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Loving Diversity/Controlling Diversity: Exploring the Ambivalent Mobilization of Upper‐Middle‐Class Gentrifiers, South End, Boston
Author(s) -
Tissot Sylvie
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
international journal of urban and regional research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.456
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1468-2427
pISSN - 0309-1317
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2427.12128
Subject(s) - hypocrisy , diversity (politics) , middle class , sociology , ambivalence , meaning (existential) , gender studies , class (philosophy) , sexual orientation , social psychology , ethnography , psychology , political science , epistemology , law , anthropology , philosophy , psychotherapist
This article centers on a group of upper‐middle‐class gentrifiers living in a neighborhood in the S outh E nd of B oston, and their complex attitude towards diversity. I use data from my fieldwork in the S outh E nd, based on ethnographic observation and 77 interviews with residents active in local organizations, such as neighborhood associations. These residents explicitly stress their endorsement of diversity, in terms of class, race, but also sexual orientation, and their commitment to maintaining it. I examine the meaning they give to this principle, the actions they take in its name and the kind of relations they establish with those ‘others’ who embody such diversity. I argue that the gentrifiers' love of diversity, which cannot be reduced to sheer hypocrisy, is intrinsically linked to their capacity to control it, thus shedding light on the changing definition of social distinction in upper‐middle‐class culture.