EXIT · EXPLORING SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES TO COUNTERACT TERRITORIAL INEQUALITIES FROM AN INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH

The redrawing of social inequalities across Europe during the last few years includes both a retrenchment of longstanding inequalities among countries, and the emergence of new disadvantages, together with an erosion of the status and protections previously enjoyed by most citizens within them. This is particularly prominent from a geographical perspective as spatial inequality grows within regions. Despite overall country level economic growth, certain regions are experiencing long-term socioeconomic stagnation or decline. These areas have been often characterised as 'left-behind'. Yet, little is known of what drives ‘left-behindness’. EXIT will provide an in-depth analysis of ‘left-behind’ as a concept used for characterising territorial inequalities faced by certain areas and, grounded on this, identify strategies to address it. This means not only building knowledge on the drivers of inequality in areas that are characterised as ‘left-behind’, but also on what drives political, media and academic characterisations of these areas as ‘left-behind’ and experiences and perceptions of being ‘left-behind’ among inhabitants of areas experiencing socioeconomic stagnation or decline. To answer these questions, EXIT proposes a bottom-up, interdisciplinary and mixed-methods research with a community-based and intersectional approach from the analysis to the transferability of practices. Addressing how different axes of inequality intersect in perceptions and experiences of ‘left-behindness’ is crucial to understand the gap between the development of policies to redress territorial inequalities and their impact on the ground. In this regard, EXIT proposes to take a place-based approach to delineate the role of different forces, and how they interplay to produce uneven effects among communities.