IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/socinc/v8y2020i1p66-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Trailer Trash” Stigma and Belonging in Florida Mobile Home Parks

Author

Listed:
  • Margarethe Kusenbach

    (Department of Sociology, University of South Florida, USA)

Abstract

In the United States, residents of mobile homes and mobile home communities are faced with cultural stigmatization regarding their places of living. While common, the “trailer trash” stigma, an example of both housing and neighborhood/territorial stigma, has been understudied in contemporary research. Through a range of discursive strategies, many subgroups within this larger population manage to successfully distance themselves from the stigma and thereby render it inconsequential (Kusenbach, 2009). But what about those residents—typically white, poor, and occasionally lacking in stability—who do not have the necessary resources to accomplish this? This article examines three typical responses by low-income mobile home residents—here called resisting, downplaying, and perpetuating—leading to different outcomes regarding residents’ sense of community belonging. The article is based on the analysis of over 150 qualitative interviews with mobile home park residents conducted in West Central Florida between 2005 and 2010.

Suggested Citation

  • Margarethe Kusenbach, 2020. "“Trailer Trash” Stigma and Belonging in Florida Mobile Home Parks," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 66-75.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v8:y:2020:i:1:p:66-75
    DOI: 10.17645/si.v8i1.2391
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/2391
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/si.v8i1.2391?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bige Saatcioglu & Julie L. Ozanne, 2013. "Moral Habitus and Status Negotiation in a Marginalized Working-Class Neighborhood," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 40(4), pages 692-710.
    2. Mervyn Horgan, 2018. "Territorial Stigmatization and Territorial Destigmatization: A Cultural Sociology of Symbolic Strategy in the Gentrification of Parkdale (Toronto)," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 500-516, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Margarethe Kusenbach, 2020. "“Trailer Trash” Stigma and Belonging in Florida Mobile Home Parks," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 66-75.
    2. Ronald Paul Hill, 2020. "Freedom of the Will and Consumption Restrictions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 164(2), pages 311-324, June.
    3. Downs, Carolyn, 2015. "Selling hope: Gambling entrepreneurs in Britain 1906–1960," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2207-2213.
    4. Castilhos, Rodrigo B. & Fonseca, Marcelo J., 2016. "Pursuing upward transformation: The construction of a progressing self among dominated consumers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 6-17.
    5. 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.
    6. Mark Buschgens & Bernardo Figueiredo & Kaleel Rahman, 2020. "How brand owners construct imagined worlds with brand visual aesthetics," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(3), pages 266-283, May.
    7. Troels Schultz Larsen & Kristian Nagel Delica, 2021. "Territorial Destigmatization In An Era Of Policy Schizophrenia," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 423-441, May.
    8. Yan Vieites & Rafael Goldszmidt & Eduardo B Andrade, 2022. "Social Class Shapes Donation Allocation Preferences [Similarity and Empathy: The Experience of Rape]," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 48(5), pages 775-795.
    9. Solène Le Borgne, 2023. "RE‐SCALING TERRITORIAL STIGMATIZATION: The Construction and Negotiation of ‘Declining Medium‐Sized Cities’ as a Stigmatizing Imaginary in France," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(6), pages 975-994, November.
    10. Cheryl Nakata & Elif Izberk-Bilgin & Lisa Sharp & Jelena Spanjol & Anna Shaojie Cui & Stephanie Y. Crawford & Yazhen Xiao, 2019. "Chronic illness medication compliance: a liminal and contextual consumer journey," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 192-215, March.
    11. Andrew Bryant & Ronald Paul Hill, 2019. "Poverty, consumption, and counterintuitive behavior," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 233-243, December.
    12. Fleura Bardhi & Giana M. Eckhardt, 2017. "Liquid Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(3), pages 582-597.
    13. Mervyn Horgan, 2020. "Housing Stigmatization: A General Theory," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 8-19.
    14. Srinivas Venugopal, 2021. "Envisioning a community‐centric approach to impact assessments in subsistence marketplaces," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 118-133, March.
    15. Aboelenien, Aya & Arsel, Zeynep, 2024. "The shaping of marketplace moral sentiments," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    16. Sophie Duncan‐Shepherd & Kathy Hamilton, 2022. "“Generally, I live a lie”: Transgender consumer experiences and responses to symbolic violence," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 1597-1616, December.
    17. Mervyn Horgan, 2020. "Housing Stigmatization: A General Theory," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 8-19.
    18. Martina Hutton & Canan Corus & Joshua Dorsey & Elizabeth Minton & Caroline Roux & Christopher P. Blocker & Jonathan Z. Zhang, 2022. "Getting real about consumer poverty: Deep processes for transformative action," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 1332-1355, September.
    19. Cheng Liu & Yu Deng & Weixuan Song & Qiyan Wu & Jian Gong, 2021. "Differentiation under capitalism: Genesis and consequences of the rent gap," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(7), pages 1770-1788, October.
    20. Richard Kirk, 2024. "Legitimising displacement: Academic discourse, territorial stigmatisation and gentrification," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(13), pages 2492-2512, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v8:y:2020:i:1:p:66-75. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.