This paper examines how gentrifiers negotiate tensions between the narratives of liberal progressivism they espouse and their role in neighborhood change. Through in–depth interviews with recent residents in a gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn, this paper identifies patterns in rhetorical strategies and narrative techniques employed by interviewees to manage points of conflict. It finds that gentrifiers express ambivalence and feelings of guilt surrounding their presence in the neighborhood and that they manage this ambivalence through three main strategies: (1) reframing the outcomes of gentrification in positive terms, (2) distinguishing their behaviors and attitudes from the stereotypical “bad” gentrifier, and (3) displacing their responsibility for the process of gentrification onto another group of actors, such as the government or real estate developers. These results provide a framework for understanding how individuals justify their complicity in other processes which they see as morally questionable, such as unethical consumerism.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AtkinsonRowland. 2003. “Misunderstood Saviour or Vengeful Wrecker? The Many Meanings and Problems of Gentrification.” Urban Studies40(12):2343–50.
2.
BanduraAlbert. 1999. “Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities.” Personality and Social Psychology Review3:193–209 [Special Issue on Evil and Violence].
3.
Bonilla–SilvaEduardo, and FormanTyrone A.. 2000. “‘I Am Not a Racist But…’: Mapping White College Students' Racial Ideology in the USA.” Discourse & Society11(1):50–85.
4.
BonnetFrançois. 2014. “How to Perform Non–Racism? Colour–Blind Speech Norms and Race–Conscious Policies among French Security Personnel.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies40(8):1275–94.
5.
Brown–SaracinoJaponica. 2010a. The Gentrification Debates. New York: Routledge.
6.
Brown–SaracinoJaponica. 2010b. A Neighborhood that Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
7.
BurgessErnest W.2008 [1925]. “The Growth of the City: An Introduction to a Research Project.” In MarzluffJohn M. et al. (eds.), Urban Ecology, pp. 71–78. Boston, MA: Springer. (Originally published in 1925 in “The Trend of Population.” Publications of the American Sociological Society 28:85–97).
8.
ButlerTim. 1997. Gentrification and the Middle Classes. London: Ashgate.
9.
CaulfieldJon. 1994. City Form and Everyday Life: Toronto's Gentrification and Critical Social Practice. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
10.
ClayPhillip. 1979. Neighborhood Renewal: Middle Class Resettlement and Incumbent Upgrading in American Neighborhoods. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company.
11.
DemauseNeil. 2015. “The Gentrifier's Guide to Not Being an Asshole.” The Village Voice, August 25.
12.
DiAngeloRobin. 2011. “White Fragility.” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy3(3):54–70.
13.
EckhardtGiana, BelkRussel, and DevinneyTimothy. 2010. “Why Don't Consumers Consume Ethically?” Journal of Consumer Behavior9:426–36.
14.
FrankenbergRuth. 1993. White Women, Race Matters. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
15.
FreemanLance, and BraconiFrank. 2004. “Gentrification and Displacement in New York City in the 1990s.” Journal of the American Planning Association70(1):39–52.
16.
GarfinkelHarold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
17.
GlassRuth. 1964. London, Aspects of Change. London: Center for Urban Studies.
18.
GoffmanErving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday–Anchor.
19.
HalpernRobert. 1995. Rebuilding the Inner City: A History of Neighborhood Initiatives to Address Poverty in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press.
20.
HamnettChris, and WilliamsPeter. 1980. “Social Change in London: A Study of Gentrification.” The London Journal6(1):51–66.
21.
HyraDerek. 2008. The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
22.
HyraDerek. 2015. “The Back–to–the–City Movement: Neighborhood Redevelopment and Processes of Political and Cultural Displacement.” Urban Studies52(10):1753–73.
23.
IzadiElahe. 2011. “Five Ways to be a Good Gentrifier.” DC Centric, May 25.
24.
JerolmackColin, and KhanShamus. 2014. “Talk Is Cheap: Ethnography and Attitudinal Fallacy.” Sociological Methods and Research43(2):178–209.
25.
JohnsonKimberley. 2004. “Community Development Corporations, Participation, and Accountability: The Harlem Urban Development Corporation and the Bedford–Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science594(1):109–24.
26.
KeatingDennis W., and KrumholzNorman. 1999. Rebuilding Urban Neighborhoods: Achievements, Opportunities, and Limits. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
27.
KennedyMaureen, and LeonardPaul. 2001. GENTRIFICATION: Practice and Politics. Washington, DC: Local Initiatives Support Corporation Center for Home Ownership and Knowledge Sharing Initiative.
28.
KirklandElizabeth. 2008. “What's Race Got to Do With It? Looking for the Racial Dimensions of Gentrification.” Western Journal of Black Studies32(2):18–30.
29.
LaFreeGary. 1999. “Declining Violent Crime Rates in the 1990s: Predicting Crime Booms and Busts.” Annual Review of Sociology25(1):145–68.
30.
LeyDavid. 1996. “The New Middle Class in Canadian Central Cities.” In City Lives and City Forms: Critical Research and Canadian Urbanism, CaulfieldJon and PeakLinda (eds.), pp. 5–32. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
31.
LloydRichard. 2005. “Living like an Artist.” In Neo–Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Post–Industrial City, pp. 99–122. New York: Routledge.
32.
LoganJohn R., and MolotchHarvey. 2012. “The City as a Growth Machine.” In LinJan and MeleChristopher (eds.), The Urban Sociology Reader. London: Routledge.
33.
MillsWright C. 1940. “Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive.” American Sociological Review5:904–13.
34.
ObermannMarie–Louise. 2011. “Moral Disengagement among Bystanders to School Bullying.” Journal of School Violence10:239–57.
35.
OrbuchTerri. 1997. “People's Accounts Count.” American Review of Sociology23:455–78.
RasmussenTom. 2015. “How to be a Good Gentrifier.” i–D Vice, November 10.
38.
SchlichtmanJohn Joe, and PatchJason. 2014. “Gentrifier? Who, Me? Interrogating the Gentrifier in the Mirror.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research38(4):1491–508.
39.
ScottMarvin B., and LymanStanford M.. 1968. “Accounts.” American Sociological Review33:46–62.
40.
ShawKate, and HagemansIris. 2015. “‘Gentrification Without Displacement’ and the Consequent Loss of Place: The Effects of Class Transition on Low–Income Residents of Secure Housing in Gentrifying Areas.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research39(2):323–41.
41.
SibalisMichael. 2004. “Urban Space and Homosexuality: The Example of the Marais, Paris’ Gay Ghetto,” Urban Studies41(9):1739–50.
42.
SlaterTom. 2006. “The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research30(4):737–57.
43.
SmithNeil. 1979. “Toward a Theory of Gentrification: A Back to the City Movement by Capital, Not People.” Journal of the American Planning Association45(4):538–48.
44.
SmithNeil, and LeFaivreMichele. 1984. “A Class Analysis of Gentrification.” In Gentrification, Displacement and Neighborhood Revitalization, BruceLondon and John PalenJ. (eds.), pp. 43–63. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
45.
SomersMargaret. 1994. “The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach.” Theory and Society23(5):605–49.
46.
SpainDaphne. 1993. “Been–Heres versus Come–Heres: Negotiating Conflicting Community Identities.” Journal of the American Planning Association59(2):156–71.
47.
StabrowskiFilip. 2014. “New–Build Gentrification and the Everyday Displacement of Polish Immigrant Tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.” Antipode46(3):794–815.
48.
SwidlerAnn. 2001. Talk of Love. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
49.
TaylorMonique. 2002. “The Dilemma of Racial Difference.” In Harlem: Between Heaven and Hell, pp. 57–75. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
50.
TillyCharles. 2006. Why? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
U.S. Census Bureau/Social Explorer. 2013. U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey Office. (https://www.socialexplorer.com/).
53.
WeissRobert. 1994. Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. New York: Free Press.
54.
WilderC. Steven. 2000. A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn. New York: Columbia University Press.
55.
ZukMiriam, BierbaumAriel, ChappleKaren, GorskaKarolina, SiderisAnastasia Loukaitou, OngPaul, and ThomasTrevor. 2015. “Gentrification, Displacement and the Role of Public Investment: A Literature Review.” San Francisco: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
56.
ZukinSharon. 1982. Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
57.
ZukinSharon. 1987. “Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core.” Annual Review of Sociology13:129–47.
58.
ZukinSharon. 2008. “Consuming Authenticity: From Outposts of Difference to Means of Exclusion.” Cultural Studies22(5):724–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380802245985.
