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Hi everyone, Final call for papers for a session entitled 'Place and Stigma: Coping, resistance and belonging(s)' If you'd like to present in this session, send me an email with your abstract and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Best, Paul Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting (New York City, 24-28 February 2012) Territorial stigmatization has undeniable, long-lasting and dramatic consequences. Stigmatizing representations of a place lead to persistent and pernicious 'post code' discrimination. Research shows that stigmatization allows for a furthering of boundary maintenance between 'core' neighbourhoods and those perceived as inhabiting the 'peripheral'. Much of the literature points towards the enormous costs that negative representations of a place can impose on a neighborhood in terms of social cohesion. The desire to rid oneself of the stigma of place has been said to lead residents to escape whenever they have the chance to. When they exit these 'peripheral' places - depicted as slums, favelas, ghettos, banlieues or any other of the numerous stigma-labels which affix themselves to place - and travel into the 'core', inhabitants carry the burden outside the artificial boundary of their neighborhood and come under suspicion. In a number of cases, the neighborhood effects associated with territorial stigmatization layer themselves onto pre-existing 'marks of stigma' - ethnicity, race, unemployment, religious beliefs, and so on. Notwithstanding, an increasing body of research has oriented itself towards understanding the often profound attachments that residents have to stigmatized spaces. It shows that even in the face of powerful stigmatic imagery, residents cope with, challenge and resist negative representations of their home neighborhoods and attempt to displace the language of stigma. The session invites papers that critically engage with the processes that are at work in territorial stigmatization. It seeks to give voice to the counter-hegemonic tactics that are enacted by residents in order to cope (and resist?) the enduring negative imagery of their home spaces. Methodological papers that address the potential issues involved in the study of territorial stigmatization will be welcomed. This session invites papers that address (but are not restricted to) the following topics: -The management of 'neighborhood effects' by residents of stigmatized places. -The possibilities of resistance to territorial stigmatization and the question of who does the resisting. -Territorial stigmatization and the fear of contagion vs. potential pride in being 'contagious'. -How belonging both within and outwith 'peripheral' neighborhoods is enacted and understood by inhabitants. -Reflections on who has access to voicing resistance and who is kept silent. -Ethical issues involved in the study of territorial stigmatization. -- Paul Kirkness _________________________________ The University Of Edinburgh, Room 1.09 (Benbecula Suite), Institute of Geography, Drummond Street, Edinburgh EH8 9XP Mobile: +44 (0) 7595 754 850 Phone: +44 (0) 131 650 8106 -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.