Gentrification and difference: the case of Brixton and Brick Lane

This thesis examines one of the biggest property booms of the capital that led the
way to processes of gentrification to penetrate into some postcolonial spaces of the
metropolis. More specifically, the areas of Brixton and Brick Lane transform into
the spatial laboratories for an interrogation into the politics of cultural dialogue
within contemporary instances of 'ethnic' gentrification. To put it differently, this
thesis attempts to shed some light on processes of inner-transformation, as a result
to an exposure to different differences, to either disorient or reify the cultural
bearings of the metropolitan subject; it reflects on multiple negotiations and
constructions of cultural or 'ethnic' differences in relation to these spaces of
diversity. In this sense, culture is transformed into the main discursive arena of the
multicultural city, where different people from different backgrounds and incomes
try to make sense of their lives, experiences and futures within contemporary
postmodem-postcolonial London. At the same time, this thesis contributes to a
genre of cultural narratives that try to perplex urban political economy's stories. It
aims to render the city visible beyond the sphere of economics and manifest the
complexities of contemporary processes of urban transformation and multicultural
life at large.