The concept of “left behindness” offers novel insights into the long-lasting debates on territorial inequalities by establishing a nexus between spatial marginalization and a feeling of neglect among the inhabitants (Lang and Görmar 2019; MacKinnon, Béal, and Leibert 2024). The predominant perspective among leading authors such as Rodriguez-Pose (Rodríguez-Pose 2018; 2020) or Dijkstra (Dijkstra, Poelman, and Rodríguez-Pose 2020), aligns this phenomenon with the voting patterns of right-wing populist, anti-establishment parties and situates these primarily in areas designated as rural or post-industrial. We argue that the concept exhibits deficiencies at this nexus, as it goes hand in hand with a dichotomous understanding of urban prosperity and rural/post-industrial decline. This produces a “blind spot” concerning territorial inequality, detaching the discussion from similar dynamics unfolding in prosperous metropolitan centres, where neighbourhoods with high concentrations of low-income, migrant, and racialized populations also endure economic stagnation and underinvestment (Nijman and Wei 2020). Taking electoral results as a point of departure as well as equalizing territorial neglect and the feeling of discontent with a specific voting behaviour is simplifying complex narratives and everyday struggles of residents in deprived areas. It risks obscuring the intricacies of positionalities as well as the multi-faced strategies employed by individuals in these areas. Moreover, it may perpetuate the framing of inequality by right-wing populist parties, disregarding the experiences of migrants and racialized communities who encounter similar challenges and are additionally confronted with stigmatization, being portrayed as "the problem," or made invisible (Bhambra 2017; Isakjee and Lorne 2019). This paper proposes an intersectional ethnographic approach to enhance the concept by including the thus understudied realities of migrant and racialized residents in so called “left behind places”. Building on the insights from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the (post-)industrial town of Ternitz, Austria, it showcases differing effects of territorial inequality as well as the different forms of narratives and coping strategies employed by residents. We argue that an intersectional perspective on so called “left behind places”, is key to deepening the understanding of territorial inequality and promoting a holistic approach towards spatial justice (Barbieri et al. 2019). Literature Barbieri, Giovanni A., Federico Benassi, Marianna Mantuano, and M. Rosaria Prisco. 2019. ‘In Search of Spatial Justice. Towards a Conceptual and Operative Framework for the Analysis of Inter‐ and Intra‐urban Inequalities Using a Geo‐demographic Approach. The Case of Italy’. Regional Science Policy & Practice 11 (1): 109–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/rsp3.12158. Bhambra, Gurminder K. 2017. ‘Brexit, Trump, and “Methodological Whiteness”: On the Misrecognition of Race and Class’. The British Journal of Sociology 68 (S1): S214–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12317. Dijkstra, Lewis, Hugo Poelman, and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose. 2020. ‘The Geography of EU Discontent’. Regional Studies 54 (6): 737–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1654603. Isakjee, Arshad, and Colin Lorne. 2019. ‘Bad News from Nowhere: Race, Class and the “Left Behind”’. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 37 (1): 7–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263774X18811923b. Lang, Thilo, and Franziska Görmar, eds. 2019. Regional and Local Development in Times of Polarisation: Re-Thinking Spatial Policies in Europe. Singapore: Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1190-1. MacKinnon, Danny, Vincent Béal, and Tim Leibert. 2024. ‘Rethinking “Left-behind” Places in a Context of Rising Spatial Inequalities and Political Discontent’. Regional Studies 58 (6): 1161–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2023.2291581. Nijman, Jan, and Yehua Dennis Wei. 2020. ‘Urban Inequalities in the 21st Century Economy’. Applied Geography 117 (April):102188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2020.102188. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés. 2018. ‘The Revenge of the Places That Don’t Matter (and What to Do about It)’. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 11 (1): 189–209. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsx024. ———. 2020. ‘The Rise of Populism and the Revenge of the Places That Don’t Matter’. LSE Public Policy Review 1 (1): 4. https://doi.org/10.31389/lseppr.4.