How tenants’ reactions to rent increases affect displacement: An interactionist approach to gentrification

Abstract

Rising rents play an important role in the displacement of residents through gentrification processes in Germany. Applying an interactionist approach and conceptualising gentrification as an emergent phenomenon that results from an interaction process, we explore how residents of the gentrifying district Altona-Altstadt in Hamburg deal with situations of rent increases. Four strategies emerge: de-problematisation, unwilling consent, changing the field of action and confrontational rejection. Using an interpretive analysis and the concept of the ‘moral economies of housing’, we investigate the normative and strategic conditions of these strategies and how they contribute to or counteract housing-related displacement. This analysis contributes to qualitative research on how residents experience gentrification and negotiate situations relevant to displacement, and, thereby, to the exploration of power in the tenant–landlord relationship.