Gentrification and the Ethics of Home

Abstract

Gentrification is the subject of a recent wave of books and scholarship, continuing debates regarding the responsibilities of the “gentrifiers” and the impact of gentrifying landscapes on marginalized communities. This project looks in a different direction, using a multi-media approach to investigate the ethics of home in relation to aesthetics, architecture, capitalism and the culture industry. Strongly informed by the critical thought of Theodor Adorno, five essays bring multiple disciplines and theories together: Marxist geography (David Harvey, Neil Smith), architecture (Sarah Goldhagen, Lester Walker), philosophy and history (Walter Benjamin, Adorno), African American literature (Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison, Pauli Murray), and decolonial literature and thought (Ousmane Sembène, Franz Fanon, Aimé Césaire). Incorporating citations and literary passages, as well as the author’s own photography and linocut prints, the project images the contradictions inherent in the idea of home and emphasizes the impossibility of living an ethical life under capitalism.