Title of Project
An Illustration of Converging Placekeeping Strategies in the Face of the Cultural and Economic Violence of “Columbusing” in San Francisco’s Mission District
Division
Social Sciences
Course or Program
Community Studies
Description / Abstract
This paper will explore how gentrification acts violently on the cultural and economic landscapes of San Francisco’s Mission District. It will map out how different parties react to the physical, cultural and economic violences of living in a contested area, with special attention to the convergences and interactions of those reactions. I will present a critique of existing gentrification theories in order to illuminate how the youth, sub-communities, arts organizations and other institutions in the neighborhood respond to the violences of their unique gentrification in ways not yet recorded in academia. To inform my discussion of how certain community stakeholders become active in protecting their neighborhood from gentrification I use the work I did during field study with SF’s Brava! For Women in the Arts in creating the 24th Street Latino Cultural Corridor. I also use my own personal research done through admittance to and participation in the public and performative art sphere in the Mission to illustrate different methods of both placemaking and placekeeping. This paper follows the convergent paths of these distinct strategies, highlighting their sometimes destructive, and other times productive, intersections. “An Illustration of Converging Placekeeping Strategies” is an urgent piece that discusses themes not (yet) popular in academia though the lens of a member and activist in the neighborhood discussed. Key terms: gentrification; “Columbusing;” placemaking, placekeeping, Latino Cultural District
