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State-led stigmatisation of place and the politics of the exception

Author

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  • Sara Høier Olsen
  • Henrik Gutzon Larsen

Abstract

Ghetto area’ has become an official categorisation in Danish housing policy. This article investigates how this stigmatising spatialisation of politics and policy has emerged through evolving storylines for particular housing estates, which gradually have come to structure political debate and become institutionalised in official policy. While political actors can draw on different storylines, it is argued that a range of storylines and associated quantifiable criteria combine to produce a generic ‘ghetto place’ in Danish politics. This scale-framing and objectification have enabled a politics of the exception, making it possible to apply extraordinary measures to particular places. This has significant effects for inhabitants in these places and the cities in which they are located, and it is proposed that, in the longer term, the politics of the exception could also become a battering ram against the collectively owned non-profit housing sector in Denmark.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Høier Olsen & Henrik Gutzon Larsen, 2023. "State-led stigmatisation of place and the politics of the exception," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(1), pages 148-164, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:41:y:2023:i:1:p:148-164
    DOI: 10.1177/23996544221119387
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Luise Noring & David Struthers & Adam Grydehøj, 2022. "Governing and financing affordable housing at the intersection of the market and the state: Denmark’s private non-profit housing system," Urban Research & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 258-274, March.
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    3. Brett Christophers, 2022. "Mind the rent gap: Blackstone, housing investment and the reordering of urban rent surfaces," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(4), pages 698-716, March.
    4. Alistair Sisson, 2021. "DENIGRATING BY NUMBERS: Quantification, Statistics and Territorial Stigma," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 407-422, May.
    5. Joe Painter, 2013. "Regional Biopolitics," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(8), pages 1235-1248, September.
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