"The Same but not the Same"

Georg Glasze (1) , Robert Pütz (2) , Mélina Germes (3) , Henning Schirmel , Adam Brailich

1 Institute of Geography
2 Institute of Human Geography
3 CMB - Centre Marc Bloch

Since the 1960s, large housing estates have shaped the geography of suburbia in many Western and Eastern European cities. This paper examines the constitution of the social and spatial meanings of large housing estates within three different national contexts: in Germany, Poland, and France. Employing discourse theory and an empirical analysis of the coverage of major national newspapers, we identify cross-national and specific national patterns of discourses that (re)produce particular social spaces and distinct social orders. Quantitative discourse analysis reveals differences, similarities, and ruptures in various constructions of the meaning of large housing estates. We find that large housing estates in France and Germany are constituted in print media as threatening places and as places of foreignness located "outside" the "proper society." In contrast, Polish large housing estates are framed discursively as threatened places located in the social "inside."

Mots clés: cultural geography; urban studies; European comparison; banlieue; large housing estates; discourse analysis; discourse theory; corpus-based discourse analysis

Domaines: Géographie; Sociologie

Georg Glasze, Robert Pütz, Mélina Germes, Henning Schirmel, Adam Brailich. "The Same but not the Same": The Discursive Constitution of Large Housing Estates in Germany, France and Poland.. Urban Geography, 2012, 33 (8), pp.1192-1211. ⟨10.2747/0272-3638.33.8.1192⟩. ⟨halshs-00790684⟩