The Inner City and Gated Communities, Research Paper Example

The Inner City and Gated Communities: The Process of Othering, Stigmatization and the Social Construct

In the thinking of societal formations, the process of Othering affects two distinct groups: firstly, the group that projects this Otherness, and secondly, the recipient of the Othering process itself. That is to say, Othering relies on a “systematic construction of Otherness” (Koptiuch, p. 88), which essentially entails both the stigmatization of a particular group and the positive affirmation of the identity of the stigmatizing group. The stigmatized is defined as an Other according to the difference they evoke vis-à-vis the dominant group: this difference is inevitably a negative difference, as the Other is precisely that which the main group is not. In the respective articles by Kristin Koptiuch and and Setha M. Low, the authors explore how this process of Othering can be viewed as occurring in urban formations such as inner cities and gated communities. In the case of the inner city, such Othering recalls a certain form of segregation: the Other occupies a distinct territorial place within the city that is governed by imposed normativities. While the city in general is the site of a shared community, such distinct locations as the inner city clearly reflect the boundary lines that Othering produces. The case of gated communities suggests an urban formation that is structured according to the desire of the dominant group to separate itself from the Other. In other words, this is an autonomous attempt to draw a clear boundary line between an imaginary “us” and “them.” In the following essay, we will examine how each author presents this notion of Othering in relation to their respective analyses of place and location. Subsequently, we are to look for comparisons and contrasts between the inner city and the gated community’s “systematic construction” of such Othering. Lastly, we will examine how such accounts relate to the idea that Othering can be reflected in a city place, and why such a process of Othering is so prominent in particular societies.

In the article “Third-Worlding at Home”, Kristin Koptiuch develops the notion that the third world does not designate a specific geographical location on the map. Rather, such a third world may be present within a myriad of locations, which implies that the third world is primarily an epistemological concept, a particular way in which the “world” is divided into places according to particular social constructs: Hence, for Koptiuch, third worlds are possible within the so-called first world. As evidence of this claim, Koptiuch considers the apparent segregation in the United States between white suburbs and inner cities, the latter largely constituted by non-white minorities. As Koptiuch writes, there are “growing similarities between [inner cities] and people in countries conventionally associated with the ‘third world’” (p. 89) similarities that are evident in various statistical data, such as infant morality rates, life span, and education. (Koptiuch, p. 89) The relevance of such statistical evidence is that it presents an immediate paradox: how is it possible for a first world country to possess a remarkable symmetry with a third world country? If the first world is economically and socially differentiated from the third world, the possibility of a third world existing within the first world would suggest that the logic behind such a phenomenon is related to a particular social construct that is operative in the general society.  Such a social construct, therefore, manifests itself in the above statistical data; it manifests itself in the existence of the inner city itself. Of importance for Koptiuch is the idea that the inner city is the result of “the interplay of repression and spatial reconfiguration”, (p. 89) or in other words, the very fact that populations live in different areas is evidence of the presence of such a social construct. These boundary lines are not only reflected in the aforementioned statistics, but are enforced and maintained by economic disparity and capitalist advertising that targets specific minority groups: “Previously excluded from dominant consumer commodity circuits, the black or Latino subaltern body is increasingly recast as a culturally-relativized Other targeted for colonization by new transnational commercial empires.” (Koptiuch, p. 92) Therefore, the empty rhetoric of appealing to a specific consumer group is re-thought by Koptiuch as symptomatic of a new form of colonialization and segregation: that the inner city center essentially exists as its own urban and social formation within a greater society demonstrates that it is the creation of a dominant social construct. Accordingly, the minorities that inhabit the inner city space are not part of the greater social formation, but are rather Others, who are stigmatized and thought as different to the majority. Such a process is evidence for Koptiuch that “the third world is structurally reconstituted within the first.”  (p. 94) The inner city thus demarcates a location in which such colonialism, Otherness and stigmatization become profoundly visible according to its difference to other urban formations and dwelling places.

The focus of Setha M. Low’s analysis is gated communities, communities founded by the imperative to distance themselves from the Other. Such gated communities employ the notion of location and dwelling spaces to draw a clear line of demarcation between them and the Other. For Low, thinking the gated community amounts to a “spatial analysis”, in which urban formations are the result of an underlying ideology that is perpetuated by a particular social construct. The movement towards such gated communities, according to Low, is indicative of “how this landscape is legitimated by a discourse of fear of crime and violence”, which subsequently allows one “to uncover how this design form is materially and rhetorically created.” (p. 47) Thus, the surface logic for such gated communities – the desire to be separated from the dangerous Other – are merely reflections of the process of Othering itself. They do not speak to a real danger, but rather to both the stigmatization of the Other and the positive affirmation of the identity of the gated community.  For Low, such “residential narratives” (p. 45) that explain the reasons for such gated communities are really legitimatizations of a “socially constructed discourse about class exclusion and racial/ethnic/cultural bias.” (p. 45) In other words, such gated communities and the logic behind them are in reality means by which society can both justify and perpetuate the various divisions that are inherent to it. As the author mentions, the separation of the gated community is the result of initial prejudices concerning race and class. Moreover, such separations are further propagated by the media, as the media projects a particular image of the Other, in a process of stigmatization that creates fear and the imagined need for gated communities. Low writes that, “the psychological lure of defended space becomes more enticing with increased media coverage and national hysteria about urban crime.” (p. 47) The need for a “defended space” is viewed as a media fabrication, insofar as Low cites statistics that indicate that in the U.S. there has been an overall decrease in crime, while the number of gated communities is on the rise. (p. 47) The author, using field research methodology based largely on interviews, nevertheless uncovers that the main reason residents give for living in such gated communities continues to be the fear of criminality. In the words of one of the subjects of Low’s interviews: “To have a gate and there’s only one entrance to the property…I think that makes for possibly less robberies.” (Low, p. 53)  Such a fear of crime despite an apparent decline in crime can therefore only indicate the presence of a continued stigmatization of the Other: it is the perpetuation of this societal difference that underlies the false desire for such gated communities.  Although the Other, as mentioned, can take various forms – such as racial, class, and cultural – the Other nonetheless is always stigmatized and thus excluded; at the same time, such stigmatization creates the proactive decision to create physical boundaries, such as the gated communities, which affirm the living space of the majority as separate from the Other.

At first glance, Low’s account of gated communities appears to be at odds with Koptiuch’s thesis: if minorities are already segregated within the third world of the inner city, why is it necessary for such gated communities to subsequently distance themselves through the creation of their own living spaces? What at first glance is a paradox is in reality a clear symptom of the process of Othering. The structure of this discourse of Othering operates both ways: the particular living conditions of the Other as stigmatized is only one part of Othering; a part of this process is also the positive affirmation of the not-Other. The process of Othering and stigmatization therefore does not only affect the stigmatized group, it also defines the group that is not stigmatized or not-Other. When read together, the two articles therefore present a comprehensive picture of the process of Othering itself. The process is essentially a movement that operates according to two axes of separation, which distance one group from the other. It can be said that in this process what is opened is a third space that is a non-space, the non-space between the inner city and the gated community: the very existence of this non-space, of this boundary between the two is demonstrative of the effectivity of a social construct that perpetuates such differences.

Nevertheless, one of the most pertinent remaining questions from both articles is the following: what is the object of such Othering and stigmatization? For example, Low’s article discusses a discourse of fear; however, what is the reason for such a discourse of fear? What is the strategy and the aim of such a discourse promoted by, for example, the media? Both articles suggest, perhaps in an implicit manner, that the logic for such social constructs and their perpetuation suggests that the particular American societal formation needs such differences. This need arises because of a certain economic class and social logic that thrives on exclusion and differentiating between classes, thus creating separate communities that are conducive to such a form of imperialism. That is, Othering and stigmatization can have economic benefits for a society arranged in such an exploitative manner, for example, by creating a poor working class that, as Low mentions, work within the gated community. Furthermore, the industry of the gated community itself is a product of such social fears: such an industry is only possible through the stigmatization inherent to the Othering process. In Koptiuch’s article, the author mentions the specific advertising that is present in the inner city, an advertising clearly targeting various minority groups. In essence, both authors imply that such separation reflected in living space is essentially good for business, creating both an underclass whose labor power can be used and a more diverse consumer base that can be readily fit into pre-determined niche markets. Thus, the process of Othering, from a meta-perspective, engenders a more heterogeneous stratification of society that is essentially consistent with a colonial and imperial form of capitalism.

The precise thinking of space and dwelling in terms of urban forms such as the inner city and the gated community demonstrates the ubiquity of social constructs and ideology in the formation of societal life. Such an investigation into “spatial analysis” therefore becomes a value empirical and theoretical tool for thinking the constitution of a particular society, allowing for the identification of the underlying logic of such society, be it capitalist, imperialist, colonialist, etc., Simultaneously, the very presence of division in living space reflects how the specific processes of Othering and stigmatization contribute to such a logic, through the delineation of boundaries.

Works Cited

Koptiuch, Kristin. “Third-Worlding at Home.” In Social Text, No. 28, 1991, pp. 87-89.

Low, Setha M. “The Edge and the Center: Gated Communities and the Discourse of

Urban Fear.” In American Anthropology, Vol. 103, No. 1, March, 2001, pp. 45-58.