“Council has done f** all to renovate this f*****g s**t tip”: A critical analysis of Wacquant’s ‘territorial stigmatisation’ on housing conditions in Gleadless Valley, Sheffield

Abstract

This paper by Lucy Broomfield critically analyses Loïc Wacquant’s influential concept of ‘territorial stigmatisation’ in relation to housing conditions on the Gleadless Valley estate in Sheffield, United Kingdom. Gleadless Valley, a post-war council estate, has been heavily stigmatised by media sources as ‘a ghetto, one of the worst areas in Sheffield’, and in 2016 it was the area with the most vacant council houses in Sheffield (Sheffield Star, 2008; Hobson, 2016). Like many post-war estates, it is now due for regeneration under the ‘Gleadless Valley Masterplan’, produced to reverse years of disinvestment and maintenance issues with the housing stock (URBED, 2018). This paper analyses academic and local government research and uses autoethnography, drawing on Lucy’s personal experiences of visiting Gleadless Valley frequently over five years, to argue that improving housing conditions is more important than resident concerns over stigmatisation. In doing so, it criticises Wacquant for neglecting housing within the debate on territorial stigmatisation. The paper begins by defining territorial stigmatisation and reviewing the literature on territorial stigmatisation and council estates. It then introduces Gleadless Valley and summarises perceptions of the estate from ‘outsiders’ and residents themselves. The last section focuses on housing conditions and synthesises evidence to recommend future academic research on territorial stigmatisation.