Living in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods: Experiential Narratives of Residents Facing Daily, Economic, Environmental, and Social Challenges
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for the opportunity to read the paper "Living in disadvantaged neighborhoods: experiential narratives of residents facing daily, economic, environmental and social challenges”.
The article addresses an important topic – living in disadvantaged neighborhoods - and adopts the lens of well-being mobilizing dimensions of place attachment. The research is conducted through interviews with residents (N = 200) in four disadvantaged urban areas in the Paris region, France. It adopts a methodological and theoretical approach framed by ethnographic studies and grounded theory.
Although the article has interesting results and presents a beautiful metaphor – the flower – to synthesize results, there are several points that, in my view, need to be clarified, reorganized and deepened to allow a proper understanding of the contribution of the paper to scientific development. Detailed comments and suggestions for improvement are presented below.
1. Introduction
1.1. The introduction of the article would benefit from a thorough reorganization in order to make the reading more fluid and define a guiding thread. For example, objectives of the study are presented at different times and not always consistently (e.g., lines 63-64; lines 148-149; lines 181-182). To improve the article's comprehensibility, it would be helpful to introduce subsections and begin with a summary of the article's structure, referring to its objectives.
1.2. Being well-being central, it would be important that the article acknowledges the vast literature on health and the built environment. In this regard, the statement in Line 67: “We chose to focus on living environments that have long been recognized as major determinants of health” needs proper referencing.
2. Method
This section lacks important information that it is needed to evaluate methodological adequacy and for a critical evaluation of results.
2.1. There is no information concerning the timeframe of the study (in which years the interviews were carried out – the information that stated in the “Informed Consent Statement” should also appear in the method section), the sociodemographic characteristics and the number of interviewees by urban area, or how the study was presented to participants. Please also add information that allows to evaluate if the study followed all ethical requirements.
2.2. It is stated, in lines 185-186, that “details on our procedures, interview framework, data collection and questions related to the ethical posture of the researcher, were published elsewhere [39]” however the mentioned article also provides no information on the above-mentioned aspects. Moreover, since the data of the present article seems to be the same as article [39] – 200 interviews with residents - it is necessary to explain the differences between the two papers. A summary of the rationale and results of the article [39] is necessary. How the present article adds knowledge to the data already published?
2.3. This section would also benefit with a reorganization and introduction of subsections (e.g., participants, procedure, data analysis).
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. In my view, the article would benefit from a reorganization of these two section, joining the results and discussion into a single section with subdivisions, and then adding a section of conclusions. In fact, if the results section is comprehensible, on the contrary the discussion feels like a juxtaposition of ideas with little articulation with the theoretical introduction or with results. More depth could be added to the discussion of results, namely crossing with the vast literature that shows the impacts of disempowerment, exclusion, feelings of injustice, etc. on well-being.
3.2. The statement in line 279 “The underlying hypothesis is that there might be no well-being whatsoever without some kind of attachment to one’s living place” would be better placed at the introduction, near the study aim and objectives.
3.3. The article, despite presenting a relevant critical perspective about the adoption of a positivist expert-based approach, is not so clear about the added knowledge that the adopted approach has brought, namely concerning the implications that are stated in the abstract: “Concepts such as dignity, power to act, freedom, and social recognition, emerged as major conditions of possibility of well-being or leading a good life. We claim these dimensions will be key to respond to the current sustainability challenges, such as social and environmental justice in the face of an unequal and changing world”.
3.4. It lacks a final section that highlights the main findings of the study, the study limitations and implications for theory and policymaking.
I hope my comments be helpful for the improvement of the paper.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. The paper is quite well written, however I have a few concerns though; the shortcomings are indicated in detail below.
The goal of this paper should be clearly specified in the introduction.
Line 185 “Details on our procedures, interview framework, data collection and questions related to the ethical posture of the researcher, were published elsewhere”. Here the authors refer to their other article, written, however, in French. I therefore suggest presenting at least a general outline of the research procedure, data collection and questions (because not every reader can read in French).
The strong area of ​​this article is the development of a heuristic device of place attachment in both configurations (it should be noted, however, that the presentation in the form of a flower is not entirely new, e.g. the OECD better life index - of course constructed completely differently, with completely different variables, etc.).
However, there is the question - how the created heuristic device can be used to present "a way of understanding how residents experience their living place and what matters to them" (line 642). Because there is no answer to this question. In methodology section authors indicate that „this research is based on fieldwork carried out in four disadvantaged urban areas”. Based on the conducted research, the authors created a heuristic device, but they did not present how this device looks like in the case of living in "disadvantaged neighborhoods" (as the title of the article suggests).
Moreover, in the title of the article, the authors indicate "facing everyday, economic, environmental and social challenges". Since I do not know the questions that were asked to the residents, I am not sure whether the heuristic device actually presents/takes into account environmental aspects, and where these aspects are in the device. Moreover, are the authors concerned about the natural environment or the living environment? It would be worth clarifying this.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI thank the authors for the changes. The authors have addressed the majority of my comments and suggestions. However, now that the article is more clear, some other fragilities are made visible.
1. In my opinion, the argumentation for the methodological approach adopted is not sound. The article does not describe the current state of the art about perceptions of residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods and does not highlight the gaps that can be/were filled with the present study. For example, the report [64] described in lines 732 to 740 should be better placed in the introduction to support the argument. Discussion could also be enhanced by connecting with extant literature.
2. The theoretical approach adopted is still a bit of confusing. The article makes reference to diverse theoretical perspectives without proper referencing: line 97 (theory of capabilities), lines 101-102 (From philosophy or sociology to geography or urban psychology), line 142 (environmental psychology), line 166 (sustainability studies), line 169 (ethnographic and grounded theory approach), 228 (ethnographic approaches).
3. Moreover, it does not clearly describe how the different perspectives were articulated in a coherent theoretical and methodological framework. This could be improved, for example, by contextualizing and referencing the methodological description in lines 251 to 259.
4. In line with point 2, emotions and feelings are a vast domain of scientific research and theorization. It would be important that the article acknowledges that vast literature and clarifies the adopted positioning.
5. Please provide a definition for “heuristic device”.
6. Please provide proper references for the statement in lines 644-645 “This is a paradox inherent to experienced-based approaches”.
7. Please check current ethical requirements of research with humans and state if the research, although not having requested written informed consent and ethical approval, complies (or not) with current requests.
8. Finally, I also consider that the article would benefit from an English professional proofreading, as some expressions do not seem to be the more adequate, appropriate to the style of scientific writing.
I hope my comments be helpful for the improvement of the paper.
Author Response
We wish to thank the reviewer for his comments and suggestions. They helped us improve and clarify this new version, after the second round of review. We probably have been parsimonious in the use of references, sometimes oversimplifying a field or a concept. We made some adjustments throughout the manuscript, detailing and clarifying our theoretical approach. The manuscript is therefore slightly longer, with several new references. Specific answers are provided for each point:
Comments 1 : In my opinion, the argumentation for the methodological approach adopted is not sound. The article does not describe the current state of the art about perceptions of residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods and does not highlight the gaps that can be/were filled with the present study. For example, the report [64] described in lines 732 to 740 should be better placed in the introduction to support the argument. Discussion could also be enhanced by connecting with extant literature.
Response 1 :
- We are familiar with this field, the study of perceptions, which clearly goes beyond our intentions. For a number of reasons that will appear further on (points 2, 3, 7), it was also what we wanted to distance ourselves from. In the latest version we have given our epistemic assumptions, starting from a subjectivist/critical/reflexive position, or stated otherwise, aiming at understanding the residents point of view, from their experience. Adopting this stance has a second consequence, associated with the critical part. It implies that the situations that we study are potentially conflictual, ridden with power relations, with consequent experiences of symbolic violence, that cannot be ignored. Additional explanations have been provided in the text, but we may again observe that our assumptions have to be appreciated in the backdrop of the deprived settings of our study.
- Regarding the Report [former n° 64], we agree that it could have been placed in the introduction. But we chose to include it in the discussion, after we had presented our results, from a different perspective, in order to contrast their different nature and possible implications for policymaking, as required in the first round of review.
- We have added some new references, both to consolidate our arguments and to highlight the connections with other fields that we could not cover in this article.
Comments 2 : The theoretical approach adopted is still a bit of confusing. The article makes reference to diverse theoretical perspectives without proper referencing: line 97 (theory of capabilities), lines 101-102 (From philosophy or sociology to geography or urban psychology), line 142 (environmental psychology), line 166 (sustainability studies), line 169 (ethnographic and grounded theory approach), 228 (ethnographic approaches).
Response 2 : In a brief and structured way:
- Attempts to catch a slippery concept like well-being extend through centuries, For this reason, we mentioned some of the numerous and diverse fields or disciplines in which we sought inspiration. Those mentioned lines 101-102 are but examples.
- What we retained from Amartya Sen is his conception of capability as freedom. A mention to the reference was added.
It is true that we have a tendency to overuse the somewhat vague term “approach”. A situation that we tried to remedy in the current version.
- The encounter with place-attachment constituted the first turning point. It led us to choose an epistemic perspective, subjectivist/reflexive/critical (refs added). This choice impacted on the methodology applied to the collection of empirical data, hence the choice to import ethnographic principles (refs added). At this point, ethical interrogations appeared, concerning the posture of the researcher and his relationship with the residents. Details were included in the relevant sections and further aspects are covered under point 7, bellow.
- We did have an initial theoretical framework, the one provided by place-attachment. We were then faced with the “analysis” of the textual accounts. Rather than projecting a pre-established analytical framework (which one to choose?), we opted for grounded theory, of the constructivist as opposed to a positivist kind (ref added).
Comments 3: Moreover, it does not clearly describe how the different perspectives were articulated in a coherent theoretical and methodological framework. This could be improved, for example, by contextualizing and referencing the methodological description in lines 251 to 259.
Response 3 :
- In our answer to point n° 2, we intended to not only list the different perspectives, but to show how they depend on each other, pointing towards a coherent whole. We believe that the changes we made in sections 2.2 and 2.3 cover the needs identified in lines, originally, 251 to 259.
Comments 4 : In line with point 2, emotions and feelings are a vast domain of scientific research and theorization. It would be important that the article acknowledges that vast literature and clarifies the adopted positioning.
Response 4 : We acknowledge the vast literature on theorization on emotions and feelings, and cited literature to this effect. As a reminder and following such clarifications in the manuscript, we insist: while emotions were noticed in the narratives, our primary focus was on judgments, arguments and justifications.
Comments 5 : Please provide a definition for “heuristic device”.
Response 5 : This, we admit, is a tricky point. The term device, in the absence of a better term, could be misleading. We have clarified our intentions and explained the workings of this heuristic “procedure”. Most importantly we underlined the epistemological basis of this choice and the influence on the presentation of the results, hopefully rendering more comprehensible the metaphor of the flower.
Comments 6 : Please provide proper references for the statement in lines 644-645 “This is a paradox inherent to experienced-based approaches”.
Response 6 : It was indeed a somewhat clumsy expression that we tried to correct in this version.
Comments 7 : Please check current ethical requirements of research with humans and state if the research, although not having requested written informed consent and ethical approval, complies (or not) with current requests.
Response 7 : At the time, we argued that the formal requirement of informed consent would introduce an interruption in the process of building a horizontal and amicable relation, implying in itself ethical underpinnings. Our ethical protocol was part of our methodology and has been detailed in the current version.
Comments 8 : Finally, I also consider that the article would benefit from an English professional proofreading, as some expressions do not seem to be the more adequate, appropriate to the style of scientific writing.
Response 8 : We have done our best within the time available.
