In some of Camden, NJ’s most underdeveloped neighborhoods, new investment is perceived as a catch-22. Such investment is badly needed, but residents fear gentrification and the creation of white spaces. Our study examines that puzzle, that residents protest badly needed investment, using ethnographic and interview data from residents and Camden, NJ, as a case study for examining community understanding of gentrification. In doing so, we draw upon gentrification literature that focuses on displacement pressure and exclusionary displacement, but argue that the Camden case points towards a different dimension of gentrification. Our findings show how (1) exclusion and “unwelcomeness” created by the development of white spaces is conceptualized by residents as being distinct from the impact such exclusion has on future displacement and (2) that residents internalize that exclusion from white spaces, dampening their support and increasing their resistance for new development. Our findings represent a contribution to the discussion on displacement pressure, which focuses primarily on exclusion through financial and economic pressure on residents, and shows that racialized exclusion is, itself, a fundamental element of residential fear of gentrification. We point to an opportunity to address fears of gentrification not only through economic means but also by focusing on issues of access and exclusion in urban space as a direct response to such residential fears.

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Nonprofits in cities often exist in segregated contexts in which leadership in high-capacity nonprofits reflects the whiteness of surrounding suburbs while leadership in grassroots nonprofits reflects the makeup of residency (low-income people of color). We build upon a small but burgeoning literature that uses critical race theory to better understand whiteness and segregation in the nonprofit sector. Using ethnographic data in Camden, New Jersey (NJ), we identify three key emergent findings on the impact of a segregated nonprofit sector: (a) the sector’s segregation reflects regional, residential segregation; (b) White, suburban overrepresentation in high-capacity nonprofits leads to a defense of White, suburban interests; and (c) these dynamics contribute to economic segregation within the sector. In our conclusion, we lay out a wider theoretical discussion of how these factors are interrelated.

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Protests struggle to gain traction in societies that are either too open (undermining the need for protest) or too closed (suppressing the possibility of protest). In the United States, there has been a sharp counter-movement responding to the election of President Donald Trump and conservative shift in ideology toward nativism. Given this shift and movement, an inquiry into the possibility of protest is both timely and critical. This ethnographic study of Camden, New Jersey, examines the ways local activists respond to oppression, finding that they use Alinsky-style community organizing that focuses on discrete, local actions and avoid direct confrontation with oppressive forces. These strategies differ from activists in adjacent communities joining in wide-scale, partisan resistance to nativism and President Donald Trump. The Camden strategy appears to be a learned response to failures in opposing wide-scale oppression and fear of loss of access and opportunity. In the face of such continued oppression, Camden activists target pragmatic urban issues to protest in the hopes of gaining small victories. Such a finding indicates that oppression may reify by making systemic changes seem unlikely or even impossible, causing activists in oppressed communities to make the strategic decision to avoid challenging oppression directly by focusing on pragmatic protest.