Between the cosmopolitan and the parochial: the immigrant gentrifier in Koreatown, Los Angeles

Deverteuil, Geoff ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3036-9303, Yun, Ohsoon and Choi, Carolyn 2019. Between the cosmopolitan and the parochial: the immigrant gentrifier in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Social and Cultural Geography 20 (1) , pp. 64-85. 10.1080/14649365.2017.1347955

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Abstract

This paper questions the currently lopsided relationship between the cosmopolitan and the parochial, in which the former is favored both conceptually and empirically. In response, we propose a relational framework for bringing them into conversation, simultaneously recasting and re-animating longstanding debates via three framing devices – the process of relationality/territoriality, disposition, and spaces of encounter – embedded in and through the subject of the immigrant-gentrifier in Koreatown, Los Angeles, itself a novel category that has hitherto eluded systematic research. We present the results of 25 interviews of Korean immigrant-gentrifiers and 10 key informant interviews. The results constitute a parochial critique that emerges as a series of conflicted paradoxes but also productive tensions: between an ostensibly transnational process compromised by a profoundly homegrown, parochial set of investors and outlooks; between a set of dispositions that seek inner-city diversity and density, yet simultaneously sheltered from its spillover costs; and spaces of encounter marked by a gap between the promise of truly open spaces and the reality of guarded and self-segregated ones. Ultimately, this paper does double duty – conceptually rebalancing the cosmopolitan-parochial relationship, but in doing so empirically elevating the emergence of the understudied immigrant-gentrifier category.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	1464-9365
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 July 2017
Date of Acceptance:	30 May 2017
Last Modified:	27 Nov 2024 20:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/102349

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