Research project SE/D3/03 (Research action SE)
The crumbling of state mechanisms for combating social exclusion, unemployment, and insecurity of citizens results most often, in European
societies, from pragmatic management of the economy and especially the political situation. The research project has three essential
objectives:
1.To interrelate existing studies on insecurity and exclusion and produce a critical synthesis of them. The starting hypothesis is that insecurity of
existence, the subjective feeling of insecurity, and victimisation are closely linked;
2.To conduct an in-depth comparative study of the figures supplied by various data bases existing in Belgium. The team's strength is to have
undertaken since 1992 to constitute a panel-study data base (yearly questioning of the same sample population on the same questions) concerning the socio-economic situation of households residing in Belgium;
3. Development of an integrated methodology thanks to a multidisciplinary approach (sociological, criminalistic, psychological, geographical,
urbanistic) makes it possible to build methodological tools for recording, at neighbourhood level, objective facts, feelings of insecurity, spatial
perceptions at human scale, realities conducive to social exclusion. The project applis locally (at neighbourhood level) a single, standardised measuring scale that would enable the development of adequate social and economic policies.
The practical aim of these tools is to look again at notions as essential to society as social ties and cohesion between individuals.
