As part of the forthcoming RC21 conference (11-13 September, Leeds, UK), I am organising, with Matthias Bernt (Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space) and Paul Waley (University of Leeds) back-to-back double sessions on gentrification, (1) Gentrification and Statehood and (2) Gentrification as Method. The session details are attached below.

Paper abstracts should be sent by e-mail to RC21@leeds.ac.uk AND to the relevant session organisers, indicating which session you are submitting to. Please consult the conference web site for more details (http://www.rc21.org/en/conferences/conference-2017/).

Deadline for Paper Abstract Submission: Friday 10 March 2017

Call for Papers

RC21 CONFERENCE 2017 “Rethinking Urban Global Justice”

11-13 September 2017 | University of Leeds, UK |http://www.rc21.org/en/conferences/conference-2017/

Gentrification Sub-session 1-1:
Gentrification and Statehood

The impact of public policies on the dynamics and patterns of gentrification has received increasing attention throughout the recent years. Yet, while it is generally acknowledged that the different institutional contexts have the potential to significantly “limit, alter, or impede gentrification” (Porter and Shaw 2009), the variegated geography of statehood have remained an under-explored issue in gentrification studies. In contrast with studies on “worlds of welfare capitalism” (Esping-Andersen 1990), on “housing systems” (Kemeny 1995 and 2005) or on “varieties of residential capitalism” (Schwarz and Seabrooke 2008), gentrification studies have been marked by a focus on the local (neighbourhood scale in particular) and hardly examined how different patterns of urban upgrading, redevelopment and displacement interplay with different variants of statehood. Divergent trajectories of institutionalizing property relations, tenure relations, and historico-geographical formulations of social justice concepts across the globe have thus remained out of sight. The shortfall extends to the examination of the role of the state and different constellations of private and public actors in producing gentrification.

This session aims to address this gap and invigorate the study of the relationship between gentrification and statehood. It calls for papers which study how reinvestment and displacement function in different institutional contexts, taking into consideration the political economic contexts that bring together divergent state and non-state actors. Both empirical and theoretical contributions are welcome.

Keywords: gentrification, statehood, institutionalisation, socio-political relations

Organisers and their Contact Details:

Dr. Matthias Bernt
Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS). Email: matthias.bernt@leibniz-irs.de

Dr. Hyun Bang Shin
Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science. Email: h.b.shin@lse.ac.uk

 

Gentrification Sub-session 1-2:
Gentrification as Method

Proposed for the RC21 CONFERENCE 2017 “Rethinking Urban Global Justice”

Gentrification is one of the few analytical frameworks in urban studies which ‘provides a critical edge and some theoretical coherence to physical and social change incorporating eviction, displacement, demolition and redevelopment” (Ley and Teo, 2014). Nevertheless, increasingly in recent years, it has also been subject to negation, deemed inapplicable outside the global North. It is sometimes argued that gentrification prohibits the possibility of multiple narratives of displacement and eviction. However, is this discussion an appropriate and justifiable way of advancing our production of knowledge? Instead of becoming ensnared in categorical debates on definitions of gentrification and its conceptualisation across space, the session aims to locate “gentrification as part of multiple urban processes at work” (Shin, Lees and López-Morales, 2016), understanding the working of gentrification and other urban processes from the perspective of relational and hierarchical space. Papers presented to this session are to engage with, or be related to, the following questions:

  • What does the use of a particular geographical scale mean for gentrification studies?
  • How does gentrification reconcile itself with other analytical frameworks (e.g. accumulation by dispossession, segregation)?
  • Where does ‘concept stretch’ come into play with gentrification?
  • Are we homogenising space to an extreme when discussing issues of displacement, dispossession and accumulation in terms of gentrification?
  • How do we create a healthier and more productive dialogue between gentrification and non-gentrification researchers, both of whom aim to attain social justice?
  • How can gentrification researchers best overcome the principal methodological problems they face?

The session calls for papers that address any or several of these questions. Both empirical and theoretical contributions are welcome.

Keywords: gentrification, production of knowledge, methods, conceptualisation

Organisers and their Contact Details:

Dr. Hyun Bang Shin
Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science. Email: h.b.shin@lse.ac.uk

Dr. Paul Waley
School of Geography, University of Leeds. Email: p.t.waley@leds.ac.uk