And then the neighborhood changed: Jewish intra-urban migration and racial identity in the Bronx, NY
Item
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Title
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And then the neighborhood changed: Jewish intra-urban migration and racial identity in the Bronx, NY
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:e4200efe7153:11530
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identifier
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11958
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Creator
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Gardener, Bradley,
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Contributor
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Marianna Pavlovskaya
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Geography | Judaic studies | Ethnic studies | Social structure | Urban planning | Bronx | NY | Jewish Migration | Race | Racial Identity | Riverdale | white flight
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Abstract
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The major research goal is to explain the causes of urban Jewish migration from the West Bronx to Riverdale and determine how it impacted their racial identity. I ask the following questions: Why did Jews leave the West Bronx? Why did they move to Riverdale? How did moving between these places affect the racial identity of Jews?;Employing a relational understanding of race and space, I use a mixed method approach consisting of both qualitative and quantitative techniques to examine how the racial identity of Jews was affected by moving from the West Bronx to Riverdale. The primary methods employed in my study were participant observation, residential histories, and GIS.;My study makes three primary theoretical contributions. First, my research shows that white identity or whiteness is fluid. As Jews moved from the West Bronx to Riverdale, their white identities changed. More specifically, their white identities changed in relation to material processes like neighborhood disinvestment and migration. These processes condensed into a historically and geographically specific articulation of white identity related to the conditions under which my participants moved from the West Bronx to Riverdale.;In a second related contribution, my research shows that the connections scholars make between Jewish whiteness to suburbanization is largely an over generalization. Although the race of Jews was impacted by suburban migration, it was not the only way in which they negotiated the racialization process. Further, contrary to the notion that Jews assimilated into static racialized places, they profoundly changed the places they moved into. As their identities changed, so did the meaning of the places they inhabited.;Third, my research opens up possibilities for reimagining narratives of white flight and racialized interpretations of neighborhood change. Often, white flight movers are made legible through rational choice theory. My research challenges the logic of white flight, showing that my participants didn't move to the suburbs because they wanted to continue urban Jewish living.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Earth & Environmental Sciences
