Representing Marginalisation: Finding New Avenues for Economic and Social Intervention

Across Australia urban renewal and regeneration programs, generally run through departments of housing, seek to redress economic and social marginalisation in the nation’s most disadvantaged areas. From earlier programs that focussed primarily on the physical aspects of redevelopment, recent efforts are concerned with the economic and social challenges. With the shift in emphasis it is timely to reflect on the representation of marginalisation and disadvantage that characterises these programs, how this knowledge is produced and resultant avenues for intervention. In this paper we use discourse analysis of state government program documents to argue that areas are identified and stereotyped in such a way that they are singled out from the rest of the nation or state as highly dysfunctional areas that require renormalising. We argue that the representation of marginalisation thus further marginalises these areas. As a result the state is placed in the role of the expert who devises and implements intervention programs, while those who live in these areas are expected to voluntarily cooperate in the “treatment”. We ask might these areas be represented in very different terms thereby prompting very different types of interventions? For example, might residents be positioned as already active and expert practitioners of activities that hold the seeds for an improved future? What types of intervention might flow from such a representation? We explore these questions by drawing on research into the diversity of economic practices that exist within our so-called capitalist economy and we highlight how those in marginalised areas can be portrayed as economically active citizens, contributing in diverse ways to economic activities that produce direct social benefit. We elaborate how this representation results in policies and programs which recognise and build on the current economic activities and social contributions of those in marginalised areas.