Public housing and territorial stigma: towards a symbolic and political economy

Abstract

This article illustrates how the stigmatization of public housing in Australia has been co-constituted by material and symbolic forces over several decades. Drawing on discourse analysis in conjunction with historical-institutional analysis of housing policy trajectories and the place of housing within political-economic change, it shows how territorial stigmatization can be understood as the product of media, policy and social scientific discourses which problematize public housing as well as histories of policy reform and political-economic restructuring which shape its social, material and institutional conditions. The discursive problematization of public housing estates in particular works to obscure the role of restructuring and reform and thus present demolition and redevelopment as a ‘common sense’ response, even as a form of destigmatization. The understanding of stigmatisation that this article advances—as a recursively symbolic and political-economic process—is therefore conceptually significant and important for critically evaluating government interventions in the context of stigma, including claims of destigmatization.

Keywords:

• Territorial stigma
• public housing
• social housing
• estate renewal
• discourse

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments which improved this article significantly. The title of this article derives from the suggestion of reviewer two. I would also like to thank Housing Studies editors Andrew Clarke and Ed Ferrari for their guidance regarding revisions. Kurt Iveson, Dallas Rogers and Pratichi Chatterjee provided vital feedback on the earlier writing which this article draws upon. All errors and shortcomings are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.