Stigmatisation par l’espace à Montréal-Nord : revitalisation urbaine et invisibilisation de la race

By addressing the concept of stigmatization through space, this article aims to demonstrate the dynamic nature of this process of marking and marginalizing certain urban territories and their inhabitants. In a context such as Montreal North, where social vulnerabilities are cumulative and racialized populations are highly concentrated, it is important to examine the link between race and space in the stigmatization process. Our analysis, based on empirical data collected between 2016 and 2019, highlights the role of public policy in the marginalization of the northeast sector. In particular, it reveals local governments’ denial of socio-spatial inequalities and, by the same token, the intentional nature of the marginalization of racialized populations. At a time when racial discrimination remains an unanswered question in Quebec’s policies to combat inequality, it seems essential to question the way in which urban revitalization policy and forms of public action are applied to a sector of Montreal’s northern borough, without providing the means to integrate their demands or uses of the neighborhood, despite the consultations proposed to residents. Our hypothesis is that the revitalization policy, conceived in a participatory way, approaches the neighborhood as a neutral support on which to act, emptying the space of its lived dimension and invisibilizing the relations of domination at the root of its stigmatization. In the case of Montréal-Nord, the revitalization of the neighborhood and the fight against its stigmatization by local policies contribute to subjecting the practices of public space to norms and erasing the issue of racial and social inequalities in favor of developments that promote an ideal of integration of immigrant communities.