Thursday, October 11, 2007
I lived in Parkdale too and I totally agree with the last post. I lived right across the street from the Drake. I saw the whole thing being transformed. It totally changed the social scape of Parkdale and 'Queen West Village'. Where I used to ocassionally get woken up at night from a couple of the local neighbourhood drunks, after the facade/business development of the Drake I was suddenly getting woken up ever Fri, Sat and Sun by a line of drunken girls laughing to loudly and obviously totally incapacitated - not to mention when it was subzero weather they would be hanging out there in close to nothing and their high heels - in snow people!
Sorry that was more of an angry rant at the girls who would wake me up. Anyways what i'm getting at is that all the new development started attracting a whole new crowd into the area - "hipsters" and all there pretentions and emo-ness. Where I was a young artist who was making less than min. wage, I realized my beloved 'cheap, eclectic, and somewhat downtrodden' neighbourhood suddenly didn't reflect me anymore. Eventually I just couldn't afford to live
there anymore and had to move away... :(
Another recent example of this is happening with where I currently reside in the Cabbage town Regent Park area. I saw the tearing down of one of Toronto's oldest 'ghettoes' - yes it needed to be done - albeit badly too. I couldn't help but wonder though where the people who used to live there went? Did the govt' provide temporary housing until the new units were built? I know the plan was to make Regent into mixed income housing - so that the area wouldn't be ghettoized any more - but would it really work - would people really be unable to tell the difference betwenn those in govt' subsidized housing and those that weren't?? If the theory of embourgeoisment works than those that are from poorer social strata (lower working class - proletariat) would be surrounded by more of the middle classes and could hypothetically adopt the values, dress, and behaviours of 'those' people?? I don't know but could this be the cities attempt at homogenizing it's citizenry??? Is this an act of hegemony??? I don't know.
Also another interesting aside - I am taking this other anthro course called "South Asia: Practices, Theories, Representations" taught by Prof. N. Dave (awesome prof!!!)- in this course we are reading this ethnography called "The Remembered Village" by M.N. Srinivas. It's about the social interactions of a small Indian Village called Rampura (simplification). It is important to note here that it talks alot about the Indian Caste System and how that effects the interactions among people. Srinivas coined the term "SANSKRITIZATION " which basically means to try and elevate ones position by mimicking or adopting the rituals and behaviours of a higher caste.
This makes the caste more (ritually at least) pure and in the eyes of others (other castes) makes them (from the lower caste) less polluting and more pious. This actually to me is very similar to embourgoisment. Maybe not entirely similar but adapted to fit into a specific context.
Is this entirely dissimilar to what happens to new immigrants in TO? My mom and dad have totally westernized and adopted the values of middle class "white" people - we were one of the few Chinese families in our neighbourhood, my dad even sits there proudly looking at his garden saying it is comparable to the "white" families out there - (because the sterotype he is agreeing with is that working class chinese people at least in inner city TO don't take care of there lawns or gardens). Is he making himself more like the middle class "white" people - just as the castes in India are ritually elevating themselves, and just as Parkdale is looking more like Queen Street (and Just as Queen Street is looking more like Yorkville - Joni Mitchell people Big Yellow Taxi be warned)
sorry i have gone on for too long.
Sorry that was more of an angry rant at the girls who would wake me up. Anyways what i'm getting at is that all the new development started attracting a whole new crowd into the area - "hipsters" and all there pretentions and emo-ness. Where I was a young artist who was making less than min. wage, I realized my beloved 'cheap, eclectic, and somewhat downtrodden' neighbourhood suddenly didn't reflect me anymore. Eventually I just couldn't afford to live
there anymore and had to move away... :(
Another recent example of this is happening with where I currently reside in the Cabbage town Regent Park area. I saw the tearing down of one of Toronto's oldest 'ghettoes' - yes it needed to be done - albeit badly too. I couldn't help but wonder though where the people who used to live there went? Did the govt' provide temporary housing until the new units were built? I know the plan was to make Regent into mixed income housing - so that the area wouldn't be ghettoized any more - but would it really work - would people really be unable to tell the difference betwenn those in govt' subsidized housing and those that weren't?? If the theory of embourgeoisment works than those that are from poorer social strata (lower working class - proletariat) would be surrounded by more of the middle classes and could hypothetically adopt the values, dress, and behaviours of 'those' people?? I don't know but could this be the cities attempt at homogenizing it's citizenry??? Is this an act of hegemony??? I don't know.
Also another interesting aside - I am taking this other anthro course called "South Asia: Practices, Theories, Representations" taught by Prof. N. Dave (awesome prof!!!)- in this course we are reading this ethnography called "The Remembered Village" by M.N. Srinivas. It's about the social interactions of a small Indian Village called Rampura (simplification). It is important to note here that it talks alot about the Indian Caste System and how that effects the interactions among people. Srinivas coined the term "SANSKRITIZATION " which basically means to try and elevate ones position by mimicking or adopting the rituals and behaviours of a higher caste.
This makes the caste more (ritually at least) pure and in the eyes of others (other castes) makes them (from the lower caste) less polluting and more pious. This actually to me is very similar to embourgoisment. Maybe not entirely similar but adapted to fit into a specific context.
Is this entirely dissimilar to what happens to new immigrants in TO? My mom and dad have totally westernized and adopted the values of middle class "white" people - we were one of the few Chinese families in our neighbourhood, my dad even sits there proudly looking at his garden saying it is comparable to the "white" families out there - (because the sterotype he is agreeing with is that working class chinese people at least in inner city TO don't take care of there lawns or gardens). Is he making himself more like the middle class "white" people - just as the castes in India are ritually elevating themselves, and just as Parkdale is looking more like Queen Street (and Just as Queen Street is looking more like Yorkville - Joni Mitchell people Big Yellow Taxi be warned)
sorry i have gone on for too long.
# posted by acdbrn @ 11:23 AM 
