Innovating Methodologies for Examining Gentrification-Induced Social and Cultural Displacement
An Illustration of Integrating Photovoice into Story Map
Brittany Davis (Johnson C. Smith University), Kirk A. Foster (East Carolina University), Ronald O. Pitner (University of Alabama, Birmingham), Nikki R. Wooten (University of South Carolina), & Mary L. Ohmer (University of Pittsburgh)
Residents of color have increasingly experienced the adverse impacts of gentrification. This includes being forced to move, cultural erasure, and a lost sense of "home" as their neighborhoods undergo change. These experiences suggest that gentrification is a complex phenomenon that involves impacts on space and place. By space, we mean geographic locations and by place, we mean the meanings individuals attach to geographic locations.
Community stakeholders have sought to mitigate the impacts of gentrification, particularly among communities of color. Community-engaged, action-oriented research holds promise for developing interventions. Specifically, this research approach helps to center the voices of those most impacted and ensures community-informed solutions. In the same vein, the complex impacts of gentrification on space and place call for innovative research that highlights these dynamics. Such innovative research has the potential to further inform community and policy level interventions.
We provide an illustration of stretching the bounds of gentrification research by utilizing the combined use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Story Map and photovoice to understand and foster action against gentrification impacts. The illustration is based on a study of gentrification-related social and cultural displacement within a historically Black community. The original study involved the use of photovoice to understand what place identity and social and cultural displacement means to longstanding Black residents. We also sought to understand the actions residents took against social and cultural displacement threats.
Photovoice is a unique research approach in that it involves participants utilizing photography to represent their community’s assets and challenges. It also involves some form of “action” as a part of the research. During our original study, residents took photos of things in the neighborhood that represented their sense of place identity, and social and cultural displacement. Essentially, photovoice helped us to understand the place dimension of residents’ experiences.
As a part of introducing and illustrating an innovative research approach, we integrated the photovoice data into a GIS Story Map. GIS in its simplest form involves computerized technology that provides visuals (i.e., maps) and/or examinations of geographic information. Story Map is a feature of GIS, and it allows for the integration of texts, tables, photos, audio, and video to tell stories. Our integration of photovoice into a Story Map enabled us to map residents’ photos and include text and audio narrations of the photos. This approach not only centered the voices of residents, but it allowed us to capture both space and place impacts of gentrification.
Residents will use the map as an advocacy tool to tell the neighborhood’s history to city officials and other community stakeholders. The map will provide a visualization of the interplay between space and place as residents tell the neighborhood’s history. This will serve as a long-term strategy for preserving the neighborhood’s historic identity. Our illustration exemplifies how community-engaged, action-oriented, and innovative gentrification research can help to understand the complexities of gentrification and foster social action. Our research approach specifically helps to inform action and interventions that attend to the space and place impacts of gentrification.
Here’s a link to the Story Map.
Brittany Davis is an Adjunct Social Work Professor at Johnson C. Smith University. Her research focuses on equitable development strategies for Black communities facing gentrification. She has a particular interest in strategies longtime Black residents employ to contest gentrification-induced social and cultural displacement.
Kirk A. Foster is the Carolyn Freeze Baynes Distinguished Scholar and Director of the School of Social Work at East Carolina University. His research focuses on poverty, social capital, collective action, and restorative justice in and for African American communities.
Ronald O. Pitner is a professor and the Chair of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Department of Social Work. His primary area of research examines residents' understanding of neighborhood violence and safety, and how neighborhood civic engagement can be used to help make such neighborhoods safer for residents.
Nikki R. Wooten is an associate professor at the University of South Carolina College of Social Work. Her research focuses on mental health, substance use, and behavioral health services utilization in military and veteran populations.
Mary L. Ohmer is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. Her research areas include civic engagement and participation, evaluation research and intervention research focused on facilitating community capacity to address substantive neighborhood problems.