Awans symboliczny mimochodem

Liderzy polskiego Greenpointu wobec gentryfikacji dzielnicy

Abstract

Upward mobility without moving. Polish Greenpoint Community Leaders and Gentrification of the Neighborhood

The text presents an interpretation of the Greenpoint (Brooklyn, New York City) Polish immigrant community leaders’ benevolent attitude toward gentrification of the neighborhood. Referring to the evidence from the fieldwork in the neighborhood in 2006 and 2010, including 50 leaders’ oral histories, it is argued here that this benevolence can be explained by the fact that gentrification brings to the leaders – as individuals, and members of families and ethnic group – both material and symbolic upward mobility. This is ‘upward mobility without moving’, without leaders’ agency and despite the fact they have done nothing to have it happened. It is indicated that, contrary to the dominant trend in gentrification studies that expects lower class’ resistance to gentrification, the lower classes members might welcome gentrification because they perceive it as an advantage to their social status and mobility. Additionally, the article points out to immigrants – omitted in gentrification studies – as individuals who are highly achievement oriented and at the same time uncertain about their status in receiving society, and therefore perceiving gentrification as an occasion for personal, their children’s and ethnic group’s social mobility into the mainstream.