Apologies
for cross postings
2nd
call for papers: ‘Who’ are the
gentrifiers in contemporary urban and rural space?'
Co-convened
by Darren P. Smith ([log in to unmask]) and Joanna Sage ([log in to unmask]),
University of Brighton, UK
Annual
Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Las Vegas, Nevada
March
22-29, 2009
2009
marks the silver jubilee of Damaris Rose’s (1984) seemingly prophetic
comment that conceptualisations of gentrifiers will need to be continually
refined and disaggregated, in light of the inherent dynamism of gentrification
processes. Over the last three decades, Rose’s assertion has
been consistently substantiated by the identification of more diverse
‘geographies of gentrification’ (Lees,
2007). As deeper levels of the socio-spatial plurality of contemporary
global gentrification are identified (Atkinson and Bridge, 2005), it is
pertinent and timely to revisit Rose’s assertion. Recent studies,
undoubtedly, confirm that historical representations of prototypical
gentrifiers (e.g. Filion, 1991) are narrow and out-dated. Yet such dominant
imagery continues to hold currency in some media and policy discourses.
Indeed, it can be argued that critical perspectives of ‘who’ and
‘what’ constitutes a gentrifier may have gone astray on the radar
of scholars of gentrification. This is surprising given the use of new
terms to describe gentrifiers (e.g. financifiers, super-gentrifiers,
studentifiers and greentrifiers) within studies of gentrification. At the
same time, there may be merit in revisiting the value of the relevance of
particular dualisms (e.g. producer versus consumer) for conceptualising
contemporary gentrifiers, for instance the role of ‘occupier
gentrifiers’ (N. Smith, 1992) within expressions of ‘positive
gentrification’ and ‘new build’ gentrification. We
therefore seek papers which explicitly engage with such issues, and which draw
upon empirical studies of gentrification, to challenge the conceptual
boundaries of ‘who’ and ‘what’ constitutes the
modern-day gentrifier in critical ways.
Please
send expressions of interest to the session organisers, and/or forward an abstract by October 25th 2008.