Working definition of ‘left behindness’ as a form of territorial inequality

Abstract

This working paper is an output produced by the EXIT project – Exploring sustainable strategies to counteract territorial inequalities from an intersectional approach – (2022-2025). It outlines the working definition used by the EXIT project of 'left behindness'. The concept of 'left behindness' surfaced in academic literature as a rather vague and open concept, depicting a relational phenomenon of territorial inequality between centres and peripheries but lacks a precise definition. The EXIT Project understand ‘left behindness’ as a form of territorial inequality that emerges as a dialectic relationship between a peripheral experience in concrete locations on the one hand and political discourses as well as the place-specific indicators and employment of policy instruments on the other.