Disrupting Histories of Displacement: Whiteness as Property and the Battle for Educational Resources Amid Redevelopment

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 9:45 am - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Contested Opportunities: Power, Place, and Educational Justice

Abstract

Using Allentown, Pennsylvania and it’s Neighborhood Improvement Zone (NIZ) redevelopment project as a case, I argue that contemporary redevelopment efforts represent a racial project of interest convergence, a White renaissance, in which displacement of low-income families of color is justified through false promises of a future with mixed-income communities, jobs, and growth that will benefit all city residents, particularly under-resourced school districts. As critical ethnographies in education have brought similar issues to light in larger cities like San Francisco (Shange, 2019) and Chicago (Ewing, 2018), as well as suburbs (Lewis-McCoy, 2014), I argue this research holds implications for advocates of educational equity in smaller cities nationally, especially with growing minoritized populations, similarly facing the threat of continued displacement through redevelopment.

Author

• Erika L. Davis, University of Michigan