Spectres of gentrification: Towards a hauntological framework for exploring the impacts of gentrification

Abstract

Theoretical foundations that frame gentrification often focus heavily on the material and political economy perspective. While this perspective addresses the material impacts of gentrification – cost of housing, changes in demographics, development of new housing structures – it does not address the way gentrification is experienced by long-time residents of gentrifying communities. One of the often-overlooked dimensions of gentrification is how residents’ perceptions of their continued belonging in the neighbourhood can lead to experiences of alienation. While underexplored in gentrification research, hauntology offers a theoretical framework that allows for a ‘more than material’ understanding of the relationship between personhood, place and property in neighbourhoods undergoing gentrification. Using a case study of a gentrifying neighbourhood in New England, this article describes the utility of the hauntological framework in understanding ‘more than material’ impacts of gentrification. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, alongside photovoice and walking interviews with long-time residents, this article describes how participants and residents are often haunted by the sense of individual and communal loss of their community’s future place in the neighbourhood. These ‘lost futures’ are often represented by the material changes, such as new buildings, and demographic changes, witnessed through the displacement of their neighbours, occurring in their neighbourhood. This article argues that by engaging with the framework of hauntology, researchers can better interrogate how residents in gentrifying neighbourhoods experience loss through these demographic and material changes.