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Spatialization and Culturalization of Social Policy: Conducting Marginal People in Local Communities
Jørgen Elm Larsen
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
University of Copenhagen
Linnésgade 22, 1361 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Phone: +45 35 32 32 80/ Direct: +45 35 32 32 66
Fax: +45 35 32 39 40
e-mail: Joergen.Elm.Larsen@sociology.ku.dkSummary
Danish social policy has increasingly become spatialized and culturalized and fused with housing policy. This is, however, not a unique Danish policy development. There are at least two tendencies in European countries, which point in this direction. Firstly, there has occurred a concentration of socially excluded people in certain districts of almost every major European City. Secondly, there has at the same time been an emphasis on local community’s own ability and efforts to revitalise the physical, cultural and social environment and to create job opportunities.
Denmark is an interesting case in this new urban governance scenario. In the latter part of the 1990’s Denmark witnessed a ‘miracle’ with high employment and low inflation, but at the same time there are local areas, which have not been able to benefit from this in terms of lower unemployment. The lesson to be learned from the Danish case is that it has not been possible so far to guarantee all people employment and social integration despite favourable economic conditions and comprehensive political efforts to do so.
In a situation where marginal people are concentrated in certain local areas it seems necessary to take a critical stance towards the new urban governance. In doing so, this paper is focusing on how the deprived city district of Copenhagen, Kongens Enghave, is conducting marginal people
1. It is concluded that to strengthening a deprived community’s social capital and other forms of capital there is a need to be looking both inside and outside the neighbourhood or local community. Spatialized and culturalized social policy can only be encompassing and enabling if it is combined with a politics of redistribution.1) The article is based on a comprehensive local area study in the city district of Kongens Enghave in Copenhagen. In this article the focus is especially on how the conduct of marginal people is mediated through different ‘places-to-be’ in the local community. The empirical data presented in the article is based on studies of "drop-in centres" ("væresteder") for mentally ill, drug addicts and other marginal or lonely people and of workfare or activation projects (Larsen and Schultz 2000a and 2000b). The local area study is part of the research programme ’Gender, Power and Politics’ which is financed by the Danish Social Science Research Council 1996-2001.
1. European cities and social exclusion
Especially during the latter part of the 1990’s the theme of social exclusion in cities became a central political and research issue. All major European cities have experienced increasing concentration of social problems in certain urban areas. Globalisation, migration and social exclusion are often the keywords employed to explain this process of spatial concentration of especially long-term unemployed and immigrant and ethnic minority communities (Healey et al. 1995, Jewson and MacGregor 1997, Madanipour et al. 1998).
In the United States, there has been a long-standing public and research interest in urban poverty. In the 1980´s the much debated concept of an urban ‘ghetto underclass’ was developed to describe the inhabitants of urban inner city areas with high concentration of, among other phenomena’s, poverty, unemployment, crime, teen-age pregnancy and lone motherhood (refer for example to Auletta 1982, Murray 1984, Wilson 1987, Katz 1989, Wilson 1993). The underclass debate also crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the late 1980’s (Macnicol 1987, Field 1989, Murray 1990). While the underclass debate was also, as in the US, heated in UK it never occupied the same centrality in the rest of Europe. Here, instead the concept of social exclusion was at the centre in discussions of issues like poverty, unemployment, and ethnic minorities (Silver 1994).
One could argue that the concept of an underclass by and large has been dismissed in the political and scientific discourse on social exclusion in Europe. However, what was adapted from the American discourse was the concept of the ghetto, which especially in the 1990’s re-emerged in the European debate on cities and social exclusion (for example O’Loghlin and Friedrichs 1995, Mingione 1996, Diken 1998, Bourdieu et al. 1999).
Wacquant (1993, 1996 and 1999) dismisses the idea that there are ghettos in the large European cities such as for example Paris, in the same scale and segregated manner that they exist in larger American cities. On the other hand, he argues that it is possible to point out a number of general characteristics around the development in the Western nations that have led to the development of a phenomenon that he describes as "advanced marginality" in the larger cities2. Structural and political causes, especially in relation to jobs, the housing market and the management of the public housing stock, do lie behind these growing concentrations of socially excluded people but many of these structural factors are to be found in local conditions (Payne 2000, Saraceno 2000, Glennerster et al. 1999, Power 1997 and 1999, Layard 1997, Wilson 1996). Accordingly, governmental strategies for tackling social exclusion and welfare dependency have been decentralised (Finn 2000).
2) In a parallel fashion, Castells uses the term black holes of informational capitalism to describe those "… regions of society from which, statistically speaking, there is no escape from the pain and destruction inflicted on the human conditions for those who, in one way or another, enter these social landscapes" (Castells 1998: 162). These black holes can be found in every country. They are in a world of its own which he calls the Forth World.
In this urban scenario a new way of governing is rising, in that community has become a spatialization of government. The old welfare state regimes are everywhere undergoing transformations. There is a move from a ‘welfare society’ to an ‘active society’ (Walters 1997) and with this a move from ‘citizenship rights’ to ‘active citizenship’. The implication here off is ‘… a new emphasis on the personal responsibilities of individuals, their families and their communities for their own future well-being and upon their own obligation to take active steps to secure this’ (Rose: 1996: 327-28). This new governmental way is especially located to the English-speaking world, but the same tendencies are present in a number of Nordic countries (Rose 1999). Rose terms this new governmental way as government through community. It is characterised by a governing ‘… through regulated choices made by discrete and autonomous actors in context of their particular commitments to families and communities’ (Rose 1996: 328). Urban renewal programmes, for example, try to reinvent and reconstruct certain inner-city areas as ‘communities’ by mobilising local groups and actors in these community construction projects. In these community construction processes marginal people are to be ‘empowered’ by experts teaching and coaching them to conduct themselves in relation to some particular norms and to be able to achieve rational self-management.
Even though there are common trends in European countries concerning the concentration of socially excluded people in certain urban districts and the emphasis of community renewal in the overall policy approach there are, however, also major differences between the European countries. The specific way in which social and housing policy confronts social exclusion in cities depends on earlier policy traditions in each country, a path or past dependency in policy developments (Pierson 1998). The rhetoric about revitalising communities may be very similar in, for example Denmark and UK, but existing socio-economic structures, institutions and actors shape the way in which urban restructuring is taking place. Different welfare regimes are often approaching the same phenomena’s with different means or they apply the same governmental technology, for example ‘work fare’, in rather diverse ways.
2. New Urban Governance in Denmark
The active intervention and regulation by the state of the social spaces has been a prominent characteristic of the political urban and housing discourse and activity in Denmark in the 1990’s. A very intensive political discourse has been in progress around ghetto-producing processes, and these have been addressed with relatively extensive activities on the local level in socially disadvantaged housing areas.
The core idea of the new urban governance in Denmark in the 1990s has been that the local communities should be self-supporting and self-regulating (By- og Boligministeriet 1999/The Ministry of City and Housing). Every district of the city has to be a city within the city, with its own governance structure, enterprise structure, places of employment, housing estates, cultural and sporting facilities etc. However, to be able to address these needs it has been vital to reconstruct the local social infrastructure and social networks. In essence, the new urban governance has been directed towards the recreation of ’gemeinschaft’ and community feeling and identity3. The social and cultural dimension of city planning has therefore come to the fore in the new urban governance regime (Pløgger 1999). Rose has argued that the most distinctive feature of this new governing is that "It is a moral field binding persons into durable relations. It is a space of emotional relationships through which individual identities are constructed through their bonds to micro-cultures of values and meanings." (Rose 1999: 172) There is a growing anxiety about community’s loss of social coherence, power to produce social integration and their lack of informal surveillance and informal control processes (Pløgger 2000). When it is no longer possible to maintain or create homogeneous communities, the existence or fabrication of devices and technologies to help building different spaces of social integration is vital for the overall well being of the community. There have to be secure and friendly public spaces, which can offer a sense of meaning and identity, a sense of belonging to place and community. The new urban governance in Denmark has adopted such a spatialized cultural approach in its planning rhetoric. Contemporary Danish urban communities are not stable in the sense that there is high mobility in and out of places and housing areas and lacking socio-cultural homogeneity. Cultural constructivism is therefore increasingly by governmental institutions and actors seen as a way of improving the quality of peoples every-day life and especially in neighbourhoods with a high concentration of socially excluded people.
3) The new urban governance rethoric certainly resemble the communitarian idea (see for example Etzioni (1995). For a critique of the communitarian idea and especially in relation to city life see for example Young (1990).
3. The "Danish Urban Committee"
The "Danish Urban Committee" ("Byudvalget") was established in 1993 with the purpose of addressing problems related to social housing estates4. There had been an increase in social problems within several social housing estates. Political attention was especially focused on housing estates with a high concentration of immigrants and refugees. Even though the proportion of immigrants and ethnic minorities in Denmark is relatively low compared with most other European countries, the formation of ethnic minority communities, or ’ghettos’ as they are called in the public and political discourse, was a major reason for the Danish Urban and housing policy of the 1990’s.
4) The Urban Committee was established as a collaboration between six ministeries. The agenda consisted of a 30 points action plan, including sporting, social and cultural elements – and indeed symbolic elements with the purpose of improving the reputation of the deprived areas. About 500 housing estates have received some kind of support in the period from 1994 to 1998.
The inclusion of the local areas and their inhabitants into the planning and administration process points towards two new tendencies in Danish urban administration. Firstly, a rhetorical distancing from hierarchical planning and management, and secondly, an attempt to elicit and utilise the inhabitants’ and the citizens’ own resources. The Urban Committee’s work, particularly the Local Area Improvement Projects, are an indicator of an administrative strategy where the government’s main goals are to be proactive against "ghettorization" and improve the quality of life in the city and housing areas. This strategy has to be combined with identifying the problems and solutions of the local participants and institutions.
In line with these new trends in urban administration, the Urban Committee launched a programme that utilised two strategies. Firstly, a local networking strategy aimed at improving living conditions for tenants and reducing social problems by mobilising locally based resources and initiatives. Secondly, a strategy of an improved competitive position aimed at improving the locality’s competitive position in the housing market so as to attract more resource-strong groups into the localities5.
5) There are a whole pile of evaluation reports in relation to the effects of the efforts and initiatives made by the Danish Urban Committee (for example Vestergaard et al. 1997; Munk 1999; Skifter Andersen 1999a,1999b and 2000; Vestergaard et al 1999). In general, the evaluations of the initiatives of the Urban Committee conclude that the segregation processes have been contained or prevented from escalating, even though the social problems have not yet been solved.
The most ambitious initiative by The Urban Committee has been ‘The Local Area Improvement Projects’. Seven areas in Denmark were chosen for pilot projects in relation to the programme. The idea behind the Local Area Improvement Programme is an integrated and holistic attempt to solve the problems in deprived areas. The local area improvement projects are based on the ability to gather together local efforts and networks. The chosen areas are therefore not only characterised by deprivation but also by the existence of comprehensive locally based resources, for example strong and active tenant organisations. The area "Kongens Enghave" in Copenhagen is one of the chosen areas for the Local Area Improvement Projects. By Danish standards Kongens Enghave is considered an extremely disadvantaged area. This city district has the highest percentage of unemployment in Denmark and the average income is very low. At the same time, however, Kongens Enghave represents a lively civil society with many active organisations as well as many formal and informal social activities. Kongens Enghave can more precisely be understood as a traditional local working class community within a post-traditional and post-industrial metropolis.
4. The Copenhagen working class village in Kongens Enghave
To talk of a local community or society means that one is able to identify long-lasting constellations of economic and political institutions and actors, of kinship, family life and civic culture (Saraceno 2000; Putnam 1993). In this sense, Kongens Enghave can be defined as a local community. Since the beginning of the last century, Kongens Enghave has been characterised by a proliferation of co-operatives and strong social networks. In many ways, it was seen as a working class village on the periphery of the capital. Kongens Enghave was a place where people wanted to settle down because of the excellent accommodation and close social bonds (Kongens Enghave, 1997: 10). The district thus attracted both white collar and skilled workers.
From the middle of the 1960’s the development of the district starts to undergo a change. First, the more affluent citizens start to move from apartments into freestanding villas. Second, the attractiveness of the district is eroded by large-scale bridge and railway construction. These transport infrastructures divide the district into separate and self-sufficient areas. The district was the victim of indiscriminate town planning in the name of progress. Third, there was no redevelopment of the existing estates so that they could satisfy the demand for more space, and no new buildings are erected in the district. Many of the 1 ½ to 2 room apartments (70% of all apartments) were particularly not suited to families with children, and the number of families with children dropped sharply. Fourth, because of the great decrease in available and affordable accommodation due to large scale urban renewal in the inner city, many lower income families had to move because of increasing rents, and many moved to Kongens Enghave because of the availability of lower rents there.
Thus, the previously attractive housing available in Kongens Enghave gradually started to accommodate the more economically disadvantaged. Particularly from the 1980’s on, the district also begins to be utilised by the municipality of Copenhagen as an area for the relocation of the economically and socially disadvantaged: lone mothers, early retirees and long-term social benefit recipients. Among the early retirees and the long-term social benefit recipients there are also a large portion of drug addicts, alcoholics and/or mentally ill. In addition, homeless people frequent the area and those service that the area makes available. The latest gentrification of the inner-city area of Vesterbro has pushed some of the drug addicts, homeless people and low-income households out of Vesterbro and into Kongens Enghave.
Due to these developments, the district of "Kongens Enghave" is to day a low class status area in the Copenhagen environment with a high concentration of unemployed and socially excluded people. The district is often described as the "forgotten part of town" – in the sense that it ignored and forgotten, and that it is neglected and misused. The district is often seen as and described by those outside of it, but also by its own inhabitants as being socially disadvantaged. However, typically many of the local inhabitants that have lived there all or most of their lives, see many good qualities associated with it and want to stay living there (Bille and Lund 1979, Gut 2000). This is not least due to the fact that most people still perceive Kongens Enghave’s public spaces as friendly and communicative. But as in many other deprived districts of European cities, Kongens Enghave is experiencing a ‘crisis of reproduction’ of the working class and its culture (Fowler 1996) and this especially apply to unskilled working class men (Andersen and Larsen 1998).
6) A symptomatic example of how the district is perceived and used by the Copenhagen City Council is that during the "Great Nordic Biker War" in the mid 1990s it was suggested that the Hell’s Angel group should be relocated from the city district of Nørrebro to Kongens Enghave.
5. City District Council Experiments and the Local Area Improvement Project in Kongens Enghave
Recently Kongens Enghave has been more in the limelight than what has been the case for many years, and this is mainly because the district is participating in the Copenhagen City District Council Experiment and the Local Area Improvement Projects. Via these initiatives there has been an increase in the area’s political clout, and a certain sense of optimism with regard to the future can be sensed among the inhabitants.
The Copenhagen City Council approved the City District Council Experiment in 1995. With certain restrictions, four districts of Copenhagen gained self-government and control over financial resources to run their local welfare provisions. That Kongens Enghave at the same time was selected as a Local Area Improvement Project, provided the opportunity for a unique experiment in local political decision making and the development of new social and housing policies.
In Kongens Enghave it was decided to spend most of the available district improvement funds on housing renovation. The district improvement here has been defined by 15 local working groups, that have provided suggestions on how the district’s housing facilities, traffic conditions, social and cultural facilities could be improved, and at the same improve it’s image in the eyes of the rest of the population of Copenhagen7. The steering committee for the local area improvement project in Kongens Enghave has defined the urban renewal project as one without forced exiting of marginal people. However, experiences from most other areas and other experimental social policy programmes show that many socially and economically well-functioning tenants are reluctant or reject making contact with and taking responsibility for the less well-functioning tenants and citizens in the local area (Vestergaard 1998). Those that are functioning well socially and economically find the presence of marginalized individuals and groups with destructive, disruptive, threatening or deviant behaviour, a very unpleasant intrusion into their daily lives, and makes them dissatisfied with life in at risk housing. The problem with the placement of the most disadvantaged citizens is intensified by the lack of a concentrated social effort in relation to the mentally ill, drug addicts etc. These problems are an important part of the background for the problems in Kongens Enghave, and they are problems that in them selves cannot be solved at the local level (Andersen 2000).
7) Kongens Enghave has in total received about 250 million DKK (33,5 million EURO) to carry out the local area improvement project. A hole range of projects has been developed covering, for example, housing revovation (the main target area), employment projects, improvements of the physical and social environment, and cultural activities (Kongens Enghave 1998).
The spatial ordering of social and economic relations is reproduced or even reinforced if the basic structuring forces and powers stay unchallenged. Area-based initiatives are improper to "… provide solutions to problems whose causes are national or even international" (Nolan and Whelan 2000). A lot of community constructing projects is, in the end, leading to isolation, because they isolate areas and groups from the city as a whole (Harvey 1997). The local state may provide services and resources, which disadvantaged area’s need, but it is often done in ways, which reproduce and confirm existing relations of power and oppression (Geddes 1997). The attempt to direct assistance towards particularly underprivileged or problem areas via specially focussed urban renewal and social initiatives has not necessarily only positive impacts on a local area. First, by focussing on an area, there is the risk of stigmatising it via public opinion and/or a self-stigmatisation by those who live in the area. Secondly, the renewal of housing in an area may result in such an increase in rent charges that the poorest part of the population can no longer afford to pay this rent and are thus forced to move elsewhere. One of the most pressing questions for urban development in Kongens Enghave is that, as there is a regeneration of housing, jobs and the urban environment, then there is a risk that those most disadvantaged in the district actually will be forced to move out. At the same time, it is clear that the concentration of strongly marginalized groups in particular areas of the Copenhagen city space, and particularly in Kongens Enghave, can only be addressed if overall in Copenhagen there occurs a reallocation of resources and responsibility for caring for and supporting the marginalized groups. An understanding of and about the "exclusion field" is however, a prerequisite for handling the urban and housing policies in such a way that there does not occur a further exclusion of the marginalized groups. A key component of such an understanding is particularly associated with the importance of the marginalized spaces as places where people live and exist, and those communities and identities that are produced and are represented in such places.
6. The Functions of Drop-In Centres in Kongens Enghave
Disciplining, controlling and punishing poor people are often seen as an intrinsic part of social policy. The modern prisons, poor and workhouses certainly had such functions and some scholars and politicians also regard some of the contemporary workfare programmes and projects in the same way. However, self-discipline and self-control works much more indirectly, smoothly and often cost less money than external discipline and control. Identity or self-identity is a central condition for self-control and self-discipline (White 1992). When work disappears or never became an option, the wage-earner identity either fades away or is never established as part of a person’s identity. Some unemployed people find other ways of coping and creating an identity. But many unemployed people without family, kinship or other close social relations often feel rootless. In this context various types of drop-in centres can function as identity-creating entities and can thus contribute to the creation of self-discipline and self-control. But first and foremost the publicly financed and NGO managed drop-in centres for mentally ill persons (and other users) in Kongens Enghave function as places where it is possible for socially excluded people to receive care.
The drop-in centres do not provide the same time related, spatial, physical, and mentally disciplining effects that a ‘workplace’ elicits, as they do not place the same type of demands that a ‘real’ workplace requires. But in many cases, the drop-in centres’ modus operandi have their own inbuilt discipline and identity creating functions, in that they generate and regulate interaction between people on the edge of society. The various types of drop-in centres in Kongens Enghave create possibilities for social contact and a certain amount of regularity in daily life.
Drug addicts, the mentally ill, alcoholics, long-term unemployed, social security benefits recipients, early retirees and pensioners are considered by many to have too much "spare time". As many of these people live on their own and some are homeless, then they have a need for places-to-be that can take up their free time and allow contact with other people. Their place of living or their home is often not the places where this interaction with others can occur, and the home is thus often experienced as a place of loneliness.
The challenge posed to the new urban governance is to fuse housing and social policy in such a way that it constructs a sense of meaning and identity for marginal people as well as for the community as a whole. This is done by constructing different kinds of imagined communities for different kinds of people or (sub)cultures within the local community. The new urban governance and its discursive planning rhetoric is staging communities as representational spaces, that is spaces with distinct discourses and practices aiming at producing meanings and identity feelings. As a part of this new urban governance I therefore conceive ‘places-to-be’ for marginal people as a ‘politics of marginal space’. Because meaning is a product of social spatialization (Bauman 1993) the spatialization and culturalization of social policy or the politics of marginal space can be seen as a means of constructing places of meaning as well as places of ‘conduct on conduct’8. As places of ‘conduct on conduct’ these marginal places-to-be functions as mediators and stabilisers of the relations between marginal people and the rest of the local community. These marginal places, by creating meanings and identity feeling for the inhabitants, are lowering potential tensions and conflicts in the community. They are producers and constructors of feelings of safety and trust in the local community.
8) Government was by Foucault (1982) defined by the ‘conduct on conduct’. Government or the conduct on conduct can more precisely by defined as ‘Any more or less calculated and rational activity, undertaken by a multiplicity of authorities and agencies, employing a variety of techniques and form of knowledge, that seeks to shape our conduct by working through our desires, aspirations, interests andbeliefs, for definite but shifting ends and with a diverse set of relatively unpredictable consequences, effects and outcomes.’ (Dean 1999: 209).
The most obvious marginal spaces in Kongens Enghave are the three drop-in centres for the mentally ill, "Pegasus", "Amadeus", and "Café Rose". However, other than these, there are other informal drop-in centres, particularly the two drinking clubs that meet in an old shed and an old carriage on Danish Rail property. As well as this there are a number of marginal spaces in the rest of the district, such as "The Shit Channel" which is an area of self-erected buildings around a sewer outlet9 and the old Harbour, and other ad-hoc gathering spots in plazas, squares and streets. These places-to-be are marginal areas in the public space where people and particularly the socially excluded and mentally ill, take refuge in the short or long term.
9) This area in the periphery of Kongens Enghave is inhibited by ’out cast’ people who live in old caravans and shelters and without running water and electricity. In Denmark, this housing area is about the closest one can get in to something that resemble a third world slum area.
6.1. Drop-in Centre’s for the Mentally Ill
The goal of the drop-in centres was primarily to offer social contact and activity to mentally ill citizens. At the beginning of the 1990’s a number of drop-in centres were established, either by the municipality itself or by the municipality in co-operation with volunteer organisations such as "The Church Cross Army" ("Kirkens Korshær") and "The Mission Among the Homeless" ("Missionen blandt Hjemløse"). In most instances it was a case of resources from the Ministry of Social Affair’s various experimental social policy budgets with a focus to provide "care" in contrast to welfare state type offers of "treatment". It was important that the drop-in centres were a safe haven for the addicts, and that they themselves had a saying about the gatherings and activities. As an example of this it was a major condition of operation that the drop-in centres were not obligated to report back to the municipality, and that addicts could come and go anonymously.
Even though the drop-in centres formally had been established for the use of the mentally ill, then many different groups utilise them. It is particularly the homeless, drug addicts, early retirees and pensioners that utilise the centres.
6.1.1. Food
The offer of a hot meal is the most common reason mentioned by the users of the centres when they explain why they come to the formal drop-in centres, or when they explain why it is good to come there. The reasons can be just as varied as the people themselves. For many addicts their lifestyles effectively mean that regular meals or the preparation of these, is not a priority. For many pensioners food preparation is a difficult and expensive task. Many of the mentally ill, particularly if they have been institutionalised for many years, need help with the practicalities of everyday life such as cooking. Most of the users of the drop-in centre are single men from an era where cooking was not a task done by the man in the home. Another situation is that most of the users of the centres are people that live alone and it is actually the case that it is cheaper and more sociable to eat there in the company of others. The food is actually an important key in getting the drop-in centres to function socially and it can act as a bridge allowing the establishment of contact with people.
6.1.2. Care
In whatever way the drop-in centre establish their activities and target group, it is a case of "being there", about "giving", and about "support". In all instances it is a case of meeting people under their own premises, about accepting them no matter where they are and how they are – and thus in many ways providing an alternative to the culture people for example encounter in the health system and in the social system. The care, in practice, can be seen on many levels. It applies equally to the attitude behind the work, in the actual work being done, and how it is done. In practice, it is about the tone that employees use, to what extent they involve themselves with individuals, their personal boundaries and the type of practical problems they take upon themselves to solve. The latter can be anything from being present at meetings a user has with the health or social systems, to just being there, if a user has the need to talk to someone. But it can also be to read out loud the TV programme for a mentally ill person who has never learned to read.
6.1.3. Room for differences
It is just as important to create space for everyone as creating space for the individual in the drop-in centre. This means that the staff sometimes has to control loud or other deviant behaviour so as to, among other things, protect the mentally ill who often are seen as the most disadvantaged of all the centre’s users. Despite reprimands, or that a person is asked to go home to cool off and to come back tomorrow, then it is never the case that users are given extended expulsions or banned from the centre altogether. However the centres’ goals of being open to all, can at times be made difficult because of the great cross-section of users. Some mentally ill people for example are not at ease when intoxicated users become loud, and older people may feel uneasy in the company of drug addicts.
Despite the drop-in centres having as target groups the mentally ill or people that are badly off, then the centres place emphasis on attracting users with somewhat more advanced social abilities. Among these are especially the pensioners. The inclusion of users that are more resource strong seems to have benefited the centres overall, and not only for the most disadvantaged users. Being able to be there for others, and to contribute, is also an important reason for coming to the drop-in centres.
A consequence of the social contact in the centres has been that the users often "look after each other". Attention is paid to whether someone has not been there for a couple of days, and if this is not done by the centre employees then it is often other users that go to a users home to see if anything is amiss. Caring for each other and self-regulation is also about intervening between people when one of the friends displays a too problematic behaviour: to tell him to shut up, and to remind him that there has to be room for everyone at the centre.
6.2. Drop-in Centre’s for ’Beer-drinkers’ and alcoholics
The idea behind the creation and placement of drop-in centres is not only about opportunities for the most disadvantaged. It can also being about moving the people that are different away from public spaces and places where they do not bother others, and/or where they can be watched and controlled. "The Carrot" is a good example of this scenario, in that its establishment came about for exactly this reason. In the past, "the beer drinkers" hung out on street corners, sat on benches, or sat on the steps to buildings in the "Bavnehøj" district10. The section along Enghave Road was popularly called "the longest bar in Denmark". However, the police have started issuing infringement notices and are "driving people off the streets".
10) Bavnehøj is one of the three major housing and living areas in Kongens Enghave. In Bavnehøj there are about 3.000 people, and in Frederiksholm and Musikbyen respectively 3.500 and 5.500 people.
The story behind the two informal drop-in centres in Kongens Enghave, the Carrot and the SV Drop-in centre, are both stories about attempts to get the beer drinkers off the streets. It is stories about establishing separate places-to-be for a group of people that did not fit into any of the other localities in the city district. But it is also about those communities that are based on the idea of having a chat and a beer.
Even though there are great similarities between user groups and the way they interact, then there are also great differences between the two drop-in centres. This is most noticeable by the way the two places are run on a day to day basis. At the SV Centre, it is a case of what could be called "self-regulation", in that the user committee has the responsibility for the daily running and organisation of the centre (for example cleaning). At the Carrot it is rather the case of "self-justice", in that there is no formal manager, management committee, or anyone with the day to day responsibility for the shed.
When the initial drop-in centre, the SV-centre, became a key-only club, then those that were not welcome in the shed had to drink on street corners again. However, after a period of time, a blue carriage was provided for all of these many people. At present, 10-15 people have keys to the carriage. It is normally open from mid-morning, however, in contrast to the SV-Drop-in centre, then there are quite a number of people that use the Carrot during the day. The contact with others is an important reason for why people use the drop-in centre. The beer drinking also provides some of the answers for why the Carrot’s users seldom, or only for short periods, use the city district’s other formal drop-in centres. When they do use them, it is most often to get a hot meal.
Communion in the carrot is not only about beer and chatting. One of the things emphasised by the users is that it is nice that there are others that keep an eye on them, and check out how they are. This type of social contact is something that is often connected with the solidarity that existed in Kongens Enghave in "the good old days".
Even though it is better to have a place to hang out rather than being "hunted down by the police", and then there are both advantages and disadvantages associated with the Carrot. On one hand it is possible to be out of the weather, but on the other hand the carriage is much too small for the 40-50 people that normally visit the carrot during a day. The physical conditions of it are also determined by the fact that the Carrot is more exposed and closer to the road than the SV-Drop-in centre. This situation means that the users sometimes feel that they are on show in relation to the rest of the inhabitants of the district.
The third central spot where beer drinkers in Kongens Enghave congregate is "Mozarts Square" ("Mozarts Plads"). The square is circular, broken up by roads, but otherwise big and airy, with cobblestones, benches, flowerboxes and bushes. In one of the corners the "Info-Shop" is located. This is a small white wooden house, covered by notices, and with an open shutter that makes the house look like an ice-cream kiosk. The house is used for giving out information about cultural, social and political activities in the district, and has a couple of tables that function as a café for people in the district. The people that occupy Mozarts Square, primarily occupy the benches behind the Info-Shop, out of the way of the wind and the stares of passers by. Sometimes there are also people sitting on the benches on the other side of the square drinking beer, but the main meeting place is clearly behind the shop.
Those people that come to Mozarts Square to have a beer and talk with others, often come there every day, or at least daily during certain periods. They feel a connection to, and a responsibility for the square, demonstrated by keeping the place clean and tidy, and by removing all bottles and beer caps before they go home. In relation to the district there are both positive and negative consequences of the presence of the beer drinkers. On the one hand for example, the internal "self-regulation" results in the beer drinkers being tolerated. On the other hand, their presence has also been met with mistrust and uncertainty, particularly from the old peoples’ homes on the other side of the square.
6.3. Drop-in centres for the unemployed who are activated
With the latest changes in Danish activation policies since 1998, virtually all registered unemployed people of 18 to 60 years of age have to engage in an activation programme, irrespective of their age and other social problems. Thus activation will eventually become a reality at some point or other for the large and mixed group of people that utilise the drop-in centres. The only exceptions being pensioners and clinically diagnosed mentally ill people.
There are two major reasons for the moral of the workfare or the activation measures. The first reason is that work is a (self)-disciplining factor, which determines where one is going to, and remains for a certain period of time during the day. Work therefore seems to be an anchor for the spatial and temporal regulation of every day life (Wilson 1998). If one is out of work for too long it is more difficult to re-establish this spatial and temporal regulation of every day life. The second reason is that work is conceived as a justifiable service or action of reciprocity to society when a person receives social assistance.
Workfare can be perceived as an instrumental means for the shaping of conduct. Dean (2000) argues that government is not only about various forms of ‘conduct on conduct’ and of governing through freedom but also about governing by power and violence. Dean reads workfare as micro-violence, that is a symbolic and treat of violence as it is accompanied by an ultimate sanction of withdrawal of assistance and then the means of life as well as a designation of life which is deemed ‘unworthy’.
Opposite to Dean’s perception of workfare as micro-violence, Torfing (1999) argues that Denmark has adopted an offensive workfare strategy, which is disarticulated from the British and American counterpart. According to Torfing, the Danish workfare strategy has, for example, put significant emphasis on activation rather than on benefit and minimum wage reductions, on improving the skills and work experience of the unemployed rather than merely increasing their mobility and job-searching efficiency and on empowerment rather than on control and punishment. One the other hand, there are limits to activation. For a large group of marginalized unemployed people it seems almost impossible to activate them in normal conditions due to the presence of severe social, psychological or health problems (Torfing 1999). Exactly for this reason the totalisation of the Danish workfare line seems to express a paradox, since unemployment has decreased considerably in Denmark during the nineties. Hansen et al. (2000) argues that the contemporary work fare line mainly has to be explained by the fear of the Social Democrats that a growing part of the Danish population will no longer support the welfare state. In this case: "Workfare policies are important for maintaining and legitimising a relatively high level of unemployment benefits, but also a necessary remedy for avoiding neo-liberal solutions for labour market regulation." (Hansen et al. 2000: 16)
Particularly when this new legislation is applied to social benefit recipients there occurs a shift from a right and objectively based judgement of whether the person is defined as unemployed or not, to a means tested judgement. Now the social benefit recipient has to show motivation and inner willingness to work (Olsen 1999). The personal judgement of the caseworker of the recipient’s willingness to work has been called ’a black hole of democracy’, that is a situation where normal democratic procedures are out of work (Carstens 1998). The two often contradictory principles behind the activation legislation, to uphold common norms and values of the work ethic and to strengthen the individual client’s possibilities for autonomy and (self)development, are weighted differently from one social office unit to another and from one case worker to another. The treatment of recipients therefore varies greatly depending on where and by whom the recipient is treated. In principle the client and the caseworker have to agree on a so-called ’action plan’ which outlines what is to occur with regard to education, job training etc, and when it should happen. The client’s personal situation and wishes have to be taken into consideration and negotiated. But in the end the caseworker can make a decision and has the power to deny further social assistance if the client refuse to co-operate and agree on the ’action plan’.
However, even the most critical studies of activation find it hard to conclude that the consequences for those activated are all but negative. Most clients are ambivalent about their activation. The overall assessment of activation from most people in activation projects is that their wellbeing has improved during the period they have been activated. This improvement in wellbeing has seldom anything to do with an improvement in their labour market chances even though activation of unemployed normally is seen as a labour market policy measure. In terms of real employment the activation measures have not led to a decrease among those who have been long-term unemployed. The integration of long-term unemployed social assistance recipients on the labour market has generally failed. But what is important for most clients is when activation establishes meaningful work and fellowship relations, and when there is an attempt to reduce or eliminate forced aspects of activation programmes (Jensen and Pless, 1999). It is crucial to meet the at risk groups on their own terms and respect their lives without making an ideal out of an at risk lifestyle. To use a normalisation principle as the guiding line in social work with these people is doomed to fail. Changes in a vulnerable person’s life can happen, but a prerequisite for this is that the assistance given is in line with the practical sense or the habitus that a person has internalised.
6.3.1. Work fare in Kongens Enghave
In Kongens Enghave more than one third of the population in the age between 16 to 66 years old are outside the labour market and about half of these are unemployed social benefit recipients.
The District Council and the Local Area Improvement Project experiments in Kongens Enghave has resulted in the start-up of a number of local activation projects. The fundamental principle in the projects is that the activated people shall become important within, and be part of creating something in their local area.
The type of activation that is present in the local activation projects does not primarily function, in any shape or form, as a springboard or step towards entry to the regular labour market. Most of those people that are activated in the local projects are a long way from being able to enter the regular labour market. Before people have progressed to the stage of being involved in a local activation project there has occurred a "creaming-off" process11. The unemployed who find it relatively easy to find work and/or are motivated towards education, very rarely end up in the local activation projects. Thus the local activation projects are mainly composed of people that are unemployed and have received benefits over many years, and who in reality do not have a chance in the regular labour market. Furthermore, it is a characteristic that many of these people have other social problems than just being unemployed.
11) This creaming-off process happens everywhere (Epsen et al. 1999; Hansen 1999) and it is mainly because of the decreasing unemployment. The unemployment was between 5 to 6 percent in 2000.
In many ways the activation projects actually function as drop-in centres rather than labour market measures. Primarily the projects fulfil other goals than those of integrating the unemployed into the regular labour market. This type of activation is actually called "social activation". This kind of labour market has also been conceptualised as the ‘third labour market’. That is a labour market for ’unemployable’ long-term social assistance recipients.
Weather the activation projects have the characteristic of forced workfare or of care and help for the client depends on how the legislation is implemented locally. When most of the people interviewed in Kongens Enghave express relatively high satisfaction with the activation projects, then it is not because of the outlook to better prospects in the labour market or increased income. The main theme of stories about activation concern a sense of importance, meaningfulness and improved qualifications on both a work related and personal level.
7. Marginal spaces are also homely spaces
The previous considerations of the type of marginalized space that especially the three formal drop-in centres for the mentally ill in Kongens Enghave represent, are first and foremost a story about an intimate space. That is a space where people share everyday experiences, and where in particular, mentally ill people with a weak or non-existent network, experience their only daily social interaction. It is a space that offers an opportunity for social integration through the community, which occurs and is created there. This is a space, which in this way takes on the characteristics of a home.
The drop-in centres managers’ stories mainly deal with creating and maintaining a space where there is room for those people that in many ways are excluded. This space is not characterised by the same positions and relations existing in the surrounding spaces, and where the users are allocated some other ("lower") symbolic value. A central characteristic of the drop-in centre managers’ self-impression is that they are the creators and implementers of "the symbolic order of everyday life"12. Even though there may be chaos around the users and in their lives, then the drop-in centres must represent "normality" in terms of a cosy environment, proper preparation of food, neat table set-ups and serving of the meals. This creates "the symbolic order of everyday life", and the drop-in centre managers are of the opinion that this order returns users’ dignity to them. "The symbolic order of everyday life" is a way of creating some type of order in an otherwise chaotic and problematic life. It can be understood as a type of symbolic glue, which influences the user in a positive manner by installing a normality and dignity in their daily life.
12) The concept of "the symbolic order of everyday life" was developed by Beck-Jørgensen (1994) to describe the coping strategies of long-term unemployed lone mothers.
In a parallel fashion the users of the drop-in centres speak of them as a part of their homely sphere. For many of the users, their own (physical) home is associated with loneliness, boredom and for many of the mentally ill their home is actually a harbouring place for fear and obsessive-compulsive thoughts, whilst the drop-in centre is associated with homeliness in the shape of food, care and social contact. For some their accommodation ("the home") is just a place to be, whilst the drop-in centre is the place where one can feel at home. The drop-in centre is the place where there is social contact, where one can eat a hot meal with others and the place where the social aspects of life can develop.
The drop-in centre must therefore been seen as a part of the users’ home. If the home is only understood or defined as a physical space to be one that protects against wind and weather then this definition ignores peoples’ need for social contact and communication. A physical space does not protect against loneliness. The ability of physical space to function in an integrating fashion (to create a meaningful universe and relationships of belonging) assumes that a social functionality can be created in that space. If the home for a person is associated with isolation and a fearful existence, the home represents a problematic place to be. When the drop-in centres create this sociality and fear-reducing environment, then they cannot be viewed in isolation from the person place of residence. Certainly it is the place of residence that gives the person an official identity in society. An address is required for the official register and associated right to a Medicare card, ability to open a bank account etc. Without these links to the different societal systems you are almost a person of non-existence in today’s society (Beck 1997). But if it is the drop-in centre that provides a person with their own identity, then the drop-in centre is a part of the home; that is, the place where one feels at home.
8. Marginal places, communities and identities in Kongens Enghave
A sense of place is created by the socialisation of space. Spaces are never just a physical condition, but are to a large degree made up of the ways that people place themselves socially. This social placement in a space brings with it borders and distinctions around that which is associated or not associated with the space. Borders and distinctions that at first appear as "natural" and "self explanatory", are the result of complicated negotiations around the rights to the space. Those people that move in for the short or long term inhabit the public space. Public spaces convert to private spaces, and are thus never neutral zones, but actually spaces that always change importance, interpretation and relevance in relation to those people that occupy them (Goffman 1971). The social construction of meaning in relation to places is created, for example, through different institutions, social relations and discourses (Harvey 1996). In this sense, places are not stable entities but are created and re-created by historically processes. Places represent values; perceptions and practices, which constitute imagined communities.
Structures in the social space become an expression in a number of ways in the form of spatial contradictions, where the occupied or acquired space functions as a form of apparent symbolisation of the social space. When society is hierarchical (e.g. among those that work and do not work, among those that are "beer drinkers" and those that are not beer drinkers, between the mentally ill and drug addicts etc.) then the physical space also becomes hierarchical. Certain types of differences that have developed through a longer historical process will often appear as natural social and spatial differences. The way for example, that the sexes take up and are placed in the social and physical space, appears in many ways as unproblematic in narratives about Kongens Enghave and the drop-in centres13. It is thus assumed that there are only a few women among the beer drinkers and that they are different to other women.
13) For a more detailed analyses of gender constructions and dichotomies in relation to space refer for example to Rose (1993) and Massey (1994).
Identity is thus tied up with both space and territory. The identity is, among other things, about identifying oneself with particular places, for example by the fact that distinctions are created between other places-to-be and those people that occupy these other places-to-be. Places where the marginalized live and develop their identity can be seen as both problem areas and as pockets of resistance. However, they are also sites of ordering (Hetherington 1997). The relationship between marginal places and their inhabitants and other places and their inhabitants are not only or even mainly one of conflictual relations but also one of ordering relations. The mere existence of marginal places might actually produce a kind of ordering of social relationships in a community with heterogeneous groups and people. Such places can be symbolised by another set of values and impressions than those that are the norm in society, and these places can present a fulcrum for their identity and the way in which they want to identified. Such places can take on a central role for reproduction of marginal or outsider identities (Shields 1991, Hetherington 1998). These places can create possibilities for individuals and groups being able to exist and interact in a different way and that they eventually can constitute new identities and narratives among the individuals that congregate in the places. These indeterminable places and the practices that constitute this special places-to-be by various types of alternative activities, have been described by a number of different authors. Foucault (1986) calls them "heterotopia", Turner (1974) calls them "liminal space", and Lefebvre (1991) calls them ’representational spaces’. Concepts such as ’marginal space’ (Shields 1991, Cresswell 1996) or ’paradoxical space’ (Rose 1993) have also been used to describe such places.
However, who are outsiders, and who are insiders, is dependent on the position of the observer. Becker (1963) points out that for people who are branded as outsiders by other, the orientation can be completely reversed. Perhaps the outsider does not accept those rules and norms from which the definition/construction of "outsider" is defined. As well he/she will not accept that those people that define him/her as an outsider has the competence or a legitimate right to carry out this outsider labelling. For the one who breaks the rules, these "others", those that judge and carry out the labelling, can be perceived as outsiders themselves. He/she perceives himself as an insider in the group, which has the same identity and way of functioning as him/herself. Although the insider and the outsider view of such heterotopic or marginal places may be in total opposition to each other they none the less create an ordering of spatial and social relations. Social relations may without such a spatial ordering be much more conflictual and destructive for the community. But the paradox around these marginal places is that they serve as identity creating, and at the same time the community sees them as marginal places. Marginal places are those that function as a symbolic centre for outsider groups or groups that are, or consider themselves to be on the periphery of society. These individuals and groups, that can become or be experienced as the "others" or the "strangers" and "foreigners" by the surrounding community, create identities in such places, and eventually some resistance to the ‘conduct on conduct’ imposed on them by the rest of the community or the society at large. These places can hold many different types of identities and practices. In connection with this, it is about places where people can find a sanctuary, retire to, or be referred to. A place where it is only those that are members of the "tribe", that want to or are able to come. Whether it is about one type place or the other, then they are the centres for the development of meaning and identity. The social construction of the space brings with it the fact that it can be seen from a number of different visual angles and interpretations, and with these, various symbolic interpretations that various individuals and groups in society make about the space (Jay 1992, Zukin 1992). This brings with it the fact that specific spaces are seen as particularly important by particular groups, and as such act as catalysts for imaginary or socially constructed communities (Shields 1991, Anderson 1985).
9. In Defence of the small ghetto
The ghetto is often used as a derogatory term – as something that should not be found in our city or as a symbol of the dangerous and evil in city life. However, in certain instances the ghetto does fulfil very positive functions for its inhabitants (Christie 1992). There is a need for differential spaces so that the right to be different is recognised (Lefebvre 1991). In my defence of the ghetto I am not arguing for concentration and segregation of immigrants, refugees and socially excluded people in certain areas and housing estates in the city. However, in particular, these groups are often not rooted in resource-strong networks with easy access to economic, social, cultural and political capital. To spread these people all over the city and in housing estates to avoid segregation is basically a way of denying them a place of their own; a place where they can share common narratives, community feelings and identities. Even with the best intentions strong anti-segregation policies can create processes where the socially excluded are further marginalized and end up being isolated in their own restricted physical and social space.
The city dweller of today – and especially those who belong to the most mobile part of the working population – live a rather individualised life. Many studies have shown that they do not necessarily wish or need intimate social relations with their neighbours or the community. Many want to live an anonymous life among strangers (Pløgger 1999). They are based in networks of which only a few are local (refer also to Bauman 1998, Castells 1997). However, those strangers that they want to live among should be their likes and not potential dangerous and deviant strangers.
Those who have a real need for community building and identity is first and foremost the non-mobile: elderly people, handicapped people, and others who are much more territorially fixed. But the kind of community they are most strongly oriented towards is the small ghetto. In this sense it is perhaps difficult to maintain the idea of a joint local community which secures a strong social integration for all its members. On the other hand, there is also an obvious danger in placing to much emphasis on difference, because it may lead to a counterproductive social fragmentation and to tribalism. Acknowledging differences and differential space should not lead to mechanisms and processes of closure, where certain tribes are denied access to common goods, that is common resources, decision making and narratives. In to days society there may no longer be an overriding model of social integration, but to put to much emphasis on tribalism may create hostility and lack of social cohesion. Instead of having mutual recognised differential spaces in a local community, the lines between differential spaces could become confrontational spaces.
10. Opening and Closing Marginal Places
Compared to most other local areas there are relatively many different types of drop-in centres in Kongens Enghave. This is mainly because there are many people who live on the edge and many types of marginal groups in the district. However, another significant explanation is that Kongens Enghave has historically developed great social capacity and tolerance for different and slightly strange existences. These have been part of the area’s historical development, and since the 1920’s, the local district has been populated by a mixture of lower rung white collar workers, the better-off working class, unskilled workers, casual workers, the unemployed and the marginalized. In contrast to other more prestigious and financially better-off districts in Copenhagen and suburbs, where the inhabitants often fought vigorously and successfully against the establishment of treatment centres and drop-in centres for drug addicts, the mentally ill, young offenders etc, the inhabitants of Kongens Enghave have to a large degree accepted that the deviant groups constitute a proportion of the district’s population. This was evidently manifested in 2000 when the City Council of Copenhagen during the negotiations of the 2001 budget decided to close down the drop-in centre ‘Amadeus’ (for mentally ill people). Due to massive protests from the population of Kongens Enghave the City Council finally decided not to close down ‘Amadeus’.
The prerequisite for being able to practice "the politics of differences" and thus create the potential for the co-existence of different ways of life in the local physical and social space, it is my hypothesis that there are in existence a wide variety of drop-in centres in the area. This provides the opportunity for choosing or not choosing various types of communities. Drop-in centres modus operandi is, however, also about surveillance and control. But it is not an institutionalised kind of discipline as it works as a part of every day practices (Deleuze 1995). Drop-in centres work as ‘conduct on conduct’ and as mediators between marginal people and the local community. Drop-in centres are a relatively cheap way of massaging the field between inclusion and exclusion such that the dividing line between the two is made less obvious. If the dividing line between inclusion an exclusion becomes insurmountable for certain individuals, then it is likely that their physical and social vulnerability will escalate, and/or that conflicts between various individuals and groups in the social and physical also escalate.
However, under tight economic conditions the political and administrative system’s considerations around opening and closing of drop-in centres are often made based on tight cost-benefit considerations, that rarely have anything to do with the quality of life for the most disadvantaged groups. Users of marginal places are not a group with a lot of clout. First, it is difficult to get them to participate in a formal democratic framework. This is partly because they see informal and formal democracy as two very different things, in respect to both behaviour and rules of the game, and in relation to whom they are accountable to. Second, many from the disadvantaged groups form an experienced-based impression, that the formal political and administrative system is always out to "suck in" people like them, or that essentially the system is not interested in them as citizens. In this way they experience the formal political and administrative system as one which only sees them as people with social problems, that thus represent a problem for the (local) community. They are not used to be seen as people with resources that are able to make positive contributions to the development of the local community. Whether this impression of attitudes and practices in the formal political and administrative system in reality is right or wrong, then such impressions tend to act as self-fulfilling prophecies.
There are no indications that the disadvantaged groups are brought in or active in either the District Council Experiment or in the Local Area Improvement Projects in Kongens Enghave. Rather, they comprise those discourses and concrete initiatives that are occurring in relation to them. But when the disadvantaged groups do not represent themselves, who does? And which needs and interests of these people is it possible to pinpoint – both collectively and individually? Drop-in centres must most likely today be seen as the pivotal point that exist for a discourse about representation of the viewpoints and interests of the disadvantaged. The drop-in centre managers are in this situation central links for communication, in that they internally represent the drop-in centres to the users, and externally to the professional and political decision-makers. Partly they represent the users’ point of view to the outside in the sense that they are capable and willing to transport the users’ "needs" out into the public political environment and promote their points of view on to the political decision makers. On the whole they promote and represent the users’ points of view in the general political process around the District Council and the Local Area Improvement Project. Those lines of communication (including networks), that exist between the drop-in centres’ managers and the District Council and the Local Area Improvement Project, are thus crucial for the promotion of the interests of the disadvantaged groups.
The drop-in centres thus serve another significant role over and above creating places-to-be for marginal people, in that they can be seen as prerequisites for everyone’s participation in democracy. It is for example, at the drop-in centres that the disadvantaged groups collectively pool their experiences and create narratives about themselves and their being-in-places in the area. The formulation of needs, interests and experiences contribute to the strengthening of the individual as well as the group. But it also makes possible – for example through the drop-in centres’ managers representation – that these needs, interests and experiences can be brought into the formal democratic system and perhaps influence the political process and those decisions that are made there. Democracy at the lowest levels can thus be that some people legitimately represent those that find it difficult to act in formal political situations, and on the whole those that find it difficult to represent themselves; especially mentally ill people.
11. Conclusion
The case study of Kongens Enghave has shown that the spatialized and culturalized Danish social policy has, among other things, contributed to facilitate the creation of imagined communities for marginal people. These small ghetto’s or communities of marginal people may well be a last resort of making sense of the world or of socializing. Rather paradoxically this spatialization of social policy or the politics of marginal places may facilitate rather than counter act ‘marginal cultures’. Therefore there seems to be a tension or ambivalence built into this new urban governance regime. On the one hand, the overall governmental policy is aiming at the reintegration of marginal people into the normal labour market and other normalizing social institutions. Everybody is to be self-supportive and self-conductive. On the other hand, there is a growing awareness - at least at the local governmental level- of the impossibility of normalising all people. Mentally ill people, drug addicts, alcoholics and socially disabled people are not easily put into the normal chaos of the labour market, the family and social networks. My reading of the Danish politics of marginal spaces is therefore that it is an attempt to revitalise deprived urban areas by the construction of differential spaces. It is a way of accommodating socially excluded people in these urban renewal projects so that they are not further marginalized by an otherwise revitalised community development.
Consequently, I have mainly analysed and argued for drop-in centres as potentially identity creating and social integrational spaces and places. However, it is also very likely that drop-in centres becomes a relatively cheap way of containing, entertaining and conducting marginal people in the local public space instead of developing more comprehensive and coherent programmes to combat social exclusion and to create social integration. Then, the crucial question is: When do drop-in centres function as empowerment facilitating spaces and when do they create disempowerment?
This question is especially relevant where the local area as a whole is underprivileged in relation to the surrounding local areas or the standard of the region or nation or even the greater (European) community. In the context of Copenhagen and the Danish national context, Kongens Enghave is indeed an underprivileged local area. Therefore, local anti-poverty and anti-exclusion programmes can not be the only way of responding to local social exclusion and marginalized people. There has to be a social and financial responsibility from regional, national or even European authorities in relation to the solving of the structural problems of the area as well as helping those people in the area who are marginalized. A one-sided strategy of strengthening community cohesion in disadvantaged neighbourhoods may have the effect of reinforcing their economic, social and cultural distance and exclusion from other and possibly more favourable opportunities within the larger urban region. To strengthening a community’s economic and social capital and other forms of capital there seems to be a need to be looking both inside and outside the neighbourhood or local community. Spatialized and culturalized social policy can only be seen as encompassing and enabling if it is combined with a politics of redistribution.
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Workshop 4 |