Gentrifiktionen : Zur literarischen Verarbeitung der Gentrifizierung in deutschsprachigen Berlin-Romanen nach 2000
Sammanfattning: Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, gentrification has restructured the urban fabric of the German capital profoundly. Although gentrification is one of the most widespread and controversial urban processes in many parts of the world today, literary discourses on gentrification remain under-studied.This study investigates literary representations of gentrification in Berlin after 2000. Gentrification is here understood as a gradual transformation of a low-status city district into an (upper) middle-class area, resulting in a degree of indirect or direct displacement of the established lower-status population. The competition between social groups and individual actors to obtain power over urban space is therefore an inherent feature of gentrification.The aim of this study is to connect existing sociological research on gentrification with literary analysis of character perspectives on the process. The theoretical framework is therefore derived from narratology as well as sociology, especially Pierre Bourdieu’s research on social inequality. Representations of characters and their (re-)actions when confronted with typical aspects of gentrification such as (the threat of) displacement from their homes are at the center of this interdisciplinary approach.The analysis is built around the novels Kress by Aljoscha Brell (2015), Teil der Lösung by Ulrich Peltzer (2007), Der amerikanische Investor by Jan Peter Bremer (2011) and Walpurgistag by Annett Gröschner (2011). Their (main) characters correspond to different actors and stakeholders in the gentrification process: the so-called ‘pioneers’, the potential gentrifiers, the ‘financifiers’ and long-time residents (in some cases recently displaced). This selection of texts enables a discussion of a multitude of perspectives on the possibilities and difficulties facing different gentrification actors.One major finding of the analysis is the over-representation of a narrative perspective that belongs to a West German, middle-class creative worker with small financial means but substantial cultural capital. In contrast, perspectives of East Germans, members of the working class or migrants are marginalized. The character constellations of the analyzed gentrification narratives are thus partly standardized and tend to attribute certain roles to the same sets of actors. In a final chapter, these results are also found to apply to many other literary representations of gentrification in Berlin.
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