‘If I tell them that I live near the neighborhood, they’re like, oh are you poor?’ Differences in young people’s reactions to territorial stigma in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland

ABSTRACT

Geographers have long been interested in how place is a crucial element of exclusion in society. In this study, we examine the reactions to neighborhood stigma of two groups of young people whose lives are intertwined with a stigmatized neighborhood at different levels. The first group lives, goes to school and spends leisure time in the neighborhoods and the second group goes to school there. Theoretically, we draw on Wacquant's concept of territorial stigmatization and Pryor and Reeder's taxonomy of different types of stigma: public stigma, self-stigma, and stigma by association. Our ethnographic data comprise interviews with young people (aged 13–15) and daily observations from two schools located in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Helsinki metropolitan area in Finland. We found three differences in stigma reactions between the two groups of young people, which were intertwined with spatial and social inequalities. The first difference arose from the uneven ways in which they struggled with neighborhood stigma. The second difference related to disengagement from the source of stigma, by detachment either from certain places or from the entire neighborhood. The third difference emerged in the different ways in which they used the neighborhood normalization strategy, to indicate neighborhood similarities or differences.

KEYWORDS:

• Territorial stigmatization
• inequalities
• spatial hierarchies
• disadvantaged neighborhood
• youth studies

Introduction

Geographical research has long drawn attention to how place is an important element of exclusion in society (e.g. Sibley 1995; Wood 2016). According to Sibley (1995, 77), the essential elements of ‘geographies of exclusion’ are spatial boundaries and purification, by which he means drawing social and spatial boundaries between symbolically pure and deviant spaces. In the geographies of youth exclusion, one of the main approaches is symbolic and material exclusion through stigma and discrimination based, for example, on class and race (Wood 2016, 483). In this study, we contribute to research on the geographies of youth exclusion by focusing on the exclusion that occurs when young people react to the stigma of a place. We analyze the differences and inequalities that arise between young people as they react to stigmatization.

We draw on Wacquant’s (2008a) concept of territorial stigmatization, by which he refers to isolated and bounded areas where, in the eyes of insiders and outsiders, the urban outcasts dwell. However, we are not only interested in how young people from different backgrounds internalize stigma and what it entails (Howarth 2002; Wacquant 2008a), but also in how they are able to resist and challenge it (e.g. Cairns 2018; Kirkness 2014; Wacquant, Slater, and Pereira 2014) at the level of different types of stigma (Bos et al. 2013; Pryor and Reeder 2011). In our analysis, we make use of Pryor and Reeder’s (2011) taxonomy of different types of stigma: (1) public stigma, (2) self-stigma, and (3) stigma by association (see also Bos et al. 2013).

Often studies focus on the perceptions of residents of stigmatized and low socio-economic (SES) neighborhoods or housing (e.g. Kirkness 2014; Palmer et al. 2004; Tuominen 2020), or on how residents from middle-class backgrounds seek to disengage from notorious neighborhoods (e.g. Pinkster 2014; Watt 2009). Previous studies have also drawn attention to the everyday perspectives of young people in facing the stigma of place (Cairns 2018; Meyer, Miggelbrink, and Schwarzenberg 2017; Visser, Bolt, and van Kempen 2015). However, less attention has been paid to differences in how residents from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds face the stigmatization of their neighborhood (see however e.g. Contreras 2017; Pinkster, Ferier, and Hoekstra 2020). A study by Pinkster, Ferier, and Hoekstra (2020), on stigmatized neighborhoods in the Netherlands, shows how territorial stigmatization is not faced equally but sticks more firmly to some residents than others. White middle-class residents are able to avoid neighborhood stigma more easily than racialized residents or social renters from lower social classes, who are perceived as people who better ‘“fit” negative stereotypes associated with place’ (Pinkster, Ferier, and Hoekstra 2020, 524). Thus, a person’s possibility to respond to stigma ‘var[ies] significantly with class, age and lifecycle stage, housing tenure, seniority in the neighborhood, and ethnicity’ (Wacquant, Slater, and Pereira 2014, 1276).

Our study contributes to the discussion on how a person’s age, background, and place of residence are reflected in their opportunities to react to territorial stigma. This brings new perspectives to the discussion, as we focus on young people whose domains of life (home, school, and leisure activities) are intertwined with a stigmatized place at different levels. By life domain, we mean spaces where young people spend most of their time during the day, and at the level of these domains, everyday life can be segregated in different ways (van Ham and Tammaru 2016). The first group of young people is connected to a stigmatized neighborhood through dwelling, school, and leisure activities. The second group goes to school in the same neighborhood, but they live and spend most of their leisure time outside stigmatized environments in middle-class areas. In addition, the novelty of the study arises from applying the taxonomy of Pryor and Reeder (2011) ethnographically to analyze the reactions to neighborhood stigma.

Our ethnographic data consist of interviews with young people (aged 13–15, n = 46) and daily observations (88 school days) at two schools, located in socio-economically disadvantaged and ethnically diverse neighborhoods. We refer to these two Finnish neighborhoods by the pseudonyms Swallowtail and Fritillary. We ask the following questions:

1. What are young people’s perceptions of the public stigma of Swallowtail and Fritillary?

2. How do young people who live, go to school, and spend their leisure time in Swallowtail and Fritillary react to the stigmatization of their neighborhoods and try to avoid self-stigmatization, and what effects does it have on their daily lives?

3. How do young people who go to school in Swallowtail and Fritillary but live and spend most of their leisure time outside these neighborhoods in middle-class areas react to the stigmatization of Swallowtail and Fritillary? How do they seek to avoid stigma by association and what spatial and social hierarchies develop?

We first present the applied theories of territorial stigmatization and the taxonomy of four types of stigma. This relates to previous research debate on reactions to stigma of place. We will then review the research context by briefly describing Finnish disadvantaged suburban housing estates. Then we move on to present the ethnographical data and methods. We analyze the results in three chapters and finally discuss the results in the conclusion section.

The concept of territorial stigmatization

At the heart of Wacquant’s (2007, 67) concept of territorial stigmatization is that the negative stigma often associated with people who are marginalized in society and perceived as ‘unfit’ can be attached to places (see also Wacquant, Slater, and Pereira 2014, 1272). The stigma of place may involve discrimination, exclusion, and stereotyping. Wacquant (2008a, 1–2) studied urban marginal places in US ghettos and French ‘banlieues’, and found similar phenomena of territorial stigmatization on both sides of the Atlantic. In Wacquant’s (2007, 2008a) theorization, people who are tainted by the stigma of place may internalize territorial stigma, which affects their self-esteem and has an inequalizing and negative social and economic impact on their lives. However, people may try to resist stigmatization in different ways, for example by defending their neighborhood or bragging about the roughness of their neighborhood (Wacquant, Slater, and Pereira 2014, 1276).

Territorial stigmatization is centrally related to spatial hierarchies, which are not only formed between neighborhoods but also within them (Jensen and Christensen 2012; Pinkster, Ferier, and Hoekstra 2020; Tuominen 2020). In defining spatial hierarchies, we draw on Wacquant’s (2008b, 116) argument that ‘in every advanced society, a number of urban districts or towns have become national symbols and namesakes for all the ills of the city’. This has often led to a situation where stigmatized neighborhoods are ‘at the bottom of the moral spatial order’ (Pinkster, Ferier, and Hoekstra 2020, 522). What is particularly relevant for this article is that spatial hierarchies are often linked to the social divisions of residents. By this, we mean that spatial hierarchies may create social divisions between inhabitants and separation of ‘us’ from ‘them’, which are linked to social, economic, and ethnic differences (e.g. Contreras 2017; Palmer et al. 2004; Wacquant 2007). This notion comprises the basis of our analytical frame.

Taxonomy of different types of stigma

We apply Pryor and Reeder’s (2011) taxonomy of different types of stigmas, which they further developed with colleagues (Bos et al. 2013), to the stigma of place as based on Wacquant’s (2007, 2008a, 2008b) theorization. The taxonomy includes four types of stigma, of which we will focus on the first three. The four types of stigma – public stigma, self-stigma, stigma by association, and structural stigma – are all interrelated. However, the core of the model is public stigma, which ‘comprises the cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions of those who stigmatize (perceivers)’ (Bos et al. 2013, 2). Stigma can evoke anger and blame toward the stigmatized person and the belief that the situation is the stigmatized person’s own fault, and it can also cause fear and the need for avoidance and social exclusion (Bos et al. 2013, 2–3). Following this, we analyze young people’s perceptions of the public stigma of Swallowtail and Fritillary.

The second type of stigma in the model is self-stigma, which refers to ‘the social and psychological impact of possessing a stigma’ (Bos et al. 2013, 2). According to Bos et al. (2013, 2), self-stigma involves both the fear of exposure to stigma and the possible internalization of negative beliefs and feelings associated with stigma. The effects of stigma can appear in a person’s life at the behavioral level as negative treatment, at the emotional level as negative thoughts toward the person, or internalized, affecting the person’s self-esteem and self-belief (Bos et al. 2013, 3). We analyze how young people living, going to school, and spending their leisure time in Swallowtail and Fritillary react to the stigmatization of their neighborhoods and try to avoid self-stigmatization, and what effects it has on their daily lives.

The third type of stigma is called stigma by association. This indicates ‘social and psychological reactions to people associated with a stigmatized person (e.g. family and friends) as well as people’s reactions to being associated with a stigmatized person’ (Bos et al. 2013, 2). We analyze how young people who go to school in Swallowtail and Fritillary but live and spend most of their leisure time outside these neighborhoods in middle-class areas react to the stigmatization of school neighborhoods and seek to avoid stigma by association.

The fourth type of stigma is structural stigma, where the central idea is how institutions and norms in society maintain, justify, or exacerbate a stigmatized position (Bos et al. 2013, 4). In this study, we do not focus on structural stigma – such as the role of schools in stigmatization – as we have directed the study to the everyday life of young people, but we acknowledge its relevance in the debate.

Strategies to react to territorial stigma

Stigma related to neighborhoods or housing has been studied extensively and previous studies have shown evidence of stigma resistance and a strong sense of belonging to the stigmatized areas (e.g. Cairns 2018; Jensen and Christensen 2012; Kirkness 2014). Residents – both young people and adults – use a variety of strategies to react to territorial stigma. For example, residents may normalize, distance themselves from, or show pride and belonging toward a stigmatized neighborhood. The normalization of a stigmatized neighborhood means that people stress that everyday life there is fairly normal and similar to other neighborhoods, and emphasize the existence of other, more problematic places to live (Hastings 2004; Peltola et al. 2023).

Disengagement and distancing – ‘mutual distanciation’ framed by Wacquant (2007, 68) – means that residents separate themselves from places and people who are perceived as ‘problematic’ and are believed to be behind the neighborhood stigma (Hastings 2004; Jensen and Christensen 2012; Keskinen 2018; Palmer et al. 2004). When reacting to stigma, residents tend to distinguish ‘us’ from ‘them’, or what they consider to be ‘better’ and ‘worse’ parts of the neighborhood, and believe they belong to the first group of people and ‘better’ parts of the area (Hastings 2004; Palmer et al. 2004).

In reacting to neighborhood stigmatization, residents may be determined to embrace the place, and they want to show pride in being part of the local community (e.g. Junnilainen 2020; Kirkness 2014). Despite the often problem-oriented approach to stigmatized areas, young people can feel that they live in a good neighborhood, take pride in it, and believe that have prospects for the future (Peltola et al. 2023; Visser, Bolt, and van Kempen 2015). Young people have been shown to demonstrate belonging to a stigmatized area by gathering in a prominent public place, defending their territory physically or verbally, toying with the language of stigmatization and take ownership of the narrative through ‘insider’ humor (Kirkness 2014).

However, there is evidence that while residents may feel a sense of belonging to the stigmatized area, they are aware of the general negative perceptions and have also confronted challenges in their neighborhood, such as substance abuse, crime, and violence (Cairns 2018; Jensen and Christensen 2012; Visser, Bolt, and van Kempen 2015). This could lead to ambivalent feelings about their neighborhood (Jensen and Christensen 2012; Peltola et al. 2023; Tuominen 2020). It is worth noting that this may lead to young people not wanting to live in their neighborhood in the future (Meyer, Miggelbrink, and Schwarzenberg 2017).

Context of the study: Finnish disadvantaged high-rise suburban housing estates

Urban marginality can take different forms in different places (Wacquant 2008a, 1). In the context of the Finnish disadvantaged high-rise suburban housing estates, there has been a debate about a phenomenon called ‘new urban poverty’ (Stjernberg 2019, 22). This refers to ‘various changes that have occurred in employment and demographic structures, in a weakening of family and social ties, in overheating of the social welfare system and in the high costs of living and social problems in large cities’ (Stjernberg 2019, 22). What makes this form of poverty new is that it is more complex, extending widely across different domains of life (Stjernberg 2019, 22).

The two schools in this study are located in socio-economically disadvantaged high-rise suburban housing estates in the Helsinki metropolitan area, where this ‘new urban poverty’ is concentrated and commonly referred to as lähiö¹ in Finnish. We call the suburban housing estates in this study Swallowtail and Fritillary.² They were built like many other high-rise suburban housing estates in 1960–1970, when rural-to-urban migration was high in Finland (Stjernberg 2019; Vaattovaara et al. 2018). Since the 1990s, many of them, including Swallowtail and Fritillary, have developed as a result of urban segregation into socio-economically disadvantaged and ethnically heterogeneous neighborhoods, with a relatively high concentration of social rental housing (Stjernberg 2019; Vaattovaara et al. 2018). In Finland, government-subsidized rental housing (11% of all Finnish households in 2021) is mainly occupied by low-income households, as access is restricted, for example, by income testing (Lahtinen et al. 2024, 14). Approximately a quarter of government-subsidized rental housing is targeted at specific groups, such as the elderly, the homeless, people with mental health or substance abuse problems, students, and young people with special needs (Lahtinen et al. 2024, 44). When comparing the residents of government-subsidized and non-subsidized rental housing in the Helsinki metropolitan area, the former are less educated, more often unemployed and more typically receive housing benefit (Lahtinen et al. 2024, 19).

In the public debate, lähiös are often referred to as problem neighborhoods, and development projects are targeted at them (Kemppainen 2017; Stjernberg 2019). Negative views, which residents do not necessarily agree with, are often associated with perceptions of poverty, unsafety, and disruption (Kemppainen 2017). Despite this, territorial stigmatization has attracted relatively little research interest in Finland (see however Junnilainen 2020; Keskinen 2018; Tuominen 2020). Previous studies have revealed that residents living in Finnish stigmatized lähiös produce collective place narratives (Junnilainen 2020) and criticize stigmatizing views, but also accept them, and create an ambivalent relationship with their neighborhood (Keskinen 2018; Tuominen 2020).

Ethnographic data and methods of the study

The ethnographic data of this study was produced as part of Local Educational Ethos research project examining the response of schools to the challenges of urban segregation. We use ethnographic interviews with 46 young people (aged 13–15) and observation data (field notes from 88 observation days) from two schools located in socio-economically disadvantaged and ethnically diverse (compared to city average) lähiös in the metropolitan area of Helsinki. The two lower secondary schools in this study gather pupils aged between 13 and 15, and like most schools in Finland are public and tuition-free. The schools’ catchment areas cover various neighborhoods, some more socio-economically disadvantaged and ethnically segregated than others. School admission policy follows the local school principle, where the pupils from the surrounding area are mainly assigned to the local school. This means that the pupil compositions of these schools are heterogeneous and include pupils who are ethnic Finns and various ethnic minorities from middle-class and working-class backgrounds. In the description of the research project, we have promised municipalities, schools, and participants that we will protect the anonymity of neighborhoods, schools, and participants, and therefore we use pseudonyms and do not describe in detail neighborhood’s statistical figures on, for example, income, education levels, or migrant background population. This is to ensure that our research does not cause potential harm to participants or affect relations between local neighborhoods or schools.

We categorized the interviewees into two groups (see Table 1). The first group of young people lives, goes to school, and spends most of their leisure time in the lähiö. The second group goes to school in the same lähiö as the first group, but they live and spend most of their leisure time in middle-class areas. In addition, we classified two participant groups according to social class (working-class and middle-class) and by ethnicity (Finnish background, migrant background, and mixed heritage³) (see Table 1). We based these classifications on discussions with participants about the location and size of their home, housing type, family size, parents’ occupation, and employment, family’s financial situation, the impact of the family’s financial situation on their daily lives, and the ethnic background of the family.

Table 1. Two groups of interviewed participants.

Interviewed participants	Group 1: living in lähiö	Group 2: living in middle-class area	Total
Neighborhood
Swallowtail	12	10	22
Fritillary	14	10	24
Gender
Girls	17	17	34
Boys	9	3	12
Social class of the family
Working-class	16	1	17
Middle-class	10	19	29
Ethnic background of the family
Finnish background	14	16	30
Migrant background	7	2	9
Mixed heritage^a	5	2	7

^a Mixed heritage family = one parent with a Finnish background and the other with a migrant background.

The ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in both schools during the 2019–2020 school year. The first and second author each observed the everyday life of one school during lessons, breaks, excursions, and other school activities. Long-term fieldwork was a prerequisite for establishing trustful relationships with the participants, and it enabled us to understand the relationship between the school and the surrounding neighborhood (Delamont 2014, 37–39). Parental consent was required from the guardians of the young people who participated in the study. Before the fieldwork started, the participants were informed of the purpose of the study and its voluntary nature. The guidelines of the Finnish National Board for Research Integrity and the Finnish legislation regarding research ethics were carefully followed. An ethical review was not required for this study.

The ethnographic interviews were semi-structured and conducted either individually or in groups of two or three. The questions in the interviews centered around the school (What is this school like?) and neighborhood (What is it like to live in this neighborhood?). We engaged in reflexivity during the interviews and throughout the entire research project (Gordon et al. 2005), acknowledging our privileged position as white, female, middle-class researchers who live outside the neighborhoods. The questions of how hierarchical positions may have affected the interaction between researchers and young people, how to treat young people’s views in a respectful yet critical manner, and how to portray young people living or going to school in a disadvantaged area (Smyth and McInerney 2013) were under constant reflection.

In ethnographic research, discussions with fellow researchers during and after the fieldwork may refine or even change the focus of the study (Scott Jones and Watt 2010). Within our research project, we became intrigued by the shared themes in the data produced in Swallowtail and Fritillary. In the first stage of the analysis, we discussed what themes concerned territorial stigma and young people’s reactions to it. In the next stage of analysis, we coded the interview and observation data using Atlas.ti software. First, we coded the data with two codes: neighborhood and neighborhood comparison. Finally, we coded these sections with even more specific codes, including neighborhood reputation/stigma, negative and positive aspects of the neighborhood, descriptions of the residents, leisure time in the neighborhood, and young people’s aspirations for their future place of residence.

We analyzed the data with thematic analysis (e.g. Braun and Clarke 2019). After coding, we grouped codes into themes such as public stigma, self-stigma, stigma by association, spatial hierarchies, social hierarchies, challenging stigma, and internalizing stigma. Subsequently, we began to interpret the thematized data with the existing research literature on territorial stigma. We continued discussing the themes within the research group, since, in ethnographic research, knowledge construction begins during fieldwork and is based on the ethnographer’s first-hand experiences within the research setting (Kwame Harrison 2018). For example, Fritillary received a lot of negative media attention during the fieldwork, which became a source of rumors in the school. Although the young people did not explicitly cite media sources, it was evident to the researcher that they were aware of headlines about robberies and other unusual, often fear-inducing, incidents in their neighborhood. Therefore, we considered these first-person understandings in our analysis (Kwame Harrison 2018).

Young people’s perceptions of the public stigma of disadvantaged lähiö

Young people’s experiences of outsiders’ stigmatized reactions to Swallowtail were mainly focused on perceptions of the neighborhood’s social problems, such as substance abuse, neighborhood unsafety, and poverty. Our participants also described how outsiders saw Swallowtail as a small and remote place, both geographically and mentally. Eva, who had a mixed family heritage and middle-class background and who lived in a middle-class area, described Swallowtail’s geographical position among outsiders by calling the area ‘a small village’ where ‘no one has any business to be’ because ‘there is nothing special about it’. Our participants also mentioned the high number of migrant population, the untidy appearance of the buildings, and the general littering of the area, which previous studies have linked to neighborhood stigmatization (e,g., Pinkster, Ferier, and Hoekstra 2020; Wacquant 2007).

However, there was a widespread perception among participants that Swallowtail was not the most stigmatized neighborhood in the Helsinki metropolitan area and that it had a reputation as a ‘kind of typical’ neighborhood compared to other lähiös in terms of reputation, socio-economic and ethnic profile, and urban structure. Nevertheless, three boys described how people living outside lähiö referred to Swallowtail as a ‘slum’:

Mikael:

Well, I know people [from the other side of city], and some of them call Swallowtail a slum town.

Interviewer:

Do you think it’s just prejudice, or what do you think about it?

Mikael:

There may be some truth in that.

Leo:

To some extent.

Interviewer:

What makes this neighborhood a slum town?

Leo:

All the drunks and the guys who hang out there at night, and all the drug users in the woods, so maybe they make this a bit of like that.

Kasper:

I agree with Leo.

(Three boys from Finnish background families: Mikael, middle-class and living in lähiö near Swallowtail; Leo, working-class and living in Swallowtail; Kasper, working-class and living in lähiö near Swallowtail)

As in the previous quote, our participants widely believed that social problems, such as alcohol and drug users, were behind the stigmatized position of Swallowtail. Thus, they attributed the public stigma of Swallowtail to groups of people who are often easily stigmatized in society (Wacquant 2008a).

The media often play a role in constructing neighborhood stigma, as stigmatized neighborhoods represent an easy way for media to capture readers with exaggerated headlines or depict them as examples of national problems (Hastings 2004; Howarth 2002; Kearns, Kearns, and Lawson 2013). The public stigma of Fritillary was mainly related to perceptions of unsafety, crime, and violence. During the fieldwork period, several violent and property-related crimes occurred in Fritillary that were widely reported in the media. There was a broad consensus among participants that, prior to these incidents (which occurred over a relatively short period), Fritillary’s reputation was fairly neutral. In the following quote, Jamil associates these recent events with the general impressions of unsafety:

Interviewer:

Does Fritillary have any kind of reputation, in your opinion? Do you ever talk to your friends who live elsewhere about what others think of it?

Jamil:

I don’t know. Many people say it’s not the safest place in the world and it’s not, at least not recently. Now there have been many strange events.

Interviewer:

Do you think you would like to live here in the future?

Jamil:

In the neighborhood where I live, yes. I’ve lived there my whole life.

(A boy from a working-class and migrant background family, living in lähiö near Fritillary)

Based on the quote, it seems that with the recent events in Fritillary, in which the media headlines may have played a role, Jamil had internalized outsiders’ perception of the unsafety of the Fritillary. This internalization was also reflected in Jamil’s attempt to separate his own living environment (where he could live in the future), from Fritillary, although these neighborhoods were statistically very similar (in terms of socio-economic and ethnic profile and urban structure) and located very close to each other, and the difference between the two neighborhoods was mainly symbolic.

In the following quote, Cecilia and Viola give some examples of these recent events in the Fritillary:

Cecilia:

The [shop] was robbed. And the [restaurant] was robbed.

Interviewer:

Yeah, I read about it in the paper. Sorry to hear that.

Viola:

Nowadays this is not very safe. (…) This used to be a very quiet area, until last summer. (…) Nothing happened here.

(Two girls from Finnish backgrounds: Cecilia middle-class family; Viola working-class family; living in Fritillary)

In the quote, Cecilia and Viola emphasized the freshness of these events. This may have been a way for young people to demonstrate that this had not been their usual experience of Fritillary. Although the girls described recent events in the neighborhood and not outsiders’ perceptions of Fritillary, the previous quote from the conversation with Jamil shows how these events and the stigmatization of the Fritillary by outsiders were intertwined in young people’s perceptions.

Self-stigmatization: reactions to stigmatization among first group of young people

The first group of participants, who lived, went to school, and spent most of their leisure time in Swallowtail and Fritillary, were well aware of the public stigma of their neighborhoods. Despite (or as a result of) the stigmatized position, they tended to normalize (see also Cairns 2018; Hastings 2004) their neighborhood by comparing it to other lähiös. Normalization is a one way for young people to avoid self-stigmatization. In the following quote, Janek and Amjad describe their neighborhood:

Janek:

I think this is a peaceful neighborhood and I like how the trees are planted and how nature is present.

Interviewer:

How about Amjad?

Amjad:

Yes. [Laugh] I think so too. (…)

Interviewer:

Have you ever come across, for example, intoxicated people or … ?

Janek:

Well, you probably see them in every neighborhood. (…) There’s a bench next to the public transport center where they hang out, but they’re not dangerous or anything. (…) They’re just there, happily drinking alcohol. (…) They don’t really bother me in any way. (…) Will this discussion take two hours?

(Two boys from working-class and migrant background families, living in Swallowtail)

Janek normalized Swallowtail by highlighting its positive aspects, downplaying the negative aspects, and comparing it to other neighborhoods. Like Janek, our participants living in these lähiös often emphasized that perceived undesirable phenomena, such as substance abuse, were limited to specific places in the neighborhood. These places included, in addition to the public transport hub, the mall, the forest, the fronts of local bars, and some parks.

Public stigma can also cause frustration in young people (e.g. Cairns 2018), which may be seen in Janek’s answers, when he started to get frustrated with the length of the interview. The frustration happened halfway through the interview, which lasted 71 min. Before the questions about neighborhood problems, Janek had shown no signs of frustration. After Janek’s reaction, the interviewer suggested that they move on to other topics. It may have been easy for him to talk about the pleasant aspects of Swallowtail, but he became irritated when a researcher from outside asked about social problems in his neighborhood. This reaction may have come from the fact that Finnish lähiös are often approached in public debate with a problem-oriented perspective (e.g. Junnilainen 2020).

Neighborhoods are often linked to young people’s identity formation (Howarth 2002), and especially in stigmatized areas, demonstration of loyalty to the neighborhood can be further reinforced among young people (Kirkness 2014; Visser, Bolt, and van Kempen 2015). In the following quote, Julia, who often hung out in public places with her friends, describes how they reacted to young people from outside and vice versa:

Julia:

We might just stare at what those young people (from the nearby lähiö) are doing here. (…) Once, some youngsters (from elsewhere) came to Swallowtail. They started mocking us. (…) They shouted at us ‘Why are you sitting here every day?’ (…) One of my friends got a bit emotional about it. (…) So, then they started to fight.

(A girl from a working-class and mixed heritage family, living in Swallowtail)

This quote illustrates how young people defended their neighborhood territory both silently (staring) and physically (fighting). This can be seen as an indication of a sense of belonging to their neighborhood. Belonging and territoriality are constructed through the distinction between us (young people hanging out in this lähiö) and others (young people from elsewhere). Furthermore, the quote paints a picture of how outsider youth reacted negatively to Julia and her friends and their practice of hanging out in the Swallowtail, and how that triggered Julia’s friend to physically defend their territory.

However, there were also signs that our participants internalized the public stigma of their neighborhood. For some of our participants, the combination of lived experiences, rumors, and media coverage related to for example substance abuse, violence, and crime provided justification that the negative public picture was at least partly accurate. Some signs of the internalization of public stigma have already been illustrated in the previous results section, where we found that Jamil shared the outsiders’ view of the unsafety of Fritillary in the light of recent events in the area. Another example of the internalization of stigma relates to the discussion between Michael, Leo, and Kasper about the partial veracity of Swallowtail’s ‘slum’ label. In the following quote, Kasper and Leo describe in more detail the validity of public stigma in the light of their experiences:

Kasper:

[Nearby lähiö] is, or I’ve heard that, sometimes some guys have been fighting there and there have been a few stabbings. [laughter] So [nearby lähiö] is violent, and Swallowtail is kind of a drug village.

Leo:

That’s right.

Interviewer:

Is it the perception of a drug village that people are talking about or is it your own perception of it?

Leo:

Well, a bit of both, I guess.

Interviewer:

So, it’s also visible, on the street, drugs and stuff?

Kasper:

Well yes, if you walk in the woods, you will see drugs. (…)

(Two boys from working-class and Finnish background families: Kasper living in lähiö near Swallowtail and Leo in Swallowtail)

The experiences of Kasper and Leo suggested that the view of their neighborhoods as ‘violent’ and ‘drug village’ might have been both general and partly their own. Later in the interview, the boys said that there were places in Swallowtail, such as the local forest and park that they did not like to go to. It is worth remembering that Kasper and Leo had earlier noted that drug users hanging out in this avoidable forest area were behind the stigma of Swallowtail. While the experiences of drug users seemed to be their main reason for avoiding these places, the avoidance could also be linked to stories and rumors about the local forest among young people at school. Furthermore, the previous quote could be seen as an indication of how attractive the use of stigmatizing language and bragging about it is in young people’s interactions. Stigmatizing language is often appropriated, played with, and turned into insider humor among youth (Kirkness 2014).

Later in the interview, Leo described how intoxicated people had played ‘golf’ and ‘bowling’ near his home in the past, causing a disturbance, and then stated, ‘I’ve been trying to convince my parents that we should move because I don’t want to live here anymore’. Meanwhile, Kasper explained that they have moved out of Swallowtail to a nearby lähiö because he did not have any neighborhood friends with Finnish origin. Leo’s ambivalent relationship with Swallowtail and desire for detachment was related to social problems in certain places near home. In Kasper’s case, it was associated with an ethnicity other than Finnish (the majority population) in the yard of his apartment building. Both, social problems and racial stereotypes were also related to the stigmatization of Swallowtail as have often been demonstrated in other national contexts (e.g. Pinkster, Ferier, and Hoekstra 2020; Wacquant 2008a). It is noteworthy that neighborhood problems that young people experienced first-hand, but also contributed to stigmatization in their eyes, could weaken their attachment to their neighborhood. While still dependent on their parents’ decisions and resources as minors, this may reduce their willingness to live in the stigmatized area when they grow up (Meyer, Miggelbrink, and Schwarzenberg 2017).

The young people’s ambivalent and even fearful relationship with their living environment was also reflected in where they chose to spend their leisure time, as illustrated in the following quote:

Sandra:

We’ve just moved here, so, I haven’t been out with my friends that much. (…) We went to a friend’s yard in the summer, just to play. (…) And it’s nice to go to the youth center and just hang out there. (…) If you’re just hanging out in the neighborhood you’ll probably meet some scary guy, and you’re ready to call the police (…) But you’re never alone, even if you’re walking alone, there’s at least one or two people on the street besides you. (…) But then again, isn’t it better that you’re alone there because then you don’t have to worry that someone will suddenly kidnap you or stab you? You are constantly looking over your shoulders.

(A girl from a middle-class and Finnish background family, living in Fritillary)

Feeling unsafe, Sandra avoided hanging out in Fritillary and preferred to spend time in a friend’s yard and at the youth center. It is not clear from the quote how much Sandra’s fear was influenced by the fact that Fritillary was a new living environment for her and there had been many negative mentions of the neighborhood in the media. However, it is reasonable to assume that they played some role in Sandra’s demonization of her new neighborhood. Sandra’s sense of neighborhood unsafety is reflected in her consideration on whether it would be safer for her to walk around the neighborhood in the presence of other residents or alone. As Wacquant (2007, 2008a) has suggested, the fear, avoidance, and isolation of other residents could be seen as a sign of the internalization of neighborhood stigma.

Stigma by association: reactions to stigmatization among the second group of young people

When living in disadvantaged areas, middle-class residents tend to seek to disengage themselves and their place of residence from the rest of the area (e.g. Pinkster 2014; Watt 2009). Our participants living in middle-class neighborhoods (the second group) often sought to separate themselves and their personal living environment not just from a few places in Swallowtail and Fritillary (as participants from the first group tended to do), but from the entire lähiö where their schools were located. This reaction to stigma by association may be related to the fact that their everyday realities (dwelling, leisure activities, and social relationships) were often geographically more distant from Swallowtail and Fritillary even though they went to school there. Our results suggest that this distance was not only geographical but also normative, providing these young people with a framework for making spatial separations on a wider scale.

Participants from the second group tended to draw boundaries that normalized middle-class neighborhoods and people. Simultaneously, they marginalized the lähiös and the people who lived there, whom they felt did not fit the norm of middle-class everyday life. In these spatial and social separations, lähiö regions were hierarchically positioned below middle-class neighborhoods based on the physical characteristics of the neighborhoods (e.g. the appearance of blocks of flats, littering, the dense urban structure), their population profile (socio-economic and ethnic), and based on social problems associated with neighborhood deprivation (e.g. substance abuse, crime, violence, unsafety).

In the following quote, Milo makes rather subtle distinctions between his own middle-class neighborhood and Fritillary:

Milo:

I think Fritillary seems like a really nice neighborhood. I’ll try to say this nicely, but I’m used to living in kind of a better neighborhood. (…) So, maybe I’m not used to Fritillary yet, because we don’t have many apartment buildings in my neighborhood. I think this seems nice but really, really different from home. (…) I would say, perhaps, that this seems a little bit poorer than my own neighborhood. (A boy from a middle-class and Finnish background family, living in a middle-class neighborhood)

Despite Milo’s subtle way of presenting the differences between the neighborhoods, his response reflected spatial hierarchies between Finnish lähiös and middle-class areas (see also Kemppainen 2017). These hierarchies were reflected in how Milo perceived his own neighborhood as ‘different’ and ‘better’ compared to Fritillary in terms of urban structure and socio-economic profile. However, young people also presented more direct ways of separating lähiös and middle-class neighborhoods, as shown in the following quote:

Sofia:

Swallowtail is a bit of a slum, and then (neighborhood between Swallowtail and middle-class areas) is a bit like Swallowtail but cleaned up. Then (middle-class region) is an even more cleaned up region. (…)

Fiona:

Well, I guess it depends on your family background where you actually live.

Interviewer:

Who do you think lives here, which you called a slum?

Sofia:

All those migrants and (…).

Hanna:

Those with lower paid jobs. (…) Because apartments are really cheap in this lähiö region. (…) Because it’s not a very nice place.

(Three girls from middle-class and Finnish background families, living in middle-class neighborhoods)

Sofia, Fiona, and Hanna perceived Swallowtail as a ‘slum’ with a poor, migrant background population and cheap housing which meant that Swallowtail was neither ‘clean’ nor ‘nice’ from their middle-class point of view. This revealed a clear hierarchical relationship between these neighborhoods among middle-class youth. The discussion also reflected both the ‘material dimensions’ and ‘racial dimensions’ of stigma (see Pinkster, Ferier, and Hoekstra 2020, 539).

Later in the interview girls express fear that the attributes they find undesirable in Swallowtail will be associated with their middle-class living environment and themselves:

Sofia:

Those (the blocks of flats in Swallowtail) look like boxes that have just had a quick splash of paint thrown on.

Fiona:

So, it seems like everyone here is like, really poor or something.

Hanna:

Yeah.

Sofia:

Yeah. If I tell people that I live near the neighborhood, they’re like, oh are you poor, do you live in a terrible slum or something? (…)

Fiona:

Usually, I prefer to say that I live in (middle-class neighborhood) even though nobody knows it (…) because, first of all, I’m from there, and secondly, I don’t want everyone to have the preconception that I’m something like, that I’m no good at school and I drink and stuff like that.

(Three girls from middle-class and Finnish background families, living in middle-class neighborhoods)

These girls were reluctant to mention that they lived near Swallowtail because the appearance of the apartment buildings gave outsiders the impression of poverty. This reluctance can be seen as an indication of their fear of stigma by association (Bos et al. 2013) related to material poverty. In the quote, Fiona felt the need to distinguish herself from young people living in Swallowtail, whom she associated with stereotypes such as drinking alcohol and doing badly at school. Fiona herself was actively involved in hobbies and was academically oriented at school. This example shows how the hierarchical relationship between neighborhoods can be reflected in the stigmatization of various domains of life, from school orientation to leisure activities.

The following quote gives another example of the intertwining of neighborhood hierarchies with school and leisure orientations that are considered normatively appropriate by middle-class youth:

Eva:

Swallowtail has the basic people, the normal ones [laugh], I shouldn’t say that … But then there’s that certain kind of … Based on this school and the mall, there are a lot of people who are hanging out around here.

Interviewer:

Why do you think they hang out there?

Mia:

It’s cool. It’s cool to smoke and drink energy drinks and get banned … 

Eva:

… from the mall [laugh].

Mia:

Yeah. (…) That’s what they do in their leisure time.

Eva:

And they’re not interested in doing well in school, so they just spend their time there.

(Two girls from middle-class families: Eva mixed heritage family and Mia Finnish background family, living in middle-class neighborhoods)

Eva and Mia were school-oriented, engaged in numerous leisure activities, and did not hang out in Swallowtail. Swallowtail was portrayed by Eva as a neighborhood with lots of people hanging out, whom she distinguished from ‘normal’ people. This normative social separation between residents of her own middle-class neighborhood and Swallowtail was reinforced later in the interview, when Eva stated that: ‘There are no such people (who hang out) on my street. (…) But then all those high-rise areas have lot of those people.’ Eva and Mia stigmatized the young people hanging out in the neighborhood, who, in their view, were also not school-oriented. These perceptions may have reflected their middle-class understanding of what kind of behavior in leisure time or at schools is normatively appropriate or stigmatized for young people.

Conclusion

Our participants from both Swallowtail and Fritillary schools were well aware of the public stigma of the lähiös where their schools were located. In Swallowtail, the stigmatized status was mainly thought to be the responsibility of intoxicated people hanging out in public places; in Fritillary, the young people blamed the stigmatization of the neighborhood on new problems of violence and crime that had recently appeared. It is noteworthy that in these lähiös, the stigmatized positions were attached to social disadvantages associated with social problems and neighborhood troubles. Certainly, there were signs of both ‘material dimensions’ and ‘racial dimensions’ of stigma in our results, as Pinkster, Ferier, and Hoekstra point out (2020, 539). However, the young people’s experiences suggested that the material dimension of stigmatization was given relatively more attention than the racial dimension. Nayak (2019, 927) states in the context of North-East England that stigmatization can exist in ‘seemingly “mundane” post-industrial peripheries’ with a predominantly white disadvantaged population. Thus, urban marginality can take different forms in different contexts (Wacquant 2008a, 1).

In our study, the first group of young people whose lives were tightly attached to these lähiö regions through home, school, and leisure activities reacted differently to stigma of these neighborhoods than young people from the second group, who went to school there but lived and spent most of their leisure time in middle-class areas. These different ways of reacting to stigma were intertwined with spatial and social inequalities.

The first difference – which also created inequalities between our participants – was that the first group struggled with neighborhood stigma more in their daily lives than the second group. Even though the young people living in these lähiös showed ways of challenging the stigma, there were also signs of self-stigmatization. Young people in the first group perceived that the social problems and troubles that they had experienced there were not only phenomena behind the stigmatization, but evidence that the outsiders’ negative views of their neighborhood were partly true. Their experiences of social problems in their living environment were intertwined with stigmatization and reflected in an ambivalent relationship with the neighborhood: feelings of local unsafety, avoidance of places, choices about where they wanted to spend their leisure time, how to move from place to place, and a desire to live somewhere else when they were adults. Thus, the internalization of stigma can further undermine the development of stigmatized neighborhoods (Meyer, Miggelbrink, and Schwarzenberg 2017).

The second difference between the two groups was that the first group tended to emphasize that neighborhood problems that were believed to be behind the stigmatization were limited to specific places and the people who hung out there. Meanwhile, the second group of participants often sought to detach themselves not just from a few places in Swallowtail and Fritillary, but from the entire stigmatized lähiö region and its residents. This reaction to stigma by association may be possible because their everyday realities were often geographically more distant from stigmatized lähiös even though they went to school there. The results also suggest that this distance was not only geographical but also normative, providing these young people with a framework for making spatial separations on a wider scale.

A third difference between the two groups of participants emerged from the different ways in which they used neighborhood normalization in their reactions to stigma. The first group used normalization to indicate neighborhood similarities and the second group to indicate neighborhood differences. The first group sought to normalize their neighborhood by comparing it to other lähiös and arguing that their neighborhood’s problems were very common. Meanwhile, the second group of participants tended to draw broad boundaries that normalized middle-class neighborhoods and their residents and marginalized the lähiös and the people there, whom they felt did not fit the norm of middle-class life. Furthermore, the hierarchical relationship between disadvantaged lähiö and middle-class neighborhoods was intertwined with school and leisure orientations that were considered normatively appropriate or stigmatized by middle-class participants. Some middle-class participants separated themselves socially in daily practices from young people living in the lähiö, whom they associated with stereotypes about not doing well in school, hanging out in the neighborhood, and drinking alcohol.

What is noteworthy is that differences in how these two groups of young people reacted to stigma can be tracked back to spatial and social inequalities. By this, we mean that the young people’s stigma reactions were linked to the general hierarchical relationships between disadvantaged lähiös and middle-class neighborhoods and the unequal financial resources of their parents, which influence where and how young people live and what leisure activities they can engage in. Thus, while young people may find ways to challenge the stigmatization of their living environment, this does not eliminate the social inequalities associated with territorial stigma, such as its intertwinement with urban segregation.

When interpreting the results of our study, we have critically reflected on how young people may feel the need to refute but also verify negative perceptions of their neighborhood that they assume an outsider, middle-class, white adult researcher would have. However, in the group interviews, the discussions between young people about spatial comparisons often took on a life of their own, leaving the interviewer in the background. Thus, we have also noted the common habit of young people to toy with stigmatizing language, and brag about their neighborhood’s notorious reputation (Kirkness 2014).

Our study brings new perspectives to the research on geographies of youth exclusion by showing that reactions to place stigma can produce boundary drawing and exclusion between young people whose domains of life are bound to a stigmatized place at different levels. In these ‘spatial boundaries’ and ‘purifications’ (see Sibley 1995, 72), the exclusion arose from whether they lived and spent time inside or outside the stigmatized neighborhood. Furthermore, our study contributes to the stigma of place research field by illustrating differences and inequalities in how young people react to territorial stigma in their everyday lives.

Finally, we would like to stress the importance of taking into account the everyday perspectives of young people in geographical research on spatial hierarchies. Minors are not immune to the stigmatization of places, as it can be an integral part of their daily lives and interactions, influence how they view, and distinguish hierarchically between neighborhoods and where they would like to settle with their potential children as adults. It is therefore worth emphasizing how relevant young people’s experiences can be for the future development of disadvantaged neighborhoods and how relevant it is that their experiences are brought more widely into the academic debate.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the five anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland [grant number 314735].

Notes

1 We use the Finnish term lähiö for high-rise suburban housing estates. Low socio-economic status lähiö neighborhoods are usually accompanied by additional descriptions such as problem, poor, or concrete lähiö. The word lähiö alone often has negative connotations. We use the term in Finnish to bring the discussion, term, and label into the international debate about stigmatized neighborhoods, as in France these neighborhoods are called ‘banlieue-ghetto’, in Italy ‘quartieri degradati’, in Germany ‘problemquartier’, in the UK ‘sink estates’ and in the Netherlands ‘krottenwijk’ (see Wacquant, Slater, and Pereira 2014).

2 These names are pseudonyms. Instead of choosing names that reinforce a negative perception of these neighborhoods, we describe these areas with pseudonyms of beautiful butterfly species.

3 Mixed heritage family = one parent with a Finnish background and the other with a migrant background.