A Place Outside Danish Society. Territorial Stigmatisation and Extraordinary Policy Measures in the Danish ‘Ghetto’

Abstract: In November 2018, the Danish government passed a bill that introduced the category ‘severe ghetto’ to the law on non-profit housing. Moreover, the bill prescribes extraordinary policy measures in the targeted areas in order to encourage urban regeneration. The non-profit housing associations in ‘severe ghettos’ are forced to reduce the share of non-profit housing stock to 40% through relabelling, demolition and sale of buildings. The area-based measures are extraordinary and overwrite the tenant’s collective property right in the name of dissolving the ‘severe ghetto’. This thesis critically examines the spatial production of the ‘ghetto’ and the ‘severe ghetto’ and its impact on everyday life practices in the targeted areas through a theoretical framework of territorial stigmatisation and the production of space. The thesis shows that the spatial representation of the ‘ghetto’ within a formal discursive practise, and the early institutionalisation of its limits, have continuously provided a strong framework for the development of a hegemonic ‘ghetto’ discourse. The ‘ghetto’ discourse has allowed the ‘severe ghetto’ to be articulated as a space of emergency, necessity and exception. The analysis of everyday life in the targeted areas illustrates that the inhabitant’s experience of the ‘ghetto’ discourse is embedded in societal power structures and that inhabitants actively seek to negotiate the representation of the ‘ghetto’ through spatial and non-spatial practices.