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Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research pp 167–187Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Visual Ethnography and the City: On the Dead Ends of Reflexivity and Gentrification

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Abstract

LaDue examines two critical methodological turns: the reflexive turn in ethnographic methods as an attempted methodological fix for colonialist relationships in anthropology, and the gentrification critique of urban development as an attempted discursive and theoretical fix for pro-growth development. The chapter gives a brief overview of the reflexive turn, and emphasizes its limitations. Next it describes how the critical lens of gentrification is analogous to reflexivity and why it is productive to understand this mirrored relationship as part of a structural positionality of power and whiteness. Taking off from here, the chapter presents a possible methodological approach to break with this orientation. The clarity in understanding these propositions is based on LaDue’s qualitative research on a community organization in Durham, USA.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Emily LaDue

Authors
  1. Emily LaDue
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Correspondence to Emily LaDue .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bremen (ZeMKI), Bremen, Germany

    Sebastian Kubitschko

  2. Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden

    Anne Kaun

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LaDue, E. (2016). Visual Ethnography and the City: On the Dead Ends of Reflexivity and Gentrification. In: Kubitschko, S., Kaun, A. (eds) Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40700-5_9

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