Stop Pasolini! Excavating the social underbelly of a ‘gentrifying’ neighbourhood in Rome

As Pigneto becomes increasingly associated with gentrification in local, national and international imaginaries, both from celebratory and critical standpoints, ideas about the neighbourhood tend to get collapsed into a predetermined set of signifiers. This is not to deny that gentrification is very real in Pigneto or that it is not embroiled in instances of structural and symbolic violence. Rather, it is simply to point out that any attempt to understand a gentrifying neighbourhood will be wholly inadequate if the narrative approach clings to class and political identities that no longer exist or perhaps never existed in the first place.