Consuming heritage: counter-uses of the city and gentrification

Abstract

Based on research in the old Recife Quarter in the city of Recife, capital of Pernambuco state, Brazil, this study examines processes of gentrification in areas of heritage value. The article focuses on the way in which these urban policies have transformed cultural heritage into a commodity, and urban space into social relationships mediated by consumerism. I argue that heritage sites that undergo processes of gentrification create strong spatial segregation and generate an appropriation of space by the excluded population that takes the form of counter-uses, undermining the uses imagined by urban and heritage policy makers.

Cities and Gentrification in Contemporary Brazil

“…Cultural flexibilization also tends to activate a retraditionalization of spaces and, concomitantly, reinforce local cultural meanings. This process, which I was able to observe previously in my study of the Bairro do Recife (Leite, 2010(Leite, , 2013b, involves stimulating manifestations of local popular culture as a way to activate certain parameters of cultural legitimacy of these spaces. However, these manifestations frequently have no real connection to the local area, though they are presented as typical in order to create these potential sources of identity.…”

“…By gentrification I refer to a specific kind of intervention that alters the urban landscape by accentuating or transforming architecture with a strong visual appeal, adapting the new landscape to the demands of the real estate market, security, planning and urban sanitation, focused on use or reappropriation by the middle and upper classes, and resulting in spaces with a high degree of segregationism due to sociospatial demarcations that encourage the fragmentation of space into different places(Leite, 2010(Leite, , 2013(Leite, and 2013b. For other definitions along similar lines, seeButler (1997),Atkinson & Bridge (2005),Hamnett (2000) andRubino (2005).…”

Atopic City: Consumption and Death in Urban Life

“…Few gentrified areas manage to maintain extensive tourist activities and consumption of the locality for any length of time (Leite, 2010a(Leite, , 2013. After the golden phase of the gentrification processes over the last two decades of the twentieth century, some of the cities that experienced this type of urban intervention have entered a period of decline in which those excluded have gradually begun to reoccupy these spaces.…”

“…This is why they provide two heuristic cases for the reflection pursued here concerning the positive transparency that seems to have undermined the possibilities for emancipation due to the market exacerbation of modern reason. On the diverse studies undertaken on European and American cities, see Leite, 2009Leite, , 2010aLeite, , 2013 What Barcelona and Bilbao almost paradigmatically represent is this convergence of tendencies found in a fashionable global urbanism, synthesized in the association between gentrification and smart cities: aggressive entry into the global market of goods and services connected to international tourism; urban market-centred interventions; gentrification of port and/or historical areas with the aim of "regenerating" their utilization; heritage conservation policies associated with real estate appreciation and speculation; the sanitization of public spaces; strong visual appeal through a monumental architecture; sociospatial segregation of the "renewed" areas due to the rise in the socioeconomic levels of the offered products; and inclusion of the local economy in the global and financial flows of digital and technological capital.…”

Modos insubmissos de viver

“…Um desses conflitos observados -e certamente observáveis em espaços semelhantes -decorria exatamente de certas atitudes cotidianas de enfrentamento e/ou insubmissão das pessoas "ordinárias" em relação à ordem disciplinar e vigilante, precisamente na forma como fora elaborada por Michel de Certeau (1984) em sua Teoria das Práticas. A partir das suas reflexões sobre as táticas, aliadas à dimensão espacial flexível das territorialidades urbanas (Arantes, 2000), pude sugerir a existência do que chamei de contra-usos da cidade (Leite, 2007;2013) para designar usos não esperados dos espaços públicos, através de ações deliberadamente conflituosas.…”