Making space: Memory, identity and the discursive production of place in the 'urban development' of Seattle's central district

This dissertation is concerned with the social issues of gentrification and racialized/classbased identity politics. Specifically, it is an exploration of the spatialization of power and inequality in one of Seattle's most multiracial neighborhoods, the Central District. Rooted in the space theory of scholars such as Henri Lefebvre, Doreen Massey and David Harvey, my research focuses on the multiple discourses of "urban development" which occur in this particular site in order to understand how space, identity, memory and relations of power come to be symbolically represented, organized and produced. Framed by the closely related methodological principles of critical discourse analysis, Foucauldian genealogy and ethnography, the study hinges on the analysis of a range of interrelated texts. These texts include both official/institutional and vernacular sources such as newspaper articles, real-estate flyers, commercial websites, online discussion forums, interviews as well as the material geosemiotics (Scollon & Scollon, 2003) of signage, architecture and the built environment of both Seattle and the Central District. After locating myself as a resident in---a participant observer of---the Central District, I start by presenting an overview of how cities generally and how Seattle in particular have typically been promoted to "desirable" target markets---the so called creative classes (Florida, 2005). This commerce-driven strategy of urban "development" is one which, I argue, is invariably divisive and exclusionary. I then turn my attention more directly to the Central District which sits at the heart of my research project. It is here that my work examines the ways residents themselves talk about "their place" and especially how they talk about their experiences of displacement (i.e. the loss of place) as a result of gentrification. Building on the notion of locational conflict (Mitchell, 2003), I illustrate how the Central District serves as a material manifestation of competing ideologies about the meaning of "urban development." My research for this dissertation culminates in a memory project (Hayden, 1995), a piece of action research which explores place as an archive of history in which memory and identity can be both erased and re-asserted. This project centers around the Central District's highly contested Colman School building which is now home to the Northwest African American Museum. My work with/on the Colman School tells a story of vernacular histories being reinscribed into the urban landscape. Ultimately, I mean to show through my dissertation how discourses of space may intervene in, and contribute to, a more fully inclusive collective memory and a re-engaged sense of place.