Geographies of (un)ease: Embodying racial stigma and social navigation in public spaces in a reluctantly super-diverse city

Abstract

Combining insights from sociology, geography, and race-ethnicity studies, this exploratory study examines how young middle-class Moroccan-Dutch men navigate geographies of (un)ease and the subsequent coping strategies they employ in public spaces of Rotterdam. Drawing on 12 semi-structured walking interviews in Rotterdam, our findings reveal that (un)ease is not only affected by the types of surrounding bodies and the amount of attention directed at these bodies, but also by spatial and temporal factors, such as day-night, quietness-liveliness, whiteness-racialization, immobility-mobility and familiarity-unfamiliarity. Furthermore, we mapped the men’s geography of (un)ease, showing how stigma is spatially situated in relation to different neighborhoods. In contrast to previous studies, respondents did not seem to only opt for conflict avoidant strategies as their main coping strategies utilized were ignoring, avoiding, reforming and contesting.

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