This paper draws on a multidisciplinary study of state policy, housing provision, and the social question in Porto, Portugal, over the past half century, combining ethnography, in-depth interviews, and a survey of local families. It examines the trajectory of one of the city's largest and most notorious public housing estates to map out how transformations in its social composition and in the mix of state action have affected how residents deal with the disparaging public image attached to their place of residence. Against analytical simplification, we spotlight responses to territorial stigmatization that muddle the ‘exit–voice’ or ‘conformity–rejection’ dichotomies and reveal the social parameters that determine the symbolic boundaries, sociability patterns, and daily face-to-face interactions found in this housing estate. Strategies of ‘subsistence sociability’ and ‘focused avoidance’ have enabled local families to cope with the spatial taint hovering over their bairro while avoiding both the high costs of exit and the uncertain investment in collective action.
BourdieuP, 1984Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
4.
BourdieuP, 1998Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action (Stanford University of Press, Stanford, CA)
5.
BourdieuP, 1999, “Site effects”, in The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society Ed. BourdieuP, (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA) pp 123–129
BourdieuPWacquantL, 1992An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Polity Press, Cambridge)
8.
BurawoyM, 2009The Extended Case Method (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
9.
ChenuA, 2005Sociologie des employés (La Découverte, Paris)
10.
DamerS, 1989From Moorepark to ‘Wine Alley’: The Rise and Fall of a Glasgow Housing Scheme (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh)
11.
EliasNDunningE, 1986Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process (Basil Blackwell, Oxford)
12.
FernandesL, 1998O Sítio das Drogas (Editorial Notícias, Lisbon)
13.
GuerraP, 2002, “O Bairro do Cerco do Porto: Cenário de pertenças, de afectividades e de simbologias”Sociologia—Revista da Faculdade de Letras do Porto12125–159
14.
HastingsA, 2004, “Stigma and social housing estates: Beyond pathological explanations”Journal of Housing and the Built Environment19233–254
15.
HirschmanA, 1970Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
16.
HirschmanA, 1978, “Exit, voice, and the state”World Politics31(1) 90–107
17.
KatzM B, 1990The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare (Pantheon Books, New York)
18.
KirknessP, 2014, “The cités strike back: Challenging territorial taint in the French banlieues“Environment and Planning A46 … –…
19.
KraseJ, 1977, “Reactions to the stigmata of inner city living”Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare7997–1011
20.
Le RouxBRouanetH, 2010Multiple Correspondence Analysis (Sage, London)
21.
MacLeodG, 2002, “From urban entrepreneurialism to a ‘revanchist city’? On the spatial injustices of Glasgow's renaissance”Antipode34602–624
22.
MascletO, 2003La Gauche et les cités, enquête sur un rendez-vous manqué (La Dispute, Paris)
23.
MischiJRenahyN, 2007, “Classe ouvrière”Dictionnaire de sociologie (Encyclopaedia Universalis/Albin Michel, Paris)
24.
PaugamS, 1991La Disqualification Sociale. Essai sur la nouvelle pauvreté (PUF, Paris)
25.
PereiraV B, 2005Classes e Culturas de Classe das Famílias Portuenses. Classes sociais e modalidades de estilização da vida na cidade do Porto (Edições Afrontamento, Porto)
26.
PereiraV BQueirósJ, 2009, “Estado, Alojamento e a ‘Questão Social’: Elementos para a compreensão sociológica da formação da respectiva relação no Porto contemporâneo”, in Argumentos de Razón Técnica. Revista Española de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad, y Filosofía de la Tecnología, 2 (Serie Especial) (Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla) pp 113–128
27.
PereiraV BQueirósJ, 2012a, “State, housing and the ‘social question’ in the city of Porto (1956–2006): An analysis on the making of doxa, orthodoxy and ‘alodoxia effects’ in the (re)production of state housing policies”Social Sciences—Annual Trilingual Review of Social Research1203–214
28.
PereiraV BQueirósJ, 2012bNa Modesta Cidadezinha. Génese e estruturação de um bairro de casas económicas do Porto (Amial, 1938–2010) (Edições Afrontamento, Porto)
29.
PermentierMvan HanMBoltG, 2007, “Behavioural responses to neighbourhood reputations”Journal of Housing and the Built Environment22199–213
30.
PintoT C, 1994, “A apropriação do espaço em bairros sociais: O gosto pela casa e o desgosto pelo bairro”Sociedade e Território2036–50
SchwartzO, 1990Le Monde privé des ouvriers (PUF, Paris)
33.
SlaterT, 2013, “Your life chances affect where you live: A critique of the ‘cottage industry’ of neighbourhood effects research”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research37367–387
34.
SmallM L, 2009, “‘How many cases do I need?’ On science and the logic of case selection in field-based research”Ethnography10(1) 5–38
35.
SmithN, 1996The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (Routledge, New York)
36.
StébéJ-M, 2007Le Logement social en France (PUF, Paris)
37.
UitermarkJDuyvendakJ W, 2008, “Civilising the city: Populism and revanchist urbanism in Rotterdam”Urban Studies451485–1503
38.
WacquantL, 1993, “Urban outcasts: Stigma and division in the black American ghetto and the French periphery”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research17366–383
39.
WacquantL, 2008Urban Outcasts. A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality (Polity Press, Cambridge)
40.
WacquantL, 2010, “Urban desolation and symbolic denigration in the hyperghetto”Social Psychology Quarterly73215–219
41.
WacquantL, 2011, “Territorial stigmatization revisited: Symbols, space and state”, conference paper delivered at the 2011 Network for the Study of Advanced Urban Marginality Meeting, 22 June, Porto
42.
WacquantL, 2013, “Symbolic power and group-making: On Bourdieu's reframing of class”Journal of Classical Sociology13274–291
43.
WacquantLSlaterTPereiraV B, 2014, “Territorial stigmatization in action”Environment and Planning A461270–1280
