"There's a reason to fight": racial justice, affect, and collective identity in an anti-gentrification struggle

Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin D.While social scientists have extensively studied gentrification, scant attention has been given to cases of resistance against gentrification. The present study offers a nuanced account of anti-gentrification collective action through a focus on an activist group referred to as the Community Organizers of Edgewood Park (COEP). COEP is a small, multiracial organization of activists protesting what they describe as exclusionary development in their gentrifying neighborhood. Since the group's founding in 2012, COEP activists have been targeted by local developers who utilize racist and sexist tactics to intimidate and denounce them. This thesis explores how COEP--a relatively under-resourced neighborhood organization--remains galvanized in their resistance efforts while facing vicious personal attacks and ridicule from a far better-resource opposition. Drawing from interviews with COEP activists and social media produced by COEP and local developers, this study demonstrates the significance of emotions, collective identity, and attention to racial justice in building and sustaining collective action in the context of urban gentrification.University of Delaware, Department of Sociology and Criminal JusticeM.A