Gentrification et résistances ordinaires des quartiers populaires. Élaboration théorique et illustration empirique sur un terrain bruxellois

Abstract

Usually, exploring neighbourhoods affected by gentrification processes does not reveal spaces entirely devoted to middle- or upper-class housing, consumption practices or modes of sociability, even in metropolitan contexts wherein urban change pressures are particularly strong. How can we then understand the persistence of working-class appropriations of these neighbourhoods? This article puts forward the idea that such persistence can reveal various forms of “ordinary resistance” of working-class spaces to urban change, that is, forms of local resistance not based on collective mobilizations or urban struggles. This article first elaborates on this proposal on a theoretical level, bringing together notions developed in the field of contemporary working-class sociology and gentrification studies. It then turns to a Brussels cases study to empirically illustrate this idea of ordinary resistance of working-class neighbourhoods.

Keywords

• working-class neighbourhoods
• gentrification
• resistance to urban change
• Brussels