Between the cosmopolitan and the parochial: the immigrant gentrifier in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

摘要

This paper questions the currently lopsided relationship between the cosmopolitan and the\udparochial, in which the former is favored both conceptually and empirically. In response, we\udpropose a relational framework for bringing them into conversation, simultaneously recasting\udand re-animating longstanding debates via three framing devices – the process of\udrelationality/territoriality, disposition, and spaces of encounter – embedded in and through the\udsubject of the immigrant-gentrifier in Koreatown, Los Angeles, itself a novel category that\udhas hitherto eluded systematic research. We present the results of 25 interviews of Korean\udimmigrant-gentrifiers and 10 key informant interviews. The results constitute a parochial\udcritique that emerges as a series of conflicted paradoxes but also productive tensions:\udbetween an ostensibly transnational process compromised by a profoundly homegrown,\udparochial set of investors and outlooks; between a set of dispositions that seek inner-city\uddiversity and density, yet simultaneously sheltered from its spillover costs; and spaces of\udencounter marked by a gap between the promise of truly open spaces and the reality of\udguarded and self-segregated ones. Ultimately, this paper does double duty – conceptually\udrebalancing the cosmopolitan-parochial relationship, but in doing so empirically elevating the\udemergence of the understudied immigrant-gentrifier category.