**4. Spatial exclusion**

One concern of Room's (1995: 238) theory of multiple disadvantages is to widen the focus, by not only focusing on the resources of the individual, but to include also a focus on local communities. He argues that deprivation is caused not only by lack of personal resources but also by unsatisfactory community facilities, such as dilapidated schools, remote shops, poor public transport networks, and so on. Such an environment tends to reinforce and perpetuate household poverty.

Neighbourhoods can thus produce distinct forms of social exclusion. Bourdieu (2002: 124– 25) points out that different social spaces are defined by their position relative to other sites.

school-system, gives a person high qualifications, but these are the qualifications of how to survive from day to day (Fangen 2008). These skills are not easily convertible to the skills

This is similar to what Weil et al. (2005) write on the problems of excluded youth adapting to a working identity. Many socially excluded young adults dream of a regular job, or even a job where they can be the boss. According to Weil et al. (2005), typical of many excluded young adults is that they resist authority and attempts by others to tell them what to do. Their dreams about a good job can be understood as part of a wider search for an idealized normality that includes education, work, a traditional family, spouse, children and house. For those who are marginalized, the wish to achieve this implies a dream that is exactly the opposite of the conditions in which they find themselves (Weil et al., 2005). Factors like unemployment, poor housing conditions and strained relations with family, friends and partners may be dashing these dreams against the rocks daily (ibid.). Weil et al. (2005) see the need for such dreams as a survival strategy. It enables young people to deny a present

A factor typical of young adults who manage to avoid further economic and social marginalization and to benefit from the chances an individualized society provides is that they succeed in changing their strategies according to changing situations and circumstances. Young people who manage to alternate between unemployment, work and the educational system prolong the traditional adolescent phase, 'literally turning their life into an experience of lifelong learning' (Weil et al., 2005). Trying out possible options might function as a means of improving their competence to survive in ever changing situations (ibid.). Bourdieu (2002: 62) argues that young marginalized adults with and without immigrant background share every trait except ethnic origin. What some young people have in addition is an ethnic stigma inscribed in their skin or their facial features, as well as in their name, their clothes and their manners. These aspects intensify or radicalize the handicap linked to the lack of certificates and qualifications, itself linked to the lack of

More than in other spheres, discrimination is a major barrier against young immigrants' active participation in the labour market. However, it is hard to document how huge this problem is, since it is difficult to control for the effect of all other variables, such as lack of qualifications, and so on. In the next section, I will focus on a sphere that is not so dependent

One concern of Room's (1995: 238) theory of multiple disadvantages is to widen the focus, by not only focusing on the resources of the individual, but to include also a focus on local communities. He argues that deprivation is caused not only by lack of personal resources but also by unsatisfactory community facilities, such as dilapidated schools, remote shops, poor public transport networks, and so on. Such an environment tends to reinforce and

Neighbourhoods can thus produce distinct forms of social exclusion. Bourdieu (2002: 124– 25) points out that different social spaces are defined by their position relative to other sites.

needed in order to succeed in a regulated labour market.

that might paralyze them altogether.

cultural and more specific linguistic capital (ibid.).

**4. Spatial exclusion** 

perpetuate household poverty.

on the individual resources, but rather on the collective ones.

The poor suburbs of Paris that collect the most disadvantaged groups contrast in every respect with areas of Paris where there is a concentration of the rarest goods and their owners. In France, large public housing projects were built in the French *Banlieues* in the 1950s to the 1970s, and the houses were filled with low-income immigrant families. A stigma became attached to these areas because of the fear of a 'cultural clash' and of downward mobility by white working-class families and added to this was the rapid decay of the buildings (Body-Gendrot, 2002: 373). Young ethnic minority men vandalized buildings and public amenities as a protest against the way projects were designed and maintained, as well as against the French state bureaucracy for putting tenants in the same identical mortar and concrete boxes without any sensitivity to ethnic and cultural preferences (ibid.).

The stigmatization of suburbs on the one hand contributes to a feeling of collective exclusion, while on the other hand, it can open up for alternative forms of inclusion based on the experienced sameness and common destiny of being foreigners in relation to the national state. The young men studied by Sernhede (2002) in one of Gothenburg's suburbs, did not see themselves as Swedish, but identified instead as 'blackheads', thus reinventing a racist term by making it their own resistant identity. Some of them also identified with the suburb as such. Sernhede sees a relation between these young men's unwillingness to participate in elections or in politics in general, and their experience of not being members of the Swedish society. Their felt powerlessness led to a fascination with violent gang culture and Afro- American hip hop, which again reinforced their hostility towards the dominant culture. Sernhede argues that the welfare state can diminish problems of inequality by different forms of social benefits, but it cannot solve these young people's experience of being outsiders in relation to the Swedish society. The hip hop sub-culture or even the suburb as a separate society within society, are alternative sources of community for some of these young people. This is similar to what Vestel (2004) found among the young men he studied in one of Oslo's North-Eastern suburbs. There was a 'community of difference', that was built around new practices of greeting rituals, language use, dress and music.

Among young migrants and descendants who live in Europe's suburbs, there are also many (especially those who have high ambitions as regards education) who do *not* identify themselves with the suburb because of its connotation of no future and of criminality and drug use. Young people define their own hierarchies between places, which are sometimes the same as the more dominant common sense hierarchies, but sometimes slightly different. Thus, different places and different arenas are linked to certain feelings of inclusion and exclusion, and for many young immigrants the high status areas of the city are the sites were they do not feel at home, and as the examples above show, this also appears true for some of those who take high status education. In addition to houses in these areas being too expensive for many immigrants, there is also an element of self-exclusion when young people with visible minority background choose not to spend their time in these areas, and later in life, do not aspire towards owning houses there. The ethnic segregation of the city marks a symbolic barrier against real class mobility of young immigrants.

For many adults, it is tempting to seek inclusion in their own ethnic community, whereas many of the young immigrants prefer multi-ethnic communities, and also communities that

Social Exclusion and Inclusion of Young

he had chosen the wrong greeting ritual.

and so on (Fangen, 2008).

otherwise.

2009).

**6. Socio-political exclusion** 

between the individual and the state.

Immigrants in Different Arenas – Outline of an Analytical Framework 273

rituals might be an expression of racism, albeit not necessarily on a very conscious level. There might be an attitude that the other is not important, she is not an equal. This might also be linked to a certain form of embarrassment. She is a foreigner, and therefore the person does not know how to approach her. In order not to do anything wrong, he chooses not to recognize the other at all, which in effect might be more hurtful for the other than if

More outright exclusionary practices in face-to-face relations are various instances of racism. Many authors argue that when analyzing phenomena, such as exclusion, racism and humiliation, one must take into account how it is felt more than the intentions of those imposing it (Fangen, 2006b; Fangen, 2008). Some young people tend to downplay the importance of experiences of exclusion or racism or humiliation or even express understanding of them, while others tend to be oversensitive to such experiences and interpret all barriers as a result of racism or as humiliation (Prieur, 2004). This can be analyzed in relation to their situation in general, their social network, their class position,

Structural or political factors such as restrictive immigration policies, the organization of the welfare system, the integration policies, and so on, are relevant in the search for factors that might lead to exclusion. In a previous article (Fangen, 2006b), I discussed how encounters between Somali immigrants and different public offices in Norway are often experienced as humiliating by the Somali immigrants. They feel that they are met with lack of empathy and of respect in these institutions, and interpret the advice received as 'you must adopt our way of doing things, which again is better than your way of doing things'. This also holds on a more macro level, in immigration policy. For young immigrants, the emphasis on the need for a restrictive immigration policy can be perceived as linked to the message 'you do not belong here'. Of course, the real arguments behind the policy are defined

The nation state in itself is built on the distinction between *us* who are inside and *them* who are outside. The distinction between the included and the excluded is an issue of political controversy and debate (Heidar and Semb, 2007: 322). Citizenship is not only a juridical phenomenon, with enormous consequences for immigrants searching for a new start in life, but also a sociological and political phenomenon expressing an ever more complex relation

The acquisition (or denial) of citizenship is also a factor that feeds feelings of inclusion or exclusion. Undocumented immigrants and non-returnable refugees are in a special situation, as they are exempted from a number of rights, including social benefits (they only have the right to medical care and so-called emergency benefits). Some young immigrants remain in this situation for years, such as the non-returnable refugees who have received a negative answer to their request for asylum, but do not return because of ongoing conflicts and non-existent opportunities in their homeland. They feel that they have few other opportunities than criminality, since they cannot legally work (Sandberg and Pedersen,

are not too dominated by people with an immigrant background. For young people in general, the cities' educational and job opportunities are important pull factors for urban residency. The city is more multicultural and urban dwellers are more used to cultural complexity compared to people in smaller places. However, some small towns or rural communities have a particular welcoming attitude, e.g. related to a lack of workforce. Thus, in some cases, there is less exclusion in small communities than in large cities, and easier for immigrants to integrate.

All in all, spatial exclusion is a complex matter. Suburbs that serve as sites of identification and belonging for some, are at the same time exactly the places where other young people feel the outside world's stigma of the place as a burden they do not want to be associate with. Thus for the latter, the only way to escape exclusion is also to escape the collective barriers of the neighbourhood.
