What does it mean when people call a place a shithole? Understanding a discourse of denigration in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland

Bibliographic Data

ID8962212
AuthorsAlice Butler‐warke (0000-0002-7205-9832, School of Geography University of Leeds Leeds UK, corresponding author), Alex Schafran (0000-0003-1990-925X, School of Geography University of Leeds Leeds UK), Georgina Carpenter (School of Geography University of Leeds Leeds UK)
Year2018
Volume43
Issue3
Pages496-510
Publication date2018-04-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/tran.12247
OpenAlexW2794832318
LanguageEN
Citations received29
References cited39

This paper investigates what people mean when they engage in the discourse of denigration. Building on existing literature on territorial stigmatisation that either focuses on macro‐scale uses and effects of territorial stigmatisation or micro‐scale ethnographic studies of effects, we develop a novel approach that captures the diverse voices that engage in the discourse of denigration by tracing the use of the word and hashtag “shithole” on the social media platform Twitter in order to examine who is engaged in the stigmatising discourse, the types of place that are stigmatised and the responses to stigmatised places. Using a robust data set, we highlight two key findings. First, the majority of tweets were aimed at places where the tweeter was not from, a form of othering consistent with how territories are stigmatised by those in positions of power such as policymakers, politicians and journalists. Second, we note that an important and gendered minority of tweets can be characterised by a “cry for help” and powerlessness, where the stigma is aimed at their own places. We offer an interpretive lens through which to understand and frame these minoritarian voices by engaging with theories of abjection that allow us to see how minoritarian voices relate to place

Ethnography · Media studies · Political science · Power (physics · Sociology · Stigma (botany · Gender Studies · Homelessness and Social Issues · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology