Book chapter - Moving Beyond Gentrification

1 INTRODUCTION This chapter takes as a first point of departure that displacement is the central experience of gentrification, as well as climate change and other manifestations of contemporary life in the Capitalocenei and its geographies of displacement, dispossession, and extermination. The nature of urban development itself stands on a history of serial forced displacement – today’s cities are built upon stolen land, the enclosure of public commons, and the growth of an extractive, exploitative, and exclusive capitalist economy enabled by colonialism, racism, paternalism, ableism, and other interdependent processes of systemic, structural oppression. Dispossession and displacement are endemic to global capitalism and urban development (Fullilove & Wallace, 2011; Harvey, 2009; Hern, 2017).

Even as an era of revolutions unfolded in the 18th century that gave rise to western European experiments in democracies established by – and for – “the people,” our cities have been built by – and for – capitalist growth that drives both displacement and extermination (Boggs & Boggs, 1974; Moore, 2017). Modern capitalism and western democracy co-evolved, both operating under the influence of Enlightenment Era conceptions of sovereignty, cartography, and rationality, with profound implications for the exercise of power in relationship with land and people, the practice of cartography, and the purpose of universities.

Sovereignty in this world view means “supreme authority within a territory,” primarily by the State (e.g. nation state), but also by elite private property owners (e.g., gentry) (Hern, 2017). In this context, cartography developed as a means through which the State could make its land and labor legible; that which can be (re)defined, divided, and controlled (Scott, 1999). Universities supported processes of colonization, and evolved to privilege the pursuit of generalizable, a-contextual, objective Truths by established scientists (Edney & Pedley, 2020; Flyvbjerg, 2001; Stein, 2020).

Second, we posit that if we are to engage in research and mapping that moves beyond gentrification and geographies of displacement, we must move beyond mere critique to enact reimagined forms of cartography and knowledge production. Decades of social vulnerability mapping have made vulnerability to displacement legible, yet gentrification continues unabated (Chapple & Zuk, 2016; Easton et al., 2020; Richardson et al., 2020). Since the inception of social vulnerability mapping, researchers have questioned whether the same institutions that created conditions of precarity for marginalized communities can be trusted to use social vulnerability maps to protect people they have made to be vulnerable (Wisner, 1993).

Moreover, social vulnerability mapping risks framing marginalized people solely as victims, while methodological constraints have failed to (1) center community knowledge and strengths enabling resilience, (2) identify intersectional oppressions and name them as such, and (3) advance community activism (Jacobs, 2019). These constraints limit such analyses in producing meaningful change and contributing to the self-sovereignty of communities on the frontlines of displacement struggles.

Third, we posit that reimagined forms of mapping and knowledge production are not enough to move beyond geographies of displacement; we must also transform our conceptions of sovereignty that give form to cartography. As Matt Hern asserts in What A City Is For: Remaking the Politics of Displacement, “any attempts to ameliorate displacement are doomed if not rooted in an aggressively equitable and decolonized politics of land, ownership and sovereignty” (2017, p. 30). What does it take to root ourselves in a decolonized politics of sovereignty? Fundamentally, it requires learning from indigenous thought and 4