ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how the territorial stigma affects the residents and how they manage their social situation and position. The shared principles of vision and division of the neighbourhood are very general and might characterise many other neighbourhoods and the symbolic boundaries of the country as such. However, at the same time, they are inseparable from the history of the North West. Even though they express sentiments of appreciation, the residents widely confirm the blemish of their place as their symbolic boundaries and constructions of belonging intimately intertwine with the neighbourhood stigma and their social position. To understand the impact of the territorial stigma, the chapter analyses how it intersects with other forms of stigma related to the social position and situation of the individual resident. While there is no doubt that the territorial stigma affects the residents, it is also clear that the middle-class residents more easily manage the impact of this stigma in itself, whereas residents who embody one or more of the stigmas identified as the source of the neighbourhood’s troubles experience the effect of multiplying social discredit.
