The Struggle for Neighborhood Identity: Discursive Constructions of Identity and Place in a U.S. Multiethnic Neighborhood

Author: Gabriella Modan

Dissertation School: Georgetown University

Pages: 279

Publication Date: March 2000

Availability:
Available from the HUD USER Helpdesk P.O. Box 23268 Washington, DC 20026-3268 Toll Free: 1-800-245-2691 Fax: 1-202-708-9981 Email: oup@oup.org

Access Number: 10722

Descriptors:
Communities. Neighborhoods. Urban villages. Social/economic indicators. Social sciences research. Social planning. Community planning.

Abstract:
This doctoral dissertation analyzes the discursive constructions of community and place in Elm Valley, a multiethnic and multi-class urban neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Data include e-mails, conversation, meeting talk, ethnographic interviews, a grant proposal for public toilets, and a play about neighborhood life. An examination of this data illuminates the three-way relationship among: 1) place identities, 2) centralized identities that speakers create for themselves, and 3) marginalized identities that speakers create for others. These identities are mutually constitutive; the construction of each relies on, and works in the interests of, the others. When Elm Valleyites construct identities for their neighborhood, they do so in order to stake a claim to community membership and to both ideological and material rights over neighborhood space. The author uses Harre' et al.'s (1990, 1991) framework of positioning and Hill's (1995a) concept of moral geography, and examines several discourse strategies: deixis, presupposition, agency, reference, voicing; and discourse themes: filth, geographical distancing, ethnicity, and fear. Elm Valleyites across ideological, class, and ethnic positions use these same strategies and themes to create positive positions for themselves as authentic urban dwellers, and negative positions for others as inauthentic urban dwellers.

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