Ressituando a gentrificação: a classe popular, a ciência e o estado na pesquisa urbana recente

Este artigo amplia o diagnostico de Tom Slater sobre as causas da gentrificacao da pesquisa recente sobre gentrificacao.2 Ele argumenta que o deslocamento de denuncia para celebracao da gentrificacao, a elisao do deslocamento dos residentes estabelecidos e o foco eufemistico em “mesclagem social” participam de um padrao de invisibilidade da classe operaria na esfera publica e na investigacao social. Essa obliteracao do proletariado na cidade e reforcada pela heteronomia crescente da pesquisa urbana, na medida em que ela se torna mais ligada estreitamente aos interesses dos governantes da cidade. Ambas as tendencias revelam e incitam a transformacao do papel do Estado, de provedor de assistencia social para populacoes de renda mais baixa para o de fornecedor de servicos e amenidades empresariais para urbanitas de classe media – e alta –, entre os quais a limpeza, no ambiente construido e nas ruas, dos detritos fisicos e humanos engendrados pela desregulacao economica e o corte de gastos de previdencia social. Para construir melhores modelos do nexo em transformacao entre classe e espaco na cidade neoliberal, precisamos ressituar a gentrificacao numa perspectiva mais ampla, revisando a analise de classe para capturar a (de)formacao do proletariado pos-industrial, resistindo as seducoes das problematicas pre-fabricadas das acoes politicas e dando destaque ao Estado como produtor da desigualdade socioespacial. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: gentrificacao, espaco urbano, classes, politica, sociologia urbana. RELOCATING GENTRICATION: the working class, science and the state in recent urban research Loic Wacquant This article amplifies Tom Slater’s diagnosis of the causes of the gentrification of recent gentrification research. It argues that the shift from the denunciation to the celebration of gentrification, the elision of the displacement of the established residents, and the euphemistic focus on ‘social mixing’ partake of a broader pattern of invisibility of the working class in the public sphere and social inquiry. This effacing of the proletariat in the city is reinforced by the growing heteronomy of urban research, as the latter becomes more tightly tethered to the concerns of city rulers. Both tendencies, in turn, reveal and abet the shifting role of the state from provider of social support for lower-income populations to supplier of business services and amenities for middle – and upperclass urbanites – among them the cleansing of the built environment and the streets from the physical and human detritus wrought by economic deregulation and welfare retrenchment. To build better models of the changing nexus of class and space in the neoliberal city, we need to relocate gentrification in a broader and sturdier analytic framework by revising class analysis to capture the (de)formation of the postindustrial proletariat, resisting the seductions of the prefabricated problematics of policy, and giving pride of place to the state as producer of sociospatial inequality. KEY WORDS: gentrication, urban space, class, politics, urban sociology. MISE EN SITUATION DE L´ANOBLISSEMENT: la classe ouvriere, la science et l´Etat dans la recherche urbaine recente Loic Wacquant Cet article amplifie le diagnostic de Tom Slater sur les causes de la “gentrification” des etudes recentes sur la “gentrification” urbaine. Le glissement de la denonciation a l’eloge de la gentrification, l’elision du deplacement force des habitants etablis et la focalisation euphemistique sur la “mixite sociale” s’inscrivent dans un schema plus large d’invisibilisation de la classe ouvriere dans la sphere publique et les investigations sociologiques. Cet effacement du proletariat des metropoles est renforce par l’heteronomie croissante de la recherche urbaine, plus etroitement liee que jamais aux preoccupations des dirigeants de la ville. Ces deux tendances revelent et facilitent la mutation du role de l’Etat, de fournisseur de soutiens sociaux aux populations demunies en agence de services et d’equipements marchands pour citadins des classes moyennes et superieures–au premier rang desquels figure le nettoyage de l’environnement bâti et des rues des detritus humains et materiels engendres par la deregulation de l’economie et le recul de la protection sociale. Pour construire de meilleurs modeles des rapports changeants entre classe et espace dans la ville neoliberale, il faut replacer la gentrification des quartiers populaires dans un cadre analytique elargi et renforce en reelaborant l’analyse de classe pour saisir la (de)formation du proletariat post-industriel, en resistant aux seductions des problematiques prefabriquees de politique publique, et en accordant une place centrale a l’Etat en tant que producteur d’inegalites sociospatiales. MOTS-CLES: anoblissement, espace urbain, classes, politique, sociologie urbaine. Publicacao Online do Caderno CRH: http://www.cadernocrh.ufba.br