The Dictionary of Human Geography

Comp. by: VPugazhenthi Stage : Revises1 ChapterID: 9781405132879_4_S Date:1/4/
09 Time:15:23:36 Filepath:H:/00_Blackwell/00_3B2/Gregory-9781405132879/appln/3B2/
revises/9781405132879_4_S.3d

the flag of ahumanistic geographyand inter-

ested inphenomenology,symbolic interac-

tionismand the constitution of meanings in

the conduct ofeveryday life. The influence

of the sociology of scientific knowledge came

to the discipline much later, by which time it

was typically associated withpostmodernism

andpost-structuralism. The latter in par-

ticular introduced the concepts ofdiscourse

andperformativity, which directed attention

to the constitutive, ‘world-making’ effects

of the nexus of power, knowledge and prac-

tice. In this spirit, human geographers have

explored constructions of the economy

(Barnes, 2005),gender(Pratt, 2004),nature

(Castree and Braun, 2001) andsexuality

(Brown, 2000), to name but a few. tb

Suggested reading

Hacking (1999).

social exclusion A situation in which certain

members of asocietyare separated from

much that comprises the normal ‘round’ of

living and working within that society. The

concept is chiefly envisaged in social terms,

identifying particular groupings that become

excluded, but it is also recognized that the

multiple factors involved in creating social

exclusion may combine spatially to produce

distinctive places of disadvantage and discrim-

ination (Gough, Eisenschitz and McCulloch,

2005). Indeed, excluded groupings tend to be

found outside those spaces comprising the loci

of ‘mainstream’ social life (e.g. middle-class

suburbs, up-market shopping malls, prime

public space), congregating elsewhere as the

residents of spaces largely hidden from the

view of academics, politicians and policy-

makers (e.g. working-class estates, homeless

shelters, anonymous back streets).

The term ‘social exclusion’ has been popu-

larized in policy-making acrosseurope, if less

so North America, and has particularly fea-

tured in the social policies of recent UK gov-

ernments. The definition favoured in the UK

is broadly thus: ‘the outcome of processes and/

or factors which bar access to participation in

civil society’ (Eisenstadt and Witcher, 1998,

p. 6). As a concept, social exclusion ‘does not

simply describe the static condition of ‘‘pov-

erty’’ or ‘‘deprivation’’, but emphasises the

processesby which aspects of social marginal-

isation are intensified over time’ (Amin,

Cameron and Hudson, 2002, p. 17), and it

also embraces a diversity of economic, polit-

ical, social and cultural dimensions. While

some are sceptical, others see social exclusion

as an advance over notions such as the ‘under-

class’, originating in the USA, that effectively

blame people for irresponsible lifestyles

bringing their marginalized status upon

themselves.

‘[T]he debate on the causes and locations of

social exclusion, as well as proposed solutions,

has become cast in terms of geographically-

defined communities’, but there are snares in

this ‘new hegemony of the social as local’ aris-

ing from a neglect of broader structural forces,

whose malign impact on neighbourhoods is

unlikely to be reversed by local initiatives

alone (Amin, Cameron and Hudson, 2002,

pp. 19–22). Many considerations ripe for crit-

ical analysis emerge, including the articula-

tions of social exclusion with the ‘social

economy’ of not-for-profit activity and also

the possible deployment ofsocial capital,

all of which can be traced across what

Gough, Eisenschitz and McCulloch (2005)

term ‘spaces of social exclusion’ inescapably

skewered by the workings of both the local

andthe global. Relatedly, attention is drawn

to the policies of socialinclusion, designed to

counter exclusionary tendencies, and new

forms ofcitizenship, marked by the privil-

eging of ‘active citizens’ supposedly able to

take responsibility for their own well-being,

circumstances and neighbourhoods.

An academic geographical concern for

socio-spatial exclusion pre-dates the current

policy interest, though, and can be traced in

a manner explicitly framed as such to Sibley’s

(1981) innovativeOutsiders in urban societies.

Through substantive studies of ‘Gypsies’,

travellers and the North American Inuit,

Sibley anticipated a new tradition of research

into excluded minority groupings that has now

greatly extended the compass ofsocial geog-

raphy. All manner of peoples standing outside

of the mainstream, on whatever grounds, have

now had their ‘exclusionary geographies’

mapped, interpreted and critiqued, with sen-

sitivity shown to both structuring forces from

without and felt experiences from within. It is

possible to identify works in this vein tackling

women, people of colour,refugees, sexual

‘dissidents’,childrenand elderly people, dis-

abled and chronically ill people, welfare-

dependent and homeless people, and many

others (for accessible introductions, see Pain,

Burke, Fuller and Gough, 2001; Panelli,

2004). These are people who are excluded

because ofwhothey are, how they look, and

what they do and think, and who are therefore

deemed ‘out of place’ (see also Cresswell,

1996) in a range of mainstream spaces that

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_S Final Proof page 691 1.4.2009 3:23pm

SOCIAL EXCLUSION