Usos de l'estigma. El paper de la prostitució en la revalorització urbanística de la illa robador de la ciutat de Barcelona

This article makes use of the extensive literature on "urban renewal" in Barcelona's Raval in order to account for the stigmatization of this urban district, and of a way of earning a living there: street prostitution. Based on research on and in a particular street in this neighborhood, the Carrer d'en Robador, it explains both how these forms of stigma are produced and reproduced, and the role of stigma in enabling and justifying the many significant urban planning projects carried out in the Raval over more than three decades. The text is divided into three parts: a historical overview of the Raval, and two sections that comprise the central discussion. The first of these analyzes current representations of the Raval in the media and in political discourse. This is followed by a brief historiographic exploration of successive erasures of memory concerning this neighborhood both as urban place and space, and as a social world. The article concludes with a comparative analysis of popular images of and political discourses on the Raval, and an ethnographic account of street prostitutes working in Carrer d'en Robador.