‘The whole of Shirebrook got put on an ASBO’: The co-production of territorial stigma in a former colliery town

Abstract

This paper draws on data collected from a multimethod ethnographic study to contribute to debates on the production of territorial stigmatisation through the analysis of Shirebrook, UK: a small post-industrial mining town in Derbyshire, which now houses the distribution centre and warehouse of Sports Direct, recently the subject of high-profile scrutiny in the UK over working conditions. Combining semi-structured interviews, participant observation and the analysis of documentary sources, I argue that the territorial stigmatisation of Shirebrook does not emanate from a single source. Rather, multiple institutions and agents converge in the co-production of stigma. The analysis draws attention to local antagonisms and hierarchies in the production of stigma, demonstrating how relatively powerful actors ‘below’ do not simply resist or deflect stigma onto less powerful others, but influence the way that territorial stigma operates, problematising Wacquant's top-down conceptualisation.