Workshop: Rethinking the Media-Gentrification Nexus
Where: Zoom (Virtual)
When: June 10 and July 2, 2024
9:00 am–4:30 pm US-EDT / 2:00 pm-9:30 pm UK-BST
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This workshop — open to the public — brings together over 30 scholars who will present their work on rethinking the interface between gentrification and the proliferation of ‘old’ and ‘new’ media practices.
Papers draw on inter- or trans-disciplinary traditions across the humanities and social sciences and engage with flexible notions of ‘media’ as objects of investigation in gentrification research (e.g., media as urban data or cultural artifacts), as methodological innovation (e.g., media production as fieldwork), or as activist tools of resistance and struggle (e.g., media as platforms for coalition building).
The online workshop will feature a series of presenters and break-out rooms to foster networking, dialogue, and visibility between these emerging strands of academic, advocacy, and artistic practices that capture shifting global urban geographies.
Workshop co-organizers: Kenton Card (Boston University), Catalina Neculai (Coventry University), Loretta Lees (Boston University), and Japonica Brown-Saracino (Boston University)
Agenda: Monday, June 10
9:00-9:20am: Introduction
9:20-10:40am: Cultural practices and representations in/of gentrifying spaces
- James Peacock, “Gentrification in Contemporary Fiction: Domestic Spaces, Neighbourhoods, and Global Real Estate”
- George Iulian Zamfir, “Mass media (counter)narratives of European real estate investment frontiers”
- Martin Abbott & Jennifer Minner, “Memory in Action: The Essay Film as Archive of Protest and Resistance”
- Seán Finnan, “Beyond Temporary Urbanism: DIY Internet Radio and its Role in Producing Cultural Space in Dublin”
10:40-11:10am: Lunch
11:10am-12:30pm: Media and tech urbanisms
- Jan Üblacker and Rebekka Atakan, “The Role of Media Practices in Perceiving Urban Change and Gentrification: Quantitative Insights from Cologne, Germany”
- Jeffrey Parker, “Gentrification and Reputational Technology”
- Keli L Gabinelli, “Technologies of and by gentrification”
- Johanna Betz, “Contesting the Housing Affordability Crisis in German Newspapers”
12:30pm-12:50pm: Break
12:50pm-2:10pm: Massmedia coverage of gentrification
- Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana, “Erasing History to Justify Displacement: How the News Media Punishes Black Neighborhoods for Systemic Racism”
- Leonard Nevarez, “From regional neighbor to lifestyle colony: How the New York Times reports on the Hudson Valley, 2001-2022”
- Jakira Silas, “‘Crime-ridden’ to ‘Cool neighborhood’: Changing Representations of Neighborhood Reputations Over Time in Houston, Texas”
- Andrea Aguilar de Gante, “Gentrification through the lens of Instagram. A thematic agenda setting analysis”
2:10-2:30pm: Break
2:30-3:50pm: Archival (mixed) media counternarratives of gentrification
- Jeffrey T. Kruth, “Counter-memory: Housing Movements & Cultural Memory against Gentrification in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine”
- Miguel A. Montalva Barba, “Witnessing Whiteness: Gentrification through the Perspective of Latine and African Americans”
- Chenab Ahuja Navalkha, “Against ‘Empty’ Space: Countering Media Representations of Black Placelessness in Washington Park, Chicago”
- Aarti Mehta-Kroll, “Placemaking and Claim Staking in Coral Gables, Florida: The Case of the Lola B. Walker Homeowners Association”
- Subadevan, “Not too Spicy Please!: The Media-Gentrification Nexus and Palatable Diversity in Singapore’s Little India Neighborhood”
4:10-4:30pm: Closing Remarks
Agenda: Tuesday, July 2
9:00-9:20am: Introduction
9:20-10:40am: Documentary film(making) and gentrification
- Sanjukta Sattar & Sujayita Bhattacharjee, “Media Representations of Mumbai’s Mill Land Gentrification”
- Louise Jezierski & Joshua Montgomery-Patt, “Reframing Detroit: Documentary Films Representing Detroit’s Decline and Revitalization”
- Habiba Jellali, “Resisting Gentrification Through Grassroots Filmmaking: A Case Study of the ‘This is’ Documentary Series in South London”
- Catalina Neculai, “Documenting historical conjunctures of antigentrification struggles in New York City”
10:40-11:10am: Lunch
11:10am-12:30pm: Mixed-media discourses and practices of gentrification (resistance)
- Marie-Pierre Vincent, “Discourses of Anti-Gentrification Resistance in British National Newspapers from the 2010s to the Present”
- Maurizio Marinelli & Jimmy Lo, “The Urban-Media Nexus in Hong Kong: Narrative and Counter-narratives of Pang Jai Fabric Market’s Adaptive Strategies for Survival”
- Tim Kumfer, “‘We See the Same Thing in Soweto’: Racialized Displacement and Black Struggle in Shirikiana Aina’s Brick by Brick”
- Maria Sulimma, “‘No one’s more concerned about the G-word than us’: Television, Seriality, and Gentrification”
12:30pm-12:50pm: Break
12:50pm-2:10pm: News and lifestyle media perspectives on gentrification
- Irene Lebrusán & Alba Taboada Villamarin, “Constructing social acceptance of urban tourism in Spain: media and its influence on housing legislation”
- Víctor Albert-Blanco, Stéphane Sadoux, & Marie-Pierre Vincent, “The Concept of Gentrification in Time Out Magazine: a Comparative Study of the London and Barcelona Editions”
- Mennatullah Hendawy, “Planners becoming visualizers in the mediatized world: An Actor Network Analysis of Cairo’s Street billboards”
- Seán Finnan, “Beyond Temporary Urbanism: DIY Internet Radio and its Role in Producing Cultural Space in Dublin”
2:10-2:30pm: Break
2:30-4:10pm: Social media and placed-based/urban activism
- Anna Viola Sborgi, “Screening Housing Resistance in East London – Film, Media and Gentrification and the ‘precarious home’ genre.”
- Ed Hadfield, “Place-framing-practices: How activist media practices construct local place in London”
- Jéssica Neves Lôro, “Between sustainable urbanism and green gentrification: the case of the ‘Programa João Pessoa Sustentável’”
- Ana Casasanta Skaarup, “Indigenous Communities in Urban Brazilian: Challenging Media Gentrification Through Social Media”
- Joy Dillard Appel & Daniel S. Pasci, “Variation in the Praxis of Dispossessory Policy in Georgia: A study of information dissemination during the pandemic”
4:10-4:30pm: Closing Remarks
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