The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea
What is gained and what is lost when a word that once narrowly referred to neighborhood change takes on a life all its own?
In this episode, author Dr. Japonica Brown-Saracino discusses her latest book, The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea, published by Princeton University Press.
The new book traces how the concept - originally intended to describe the brick-and-mortar transformation of neighborhoods - has come to characterize transformations that have little to do with cities. The book highlights how journalists, artists, filmmakers, novelists, and academics use gentrification as a symbolic device to mourn how everyday pleasures and forms of self-expression—from music to kale, and tattoos—entered the domain of the elite.
Deezer
Want to learn more?
A Neighbourhood That Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity. Dr. Japonica Brown-Saracino.
The Gentrification Debates. Dr. Japonica Brown-Saracino
How Places Make Us: Novel LBQ identities in Four Small Cities. Dr. Japonica Brown-Saracino
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Alison Stratten (00:05)
Today it is my pleasure to welcome to Academic Book Club, the author of The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea, Dr. Japanica Brown-Saracino. She is a professor of sociology and women and gender studies and chair of sociology at Boston University, an ethnographer who specializes in urban and community sociology, cultural sociology, and the study of gender and sexualities.
Alison Stratten (00:31)
Published by Princeton University Press, her new book traces how the concept, originally intended to describe the brick and mortar transformations of neighborhoods, has come to characterize transformations that have little to do with cities. The book highlights how journalists, artists, filmmakers, novelists, and academics use gentrification as a symbolic device to mourn how everyday pleasures and forms of self-expression, from music to kale and tattoos, entered the domain of the elite.
The book makes a provocative argument about what is gained and what is lost, when a word that once narrowly referred to neighborhood change takes on a life all its own.
Alison Stratten (01:12)
Thank you so much for joining us on Academic Book Club today. if you would start by please introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about your work and how you came to write the Death and Life of Gentrification.
Japonica (01:25)
Sure, thank you so much for having me. I'm Japanica Brown-Saracino, and I'm a professor of sociology and WGS at Boston University. And I'm an ethnographer. I've written three books that are all about place in some way. My first book was about gentrification in two Chicago neighborhoods and two small New England towns. And my second book was about how places shape.
Japonica (01:52)
sexual and gender identities in four small American cities. And most recently I authored The Death and Life of Gentrification, which is about how gentrification operates in popular culture today and what it means today and what the implications are of that meaning and usage for how we think about and address brick and mortar gentrification, which is something I've also, you know, researched and written about.
Japonica (02:21)
A lot, including in my edited volume, The Gentrification Debates.
Alison Stratten (02:27)
Can you share a little bit about some of the books and authors that inspired and informed your writing?
Japonica (02:35)
That's a great question. I mean, I read very widely. so much of my academic work has been shaped by, you know, reading other ethnographies, reading urban sociology, reading urban theory. But my most recent book was inspired in part by reading novels and journalists' coverage of all kinds of things in in a variety of sources.
Japonica (03:04)
And and beyond books, also by watching documentary films and watching television. So I I often say that the death and life of gentrification sort of came to me when I was often trying to escape gentrification and the rest of my scholarly work.
Alison Stratten (03:25)
Escape is a funny word for it. It's really interesting.
Japonica (03:27)
Yes.
Alison Stratten (03:28)
And and considering how busy you are, like you're an educator and and and are busy with a I'm sure a very full schedule. How did you approach the writing of the book? Like in a very nuts and bolts kind of a way. How did you approach putting the book together?
Japonica (03:46)
So the book sort of, as many books do, happened in stages. And this really started actually after I finished my last book, How Places Make Us, I started to notice that there were people commemorating the loss of lesbian bars in different cities in the US. And I started to follow media coverage, friends and family would send me clippings, you know, or links to articles.
Japonica (04:12)
And I ended up in conversation with one group of commemorators from New Orleans. And at the time I thought I had just finished a book. I was a full professor. I had time on my hands. I thought maybe.
Alison Stratten (04:25)
Yeah.
Japonica (04:26)
and I thought maybe I could help them in some way. And after just one conversation, I was so fascinated by the work they were doing that I I knew that I wanted to.
Japonica (04:37)
research the work that they were engaged in and the work that people in other cities were engaged in. So the book's earliest sort of origins are in an ethnographic project that I did on Dyke Bar commemoration in four US cities. And having studied gentrification for a long time, maybe it shouldn't have surprised me that gentrification became a central theme of the commemorative work that these organizers were doing.
Japonica (05:04)
But what was really interesting to me and really caught my attention is that in their outward-facing work, they were attributing closures to gentrification. But in interviews with me, they were telling a much more complex story. And gentrification was a piece of why bars were closing rapidly. But they thought that that was just one small piece of a much broader set of explanations for bar closure. And so that got me really curious about what worked.
Japonica (05:33)
Was sort of public-facing talk about gentrification doing for these organizers. And that, you know, sort of got me interested in the question that's central to the book, which is what work does gentrification do for many of us right now? What do we mean when we use it? And why are we using it? And especially why are we using it if we're not actually using it to talk about the kind of brick and mortar change that I think of as sort of classical gentrification?
Japonica (06:03)
So the work started with that article. But I wrote an article, I wrote a couple articles about Dyke Bar commemoration, but they were written in a very different style than my book was ultimately written in. So one was in the American Journal of Sociology and, you know, very long literature review. And I had to really approach things differently when it came time to write the book.
Japonica (06:28)
And then I would say sort of a second starting point for the book in terms of nuts and bolts was also that I had written an annual review of sociology article on sort of the state of the field of sociological scholarship on gentrification over 30 years. And I was just really struck by the degree to which scholars disagree about how to define and measure gentrification, and I think those
Japonica (06:54)
Debates and uncertainties and disagreements contribute to uncertainty and disagreement about gentrification's outcomes, like how often people are displaced. So, really, the death and life of gentrification got rolling for me as I thought about the relationship between these scholarly debates and then people out in the world taking up the term and doing all kinds of creative things with it. And so I wrote the chapters piece by piece.
Alison Stratten (07:22)
Thank you. That's a wonderful answer. When you speak about the main question of the book, in reflecting on it, now that the book is out in the world and you're reflecting upon it, could you maybe reflect on a few sections or case studies or areas that really stand out that helped you to answer that or if not answer it to to focus on the central question of the book?
Japonica (07:47)
Sure. So I don't think that there's a singular answer to the qu you know, surprise, surprise to the question of, you know, what does gentrification mean in contemporary American popular culture and what work is it doing for people? but there are you know, there are a couple different answers in the book. And one of them comes through, I think, in a chapter that's about a couple of documentary films and then a television show.
Japonica (08:15)
And and a film Last Black Man in San Francisco. And in that chapter, I argue that we often use gentrification as a shorthand to talk about how places have changed. And we use it instead of offering sort of a long list of the factors that lead to transformation. So I engage with this really terrific documentary on the north end of Boston. And that
Japonica (08:42)
Documentary film really tells the story of a changing Italian American enclave as having been that they account for the change by attributing that change to gentrification. And I argue that in doing so, they're able to sort of delicately step away from talking about things like urban renewal and white flight.
Japonica (09:05)
And all of the amazing new opportunities that some members of the, you know, Italian American neighborhood experienced as stigma towards Italian Americans lessened in the second half of the twentieth century. And you know, all of these things were factors in the neighborhood's change. But in some ways it's easier to just package those things together and call it gentrification. So I use a couple of different what
Japonica (09:33)
When the sociologist Wendy Griswold calls cultural objects to explore the way that we use gentrification as a shorthand for other kinds of often racialized processes of economic transformation in cities that we are less comfortable talking about, I think. so so that's one one example.
Alison Stratten (09:56)
You also mentioned the gentrification of the self, which I found
Japonica (10:00)
Yes.
Alison Stratten (10:01)
very interesting. Could you speak a little bit to that?
Japonica (10:04)
Sure. So one of the ways that I'm fascinated to see gentrification being used is as a way to critique how individuals upscale. So I found in a set of novels and then also in a couple of television shows and and a film accounts of personal transformation.
Japonica (10:30)
That are set against the backdrop of gentrifying places. And I argue that that you know the comp the combination of telling a story of how a person becomes more mainstream or upscale against this backdrop of gentrification is used in order to suggest that the self is gentrifying. And that this I call these parables of the gentrification of the self. And I argue that they're using gentrification to critique
Japonica (11:00)
sort of assimilation and upscaling that these cultural producers suggest reduces a person's personal authenticity and their connection to family and neighborhood and community. So it's a way to sort of quietly criticize people for how they change. And and I argue that you know I don't think any of the cultural producers are setting out to do anything problematic. And again, I think
Japonica (11:28)
every object I think I engage in engage with in the book I think is just wonderful, like wonderful books, wonderful television series. But I think when we take collectively these narratives of the transformation or gentrification of the self as a body, I think there are some things to worry about with them, especially because we tend to talk about the gentrification of women and sexual minorities and especially people of color.
Japonica (11:56)
And we don't use similar language to talk about, you know, the upscaling of people whom society might expect to more easily achieve upper middle class status. That's sort of expected, whereas gentrification is used, I think, to point to some sort of moral or ethical ethical dilemma that certain individuals are supposed to feel, you know, supposed to feel.
Japonica (12:22)
as they acquire more resources. So I'm interested in how how we use gentrification as a way to explore ambivalences about new opportunities that some people are experiencing.
Alison Stratten (12:37)
Coming from those two spheres, so coming from the sphere of the sociological review and that writing and the sort of more, let's say, lived experience or cultural sort of uses of the metaphor, what kind of like were there tensions there as you were doing the work between those two viewpoints? Because you come from both, and so I'm or you're looking at both. I'm very curious how
Japonica (13:00)
Yeah.
Alison Stratten (13:01)
they sort of both they came together, but also diverged from one another.
Japonica (13:07)
Yeah, that's a great question. So I think part of what drove me to want to write the book is frustration. I don't even know if I would put it that strongly, but discomfort with the idea that these everyday ways that people are talking about gentrification and then more scholarly ways of talking about gentrification are truly separate and don't impact one another. And so in the book, I try to show carefully, often using myself as an example how.
Japonica (13:37)
scholarly debate about gentrification filters into the public sphere. You know, I use examples of journalists who, you know, have told me, like, I, you know, I'm reading all these tweets about this academic article that people are upset about about gentrification. And now I don't know how to define gentrification. What am I going to tell my readers about what gentrification is? So I think there's very clear evidence that scholarly debates aren't in a vacuum.
Japonica (14:06)
But at the same time, if we take myself as, you know, an example or an object of interest, I noticed that, you know, I'd be lecturing about gentrification or giving talks about gentrification. Then I'd come home in the evening and turn on the television or pick up a novel, and gentrification is there. And I'm absorbing, you know, just because I study gentrification in cities doesn't mean that I somehow am immune to influence from these cultural representations of gentrification.
Japonica (14:35)
That I'm encountering just as a human. And so I was really interested in troubling the idea that there's any clear divide between, I guess, three things: actual gentrification. I use Sarah Schulman's term literal gentrification to refer to brick and mortar gentrification. So many of us are living that we are encountering it. And then there's scholarly debate about gentrification that many people.
Japonica (15:05)
Come in contact with to some degree, and then these cultural representations, sorry, and everyday talk about gentrification. And all these things I think are bleeding into one another. And I think, you know, as someone who worries very much about literal gentrification and its consequences for many people in many cities around the globe today, I don't think we're doing ourselves any favor by not looking at how these things are all interconnected.
Japonica (15:33)
For instance, if we want to get people together to support policies that help to resist displacement or even prevent some gentrification, we're going to need to grapple with how do people everywhere think about gentrification? What does that term mean to them? And are we being at all precise anymore when we use that term? Or is the term, you know, I say, has it taken on such a broad new life as a metaphor that it doesn't just mean one thing anymore?
Japonica (16:03)
And I think we have to pause and think about what to do with that, if that's true.
Alison Stratten (16:09)
And looking back, because you are so immersed, like you said, you can't escape it. Did anything in your research surprise you? Like when you s when you started putting these two viewpoints together, when you started working on the as as you were writing it in the articles, in the in the different sections, was there anything that really surprised you that you found wasn't something that you were expecting when you started to do your inquiry?
Japonica (16:34)
That's interesting to think about. I mean, I would say at this point it it might be
Japonica (16:42)
How deep a reliance on gentrification as a kind of heuristic or shorthand goes. So the final chapter of the book is about scholarly and journalistic accounts of gentrification that are nearly about literal gentrification, but even those are using gentrification, I think, as a tool to make much broader arguments and really critiques of broad systems. And I think it was a little surprising to me. I had not.
Japonica (17:12)
thought originally that that would be that the book would go there, right? I mean, it's sort of more comfortable to look at popular culture or journalism and say, look, look at how these people are taking up gentrification. I found it more intellectually challenging and surprising and ultimately very interesting to look at how scholars are also sometimes picking up gentrification and using it as a symbol to make broader arguments.
Japonica (17:42)
a symbol or an example. So you know, this really leads me to think that when we're reading accounts of gentrification, we need to ask the authors, you know, we have to ask the text, and we have to ask ourselves if we're producing work on gentrification, what what are we really engaging with? And does gentrification fully communicate the thing that we're trying to critique or describe?
Alison Stratten (18:08)
Do you are there any specific or or general sort of like spheres and spaces that you hope the book will travel to? Who did you imagine reading the book and and why are you hoping that they'll read it?
Japonica (18:21)
You know, it's interesting. The longer the book has been in the world, the more I find myself hoping. I I was not imagining that this was a book for gentrification scholars, but the longer it's out there, the more I hope that people who care about gentrification writ large really will grapple with it. I worry about I think it's time for us to really acknowledge that there is gentrification isn't singular, that there isn't
Japonica (18:50)
Just one brick and mortar process, and that the term doesn't just mean one thing anymore. And I think it's time for people who study gentrification and then legions of other people who engage with gentrification, whether through working at City Hall or, you know, architects or, you know, all kinds of people, journalists. I think we really need to think about why are we using the word and why are we so attached to it? It's it's been alive for a long time or
Japonica (19:19)
alive in some form for a long time? And do do we want to keep using it? And what are the stakes of either letting it go or continuing to use it? So that's definitely one audience. I'm also hoping that, you know, the book engages with these wonderful cultural objects that all kinds of brilliant people from many spheres of life have produced. And you know, my great wish would be that the people producing those works
Japonica (19:47)
would encounter the book or at least hear about some of the arguments in the book. So they may also become more self-reflective about reflexive about how they're relying on gentrification. And then everyday readers who are reading like the New York Times articles or the New Yorker articles that I quote in the book that are deploying gentrification very liberally, you know, to describe penile enhancement or
Japonica (20:14)
desert festivals or types of the change of you know different kinds of food or music. I hope those readers would also encounter the book and its arguments so that they could also start to think critically about gentrification. And and I think I hope really at heart the book isn't in some senses about gentrification after I've just said all of that. I think the book is
Japonica (20:44)
hopefully gesturing at the degree to which we're grappling for language to talk about social inequalities. And, you know, I use the phrase in the book at some point, the sense that there's like a broad land grab afoot, like the sense that things are just becoming more and more unequal. And I think especially in the US context, we have a really hard time talking directly about those things. So
Japonica (21:10)
With a lot of distance from the book, I think it's a case study of one way that we're trying to find like a shortcut or a crutch that might in some ways help us talk about those things and in other ways let us talk about them from a safe distance without going too close to thorny topics that many people are uncomfortable with, often related to race and class. And in that sense, you know, I'd hope lots of people would would engage with the ideas in the book, because I think
Japonica (21:39)
it's really important right now that we get better at talking very directly about the things that worry about us.
Alison Stratten (21:47)
I think also the the way that gentrification sort of encompasses space and allows people to really look around. I that's what it did for me to allow me to look around and and include in those conversations about this inequality or divisions or to to put space and this real material sort of thing that we're all working with in a very sort of concrete way into
Japonica (22:14)
Yes.
Alison Stratten (22:14)
that conversation. And
Alison Stratten (22:16)
And I found that to be very powerful in terms of the term and also the way that you break it down and and deconstruct it and consider sort of the the all the different forces that created it as a term and then
Japonica (22:29)
Yes.
Alison Stratten (22:30)
also the ways that people are using it and deploying it in ways maybe it wasn't first intended is very, very interesting.
Japonica (22:35)
Yeah.
Alison Stratten (22:36)
Yeah.
Japonica (22:38)
Well, and I think you're right that part of why we're so attached to gentrification is because it does evoke something that is concrete and you can picture you know, many of us can imagine it, we can picture it, maybe we've lived through it in one way or another. And and that tangible quality makes it very attractive. But it's also what makes it a little risky to rely on as often as we are, I think.
Alison Stratten (23:03)
Yeah, thank you so much. I have one last question.
Japonica (23:06)
Yeah, sure.
Alison Stratten (23:08)
so authors often write the books they wish they could read or they wish they could see in the world. are you imagining or wishing you could turn around and pick up a book right now? What kind of books or ideas are you imagining for the future of your writing and your scholarship?
Japonica (23:27)
I mean, I would like someone to answer some questions that I don't think I had the space to fully resolve in the book, which would be a deeper, broader interrogation of our enduring hesitancy to talk directly about certain subjects in American culture. And and I a lot of people have touched on this, but I think it's time for a really updated analysis of what's happening and that draws from
Japonica (23:57)
a very broad sample of Americans to try to understand that. Because I think a lot of our present situation is related to some of our hesitancy to be direct about subjects that we probably should become more practiced about being direct about. And I and I do applaud gentrification as something that's helped us in that direction. So I don't want to sound overly critical. I'm glad that it's there for people to use in that way.
Japonica (24:26)
But I'm interested and would love to read others writing about alternate language that we might turn to in this moment.
Alison Stratten (24:35)
Thank you so much for sharing your time with us on Academic Book Club. We'll make sure to include a link to your book and all the information and topics that you've talked about on the website. Thank you so much for sharing
Japonica (24:47)
Tengo.
Alison Stratten (24:47)
your time and your expertise with us.
Japonica (24:49)
Yeah, thank you so much for your questions. I really appreciate it.
Alison Stratten (24:53)
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Academic Book Club. Like, subscribe, and all that good stuff, and visit academicbookclub.com to learn more about new and upcoming titles. Have feedback or suggestions from this episode, ideas about who we have to speak to next? Reach out anytime and say hi on Instagram or by email to info at academicbookclub.com. Keep reading, take care, and talk soon.