'I Want to be Global': Theorising the Gentrifying Class as an Emergent Elite Global Community

Abstract

Globalisation has significantly altered the scale at which social structures are organised and experienced. The erosion of spatial boundaries has liberated social experience from the constraints of the local. While globalisation is often portrayed as heralding a single global culture and community, in reality globalisation is heralding the emergence of multiple global communities. The gentrifying class constitutes one such emergent global community. Premised upon notions of affluence and prestige, gentrification constitutes a local socio-spatial strategy of identity construction that is increasingly commodified. This commodification erodes the symbolic significance of local gentrification processes. In order to maintain a distinctive identity, numerous gentrifiers are projecting their identity from the scale of the local onto the scale of the global. In doing so, these individuals actively position themselves as a global elite community.