Urban pioneers in the making: Recontextualization and the emergence of the engaged resident in redeveloping communities1

Abstract

This paper discusses the interconnections among discourse, personhood and the political economy of contemporary urban transformation. Drawing on interview and walking‐tour data from three redeveloping neighborhoods in a mid‐size city in the U.S. Southeast, I examine metasemiotic descriptions of the ‘engaged urban resident’ as a particular emblem of identity that is circulated in a social network of residents and community‐redevelopment sponsors. Using a discourse‐analytic approach, I discuss four different excerpts as recontextualizations of the emblem, moving from an institutional description that offers an abstract model of conduct for urban residents to deictically concrete and personalized testimonies of resident action. The analysis highlights how despite a common thematic focus on resident engagement, personal commentaries and stories of resident activism steer away from the institutional ideal of positive problem solving toward conflict and acts of removal. I identify links between circulated metasemiotic descriptions of the ‘engaged urban resident’ and market‐led urban redevelopment and argue that individual reframings and enactments of the institutionally‐mandated urban persona can foster socially exclusive and spatially‐purified urban neighborhoods.