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Respectability, Roughness and ‘Race’: Neighbourhood Place Images and the Making of Working‐Class Social Distinctions in London

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  • PAUL WATT

Abstract

Housing has come to play an important role in demarcating the contours of social polarization in inner London, notably via the widening socio‐spatial divide between an impoverished working class located in council housing estates and affluent home‐owning gentrifiers. In mass media and policy discourses, the former are routinely represented as an unruly urban ‘underclass’, a representation that homogenizes council tenants and marginalizes their voices. This article aims to move beyond a narrow underclass perspective by providing an in‐depth analysis of neighbourhood place images and social identity based on interviews with white working‐class council tenants in the inner London Borough of Camden. Drawing on debates around social distinction and place, the article illustrates a complex set of neighbourhood images rooted in narratives of urban decline as well as notions of belonging and knowing people. The article examines these place images in relation to the longstanding status distinction between respectability and roughness, as well as ‘race’. In conclusion, the defensive and exclusionary elements of neighbourhood images are related to processes of social deprivation and insecurity that have affected working‐class council tenants in Camden.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Watt, 2006. "Respectability, Roughness and ‘Race’: Neighbourhood Place Images and the Making of Working‐Class Social Distinctions in London," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 776-797, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:30:y:2006:i:4:p:776-797
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2006.00688.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Olechnowicz, Andrzej, 1997. "Working-Class Housing in England between the Wars: The Becontree Estate," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198206507.
    2. Andrew Sayer, 2002. "What are you Worth?: Why Class is an Embarrassing Subject," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 7(3), pages 19-35, August.
    3. Max Travers, 1999. "Qualitative Sociology and Social Class," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 4(1), pages 1-13, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ogas-Mendez, Alberto Federico & Isoda, Yuzuru, 2022. "Obstacles to urban redevelopment in squatter settlements: The role of the informal housing market," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    2. Fenne M. Pinkster, 2014. "“I Just Live Here†: Everyday Practices of Disaffiliation of Middle-class Households in Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(4), pages 810-826, March.
    3. Diane Frost & Gemma Catney, 2020. "Belonging and the intergenerational transmission of place identity: Reflections on a British inner-city neighbourhood," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(14), pages 2833-2849, November.
    4. Lynda Cheshire & Gina Zappia, 2016. "Destination dumping ground: The convergence of ‘unwanted’ populations in disadvantaged city areas," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(10), pages 2081-2098, August.
    5. Martina Byrne & Brid Ni Chonaill, 2014. "‘Ghettos of the Mind’: Realities and Myths in the Construction of the Social Identity of a Dublin Suburb," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 19(3), pages 15-29, September.
    6. Jenny Preece, 2020. "Belonging in working-class neighbourhoods: dis-identification, territorialisation and biographies of people and place," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(4), pages 827-843, March.
    7. Andrew Wallace, 2010. "New Neighbourhoods, New Citizens? Challenging ‘Community’ as a Framework for Social and Moral Regeneration under New Labour in the UK," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 805-819, December.
    8. Paul Watt, 2008. "The Only Class in Town? Gentrification and the Middle‐Class Colonization of the City and the Urban Imagination," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 206-211, March.
    9. Nathan Marom, 2014. "Relating a City's History and Geography with Bourdieu: One Hundred Years of Spatial Distinction in Tel Aviv," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1344-1362, July.
    10. Gareth Millington, 2012. "‘Man Dem Link Up’: London's Anti-Riots and Urban Modernism," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 17(4), pages 33-44, November.
    11. Gwen van Eijk, 2012. "Good Neighbours in Bad Neighbourhoods: Narratives of Dissociation and Practices of Neighbouring in a ‘Problem’ Place," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(14), pages 3009-3026, November.
    12. Loïc Wacquant, 2008. "Relocating Gentrification: The Working Class, Science and the State in Recent Urban Research," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 198-205, March.
    13. Peer Smets & Margarethe Kusenbach, 2020. "New Research on Housing and Territorial Stigma: Introduction to the Thematic Issue," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 1-7.
    14. Julia Verdouw & Kathleen Flanagan, 2019. "‘I call it the dark side’: Stigma, social capital and social networks in a disadvantaged neighbourhood," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(16), pages 3375-3393, December.
    15. Ayo Mansaray, 2018. "Complicity and contestation in the gentrifying urban primary school," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(14), pages 3076-3091, November.
    16. Elias Le Grand, 2015. "Linking Moralisation and Class Identity: The Role of Ressentiment and Respectability in the Social Reaction to ‘Chavs’," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 20(4), pages 18-32, November.
    17. Karen Lumsden, 2009. "‘Do We Look like Boy Racers?’ The Role of the Folk Devil in Contemporary Moral Panics," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, January.
    18. Joanne McKenzie, 2017. "‘The Person God Made Me to Be’: Navigating Working-Class and Christian Identities in English Evangelical Christianity," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 22(1), pages 213-225, February.

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