Constructing Racial Division in the Gentrifying City: A Critical Analysis of Race in Gentrification Scholarship

• In Event: 574 - Regular Session. Urban Sociology

Abstract

While the term ‘gentrification’ in an American context historically incorporates notions of racial turnover, race as a direct subject of inquiry is notably absent. Employing critical race theory as a lens, this study explores the place of race in gentrification scholarship over time. I argue studies themselves are racialized, effectively reproducing common-sense notions of racial dominance and subordination. This fails to account for the growing complexity of urban space, as cities move away from the post-war paradigm of chocolate cities, vanilla suburbs. I conduct a systematic review and a discourse analysis of 284 empirical studies of gentrification from 1970-2012. . Findings show while studies consistently employ racial categories on par with class categories over time, racial terms are used in imprecise and implicit ways, such that race is positioned as epi-phenomenal to class. This conflates race with class and tenure positions, creating dichotomizing and homogenizing racialized typologies of ‘poor minority incumbents’ and ‘wealthy white newcomers’. Research questions emphasize displacement and conflict-based outcomes, consistently placing ‘white’ in agentic and dominant positions. In this way, studies of gentrification work to reproduce problematic notions of racial dominance, while simultaneously limiting the analytical power of gentrification in a changing urban context.

Author

• Katherine F Fallon, University of Wisconsin, Madison