Brotherhood of St Laurence lunchtime research seminar - Insights into neighbourhood stigma

Problems of neighbourhood stigma, where residents are stereotyped in unflattering, misleading and negative ways are frequently reported as a significant problem by residents living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Worryingly, tendencies to defame and discredit poor neighbourhoods are arguably heightening in post-industrial societies. In this presentation, I discuss residents’ accounts of experiences of place-based stigma, contemporary contexts for understanding why people and places are vulnerable to being stigmatised, the contribution of stigma to problems of social exclusion and the reproduction of socio-economic disadvantage, and strategies for challenging place-based stigma. Deborah Warr is a Senior Research Fellow at the McCaughey Centre in the School of Population Health at the University of Melbourne. She is a sociologist and her work explores the social determinants of health and spans theoretical, empirical and methodological issues. She has longstanding commitment to knowledge transfer and exchange activities that maximise the value of research for disenfranchised communities and populations, and expertise in participatory and collaborative methods. Her current research program comprises a range of projects exploring associations between neighbourhoods and health, problems of social inclusion and preventing social exclusion among socio-economically disadvantaged populations and people from migrant and refugee backgrounds and exploring the value and challenges of participatory methods for research.