Des jeunes de milieu populaire face à la gentrification à Pantin : une dialectique entre présent et avenir

Abstract

Based on an empirical and participatory research conducted in Pantin, east of Paris, this article offers an analysis of how young people from working-class backgrounds face gentrification processes. How does working-class youth react to the arrival of socially affluent populations? How do their practices of the city evolve with the transformations of the urban and social environment? Are they able to appropriate these transformations in their discourses as well as in their practices, and if so, in what way? After tracing the changes in the city of Pantin and the characteristics of the ongoing gentrification process, this article informs and analyses the ambivalence that characterises the discourses and practices of the working-class youth. It shows that this ambivalence is less rooted in attachment to the past than in the uncertainty that the future holds for them. While young people derive, through their practices, certain benefits from gentrification, they also wonder about their place in the city in the medium and long term. Their discourse is a powerful analysis of their self-construction process and how they project themselves into an urban space, and by extension into a society that marginalises them.

Keywords

• youth
• working-classes
• gentrification
• ambivalence
• participatory research