Gentrification and its contentment: An anthropological perspective on housing, heritage and urban social change in Shanghai
基于2013-2015年民族志研究，描述上海传统社区中一种另类绅士化过程，揭示原住民如何利用建筑独特性成为租户实现经济收益，带来社区社会经济与种族多样化及向上社会流动，且无政府或开发商干预。
Based on ethnographic research during 2013–2015, this study describes an alternative form of gentrification in a traditional urban neighbourhood in Shanghai, unpacking how the notion architectural uniqueness of an urban heritage neighbourhood has imbued itself with cultural capital in the eyes of the new residents. By understanding how the original residents mobilise their knowledge of this particular selling point to benefit themselves economically by becoming renters, this study presents a case exemplifying a process of social change in which the ‘original residents’ themselves are active actors. The results of this process are the socioeconomic and ethic diversification of the neighbourhood as well as upward social mobility without any intervention by the local government or real estate developers. By suggesting an alternative process of gentrification in which not all residents are displaced unwillingly, this paper shows that the idea of gentrification demands more attention.