenomenon, which is not limited to the metropolises of the post-industrial west/north. However while territorial stigmatization is not a new a phenomena we do find that the modes and conditions for the production of territorial stigmatization at a number of different levels are novel and distinct from past experiences in several ways.