Relevance, Gentrification and the Development of a New Hegemony on Urban Policies in Antwerp, Belgium

45(12) 2499–2519, November 2008 Relevance, Gentrification and the Development of a New Hegemony on Urban Policies in Antwerp, Belgium Maarten Loopmans [Paper first received, August 2007; in final form, July 2008] Abstract This paper applies a state-theoretical perspective to a historical analysis of gentrifi cation and urban policies in Antwerp, Belgium. Before 1970, the city experienced a period of modernist hegemony, with urban development policies characterised by slum clearing, peripheral high-rise social housing construction and inner-city offi ce development. After moving through a period of non-hegemony with intense debate and struggle about urban development, the city now appears to be experiencing another period of hegemony in urban policy of which state support for gentrifi cation has become the centrepiece. A historical state-theoretical approach shows how this move has been the consequence of local institutionalisation and political confl icts following the collapse of modernism, and provides insight into the opportunities available for critical observers of gentrifi cation to enhance policy relevance. Introduction: Gentrifi cation and policies in favour of gentrifi cation, the ques- the Policy Relevance Debate tion arises as to how the mass of academic literature critical of the negative social effects In recent years, a revived interest from policy- of gentrification has come to be ignored makers in the gentrifi cation of central-city (Lees, 2003). Recognising the opportunities neighbourhoods has been documented in for policy relevance attached to this growing the gentrifi cation literature (Badcock, 2001; interest in gentrification among policy- Hackworth and Smith, 2001; Smith, 2002; makers, Lees (2003) calls for an increased Wyly and Hammel, 1999, 2001; Lees, 2003; dialogue between academic researchers of Slater, 2004; Uitermark et al., 2007). As gentrifi cation and policy-makers. While other policy-makers throughout cities of the West commentators fear that just such a dialogue are now promoting gentrifi cation as the key with pro-gentrifi cation policy-makers would to urban regeneration and have developed remove critical perspectives from gentrifi cation Maarten Loopmans is in STeR—Urban Design and Spatial Planning, University College Brussels, Nijverheidskaai 170, Brussels, B-1070, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected]. 0042-0980 Print/1360-063X Online © 2008 Urban Studies Journal Limited DOI: 10.1177/0042098008097107 22499-2519499-2519 UUSJ_097107.inddSJ_097107.indd 22499499 99/2/2008/2/2008 22:21:07:21:07 PPMM PProcessrocess BBlacklack 2500 MAARTEN LOOPMANS research altogether (Slater, 2006, p. 751), Lees interstices must be sought by researchers to asks us mobilize support, establish a fi rm institutional basis and advance critical claims that may or What is the point of a substantial, critical, and may not tally with those of the authorities vigorous academic literature on gentrifi cation (Beaumont et al., 2005, p. 124). if it is not actually disseminated to those in a position to infl uence and make the policies we Repeatedly, gentrifi cation researchers have seek to inform? (Lees, 2003, p. 573). been called to arms to take policy seriously in understanding the form, scale and scope of The resurfacing debate on relevance in geo- gentrifi cation (van Weesep, 1994; Lees, 2000) graphy in general (for example, Pacione, but so far there have been only few explicit 1999; Massey, 2000, 2001, 2002; Martin, 2001, attempts in this direction (for example, Wyly 2002; Dorling and Shaw, 2002; Imrie, 2004; and Hammel, 1999, 2001; Hackworth and Beaumont et al. 2005; Ward, 2005; Pain, 2006) Smith, 2001; Slater, 2004; Uitermark et al., has equally struggled with the dilemma of 2007) and, with some notable exceptions either having to sell one’s critical soul to the (in particular Uitermark et al., 2007, who devil and get access to government and its strongly emphasise the governmental and allied institutions, or remain distant from the institutional dimension to explain state-led state but at the same time without impact. gentrifi cation), the (local) state continues to However, in recent contributions, the debate be treated as a Black box whose internal pro- has moved to a more nuanced level of reason- cesses deserve little or no investigation. ing (Blanc, 2000; Massey, 2002; Imrie, 2004; In this paper, I will take up Lees’ (2000) Beaumont et al., 2005; Ward, 2005; Pain, challenge to take a closer look at particular 2006). These latter contributors argue that urban regeneration policies and the represen- producing policy-relevant research goes well tations and discourses on gentrifi cation that beyond working with or for policy-makers. fi gure in it. I argue that, to understand the Questioning whether getting the minister’s spaces of relevance available to gentrifi cation ear is always the most effective route to affect researchers in a context of state-led gentrifi - policy-making, they set out to analyse how cation in a particular city, it is fi rst of all neces- more diverse ‘spaces of relevance’ (Beaumont sary to analyse how and why the state has et al., 2005) can be deployed. The question, come to take an interest in gentrifi cation as Imrie (2004) argues, is not so much whether public policy. or not geographers (or, in our present case, Using a neo-Gramscian state-theoretical gentrifi cation researchers) should strive for framework, I analyse how in Antwerp policy relevance, but how and by which stra- (Belgium) gentrifi cation has become a core tegies they can do so. Imrie (2004), Beaumont element for the establishment of a new et al. (2005) as well as Pain (2006) emphasise hegemony in urban policy. Seen from this the importance of an analysis of the political perspective, it is clear that gentrification and social context in which policy research policy does not appear out of the blue, on takes place, to be able to exploit fully the spaces the demand of particular actors external of relevance at hand. This presupposes an to the local state. Instead, it reveals itself as active engagement of the researcher that goes the historical and contingent outcome of far beyond the delivery of research reports a series of attempts to match the interests to authorities and writing academic journal and goals of various local actors and groups articles. To enhance relevance, Beaumont et al. and develop a common rationale for urban argue that development both inside and outside the local 22499-2519499-2519 UUSJ_097107.inddSJ_097107.indd 22500500 99/2/2008/2/2008 22:21:15:21:15 PPMM PProcessrocess BBlacklack GENTRIFICATION IN ANTWERP 2501 state. This process started after the crumbling whose interests are not furthered by the rul- of modernist hegemony in the 1970s, when ing constellation, lack their own coherent a counter-hegemonic discourse appeared re- framework to understand the world and their volving around the concept of liveability, to position in the world, and necessarily fall back which gentrifi cation appears as the—belated upon ideas and concepts offered to them by and probably still provisional—answer. the hegemonic social group. The paper begins with a discussion of how Secondly, Gramsci uses the concept of his- neo-Gramscian political theory might en- torical bloc to emphasise the functionality hance our understanding of the historical and of hegemony as a means of co-ordination. A geographical particularities of the interplay historical bloc refers to an alliance of different between urban policy and gentrification. forces, organisations and actors—of both The analytical framework developed is then structure and superstructure—at various applied to the case of Antwerp, Belgium. In scales (Jessop, 2005, p. 425) organised around the conclusion, I explore what this analysis a hegemonic set of ideas that give strategic teaches us in relation to the possible strategies direction and coherence to their collaborative and tactics for enhancing policy relevance in efforts. For a historical bloc to emerge, its core critical gentrifi cation research. organisation must engage in a hegemonic project, a “conscious planned struggle for Hegemony and Strategic hegemony” (Gill, 2003, p. 58; Jessop, 1997, Selectivity p. 62) which involves both the active search for compromises, shared interests, common One of the most innovative and infl uential goals, and institutional links among the ideas in Gramsci’s political theory is his con- organisations and groups of the historical cept of hegemony. Hegemony, in Gramsci’s bloc (Gramsci, 1975/2001, pp. 1612–1613) writings, has come to mean various things, and the development of a common, congru- but for the purpose of our analysis, two di- ent discourse to win the hearts and minds of mensions of it appear crucially important. the general public. First of all, Gramsci introduced the concept However, in a diverse society with a variety of hegemony to capture the ideological pre- of different and opposing interests, a historical dominance of bourgeois values and norms bloc cannot achieve full closure and hegem- over the subordinate classes (Carnoy, 1984). ony is always potentially unstable. There is Hegemony allows dominant social groups always the risk that counter-hegemonic dis- to rule by consent rather than coercion. It is courses are produced by social groups whose the situation whereby rule in the interest of interests are not furthered by the operations of a dominant social group is seen as legitimate the members of the historical bloc, or that co- by subordinate classes or groups because ordination of the historical bloc fails as mem- this particular interest is presented (and ac- bers no longer believe its co-ordinating set of cepted) as equal to or at least supportive of ideas appropriately furthers their interests. the ‘general interest’. When the historical bloc comes under duress Ives (2004) points to the role of ideology in or when counter-hegemonic discourses gain hegemony when explaining how the concept infl uence in civil society, consent is no longer of hegemony expands the defi nition of pol- the prevailing feature of rule and a phase of itics from the direct activities of government hegemony is alternated with non-hegemony and operations of state power to questions (Cox, 1983, p.

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