(In)visibilizing Vulnerable Community Members: Processes of Urban Inclusion and Exclusion in Parkdale, Toronto

Abstract

The visibility and invisibility of vulnerable individuals or groups in public space have been extensively used as a conceptual tool to assess the “public” character of space. This article analyses the case study of the Parkdale neighborhood in Toronto demonstrating how public space is constructed in a path-dependent territorial process where different layers play a dynamic constitutive role: a material, a discursive, and a policy dimension. It argues that urban visibilization and invisibilization in public spaces extensively affect the dynamics of urban inclusion and exclusion, particularly when they are used in specific territorial stigmatization and destigmatization processes. The investigation enables to better understand the socio-spatial conditions comprising the “denial” and “recognition” of certain groups and individuals at the neighborhood level by understanding how local policies and community-based practices influence the complex dynamic of “seeing and being seen” in an urban environment.