In this roundtable, participants aim to unsettle the familiarity with which gentrification has come to be recognized and understood, both in scholarship and as a popular concept. While we accept that gentrification describes a common process of capitalist displacement, observed in many cities around the globe, we are critical of the way that gentrification is often assumed to be a singular phenomenon: a global motion of capital that plays out in effectively the same way in all contexts. Participants draw on fieldwork to explore how attention to place may unsettle the presumed consistency of gentrification. In particular, what stakes are revealed when we attend to the ways that gentrification intersects with local spatial meanings and/or ethnic/racial histories? How does this problematize or contradict the presumed capitalist politics of gentrification? And how does gentrification need to be rethought to account for these locally specific dynamics? We are particularly interested in perspectives from the Global South and/or critical race scholarship which takes a critical stance on the issue of gentrification.
We invite proposals for participation in this roundtable. Please send a short abstract detailing your research and how you engage with the issue of gentrification to Colin McLaughlin-Alcock (cmclaugh@scrippscollege.edu). Proposals received by April 10 will receive full consideration. Notification by April 15.
Association for Political and Legal Anthropology 