IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v37y2019i3p480-497.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Creating active citizens? Emotional geographies of citizenship in a diverse and deprived neighbourhood

Author

Listed:
  • Myrte Sophie Hoekstra

Abstract

National and local governments in Western Europe formulate normative notions of active citizenship to regulate the attitudes and behaviours of their subjects. Focusing in particular on diverse and deprived urban neighbourhoods, local interventions target residents’ presumed lack of attachment to the neighbourhood and their alienation from ‘mainstream’ white middle-class society. This paper argues that – contrary to policy assumptions – residents are emotionally attached to and engaged with their neighbourhood. However, their everyday practices of citizenship fall short of the standards prescribed by policy-makers. These two perspectives intersect and clash in the local neighbourhood centre. Staff members of this semi-governmental intervention mediate different citizenship conceptions by creating personal relations with participants while simultaneously reinforcing dominant norms. The findings highlight the messy and ambiguous reality of neighbourhood governance and underscore that local understandings of citizenship can simultaneously work with and against policy frameworks.

Suggested Citation

  • Myrte Sophie Hoekstra, 2019. "Creating active citizens? Emotional geographies of citizenship in a diverse and deprived neighbourhood," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(3), pages 480-497, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:37:y:2019:i:3:p:480-497
    DOI: 10.1177/2399654418789408
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2399654418789408
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2399654418789408?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. Justus Uitermark, 2014. "Integration and Control: The Governing of Urban Marginality in Western Europe," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1418-1436, July.
    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. Bipashyee Ghosh & Saurabh Arora, 2022. "Smart as (un)democratic? The making of a smart city imaginary in Kolkata, India," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 40(1), pages 318-339, February.

    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. Sylvana Jahre, 2021. "Postmigrant Spatial Justice? The Case of ‘Berlin Develops New Neighbourhoods’ (BENN)," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(2), pages 80-90.
    2. Giada Casarin & Julie MacLeavy & David Manley, 2023. "Rethinking urban utopianism: The fallacy of social mix in the 15-minute city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(16), pages 3167-3186, December.
    3. Kim Knipprath, 2024. "Inclusive Neoliberalism in Wilhelmsburg: The Role of the State and the Middle‐Class in Hamburg's Majority–Minority District," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 12.
    4. Wouter van Gent & Cody Hochstenbach & Justus Uitermark, 2018. "Exclusion as urban policy: The Dutch ‘Act on Extraordinary Measures for Urban Problems’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(11), pages 2337-2353, August.
    5. Dereje Regasa & Ameyu Godesso & Ine Lietaert, 2023. "LIVING ON THE MARGINS: The Socio‐spatial Representation of Urban Internally Displaced Persons in Ethiopia," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 369-385, May.
    6. Justus Uitermark, 2015. "Longing for Wikitopia: The study and politics of self-organisation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(13), pages 2301-2312, 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:sae:envirc:v:37:y:2019:i:3:p:480-497. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.