The forgetfulness of gentrification and the pilgrimage of protest: Re-membering the Body of Christ

Abstract

This article asks what it means to remember in the context of the erasure and exile that are the strategies of gentrification. What can we learn from protest and pilgrimage about what it means to “do this in remembrance” of Christ, that is, to re-member the Body of Christ, and how can this remembering address the injustice of racially-biased displacement? If we consider the dynamics of gentrification, the exile and erasure upon which it relies and the ways in which it creates a landscape of forgetfulness in cities whose neighborhoods no longer remember the communities of color who inhabited them, then is seems clear that a Christian theological response requires embodied practices of remembering. Through an exploration of the theological concept of anamnesis and the practices of Holy Communion and stational liturgy, I explore the characteristics of theological remembering that point toward Christian responses to gentrification. I argue that protest as pilgrimage offers us one avenue through which we might counter the forgetfulness of gentrification and remember our way into the future, by re-membering the body of Christ.