Sharda Rozena
MGS Alumna
ESRC Innovation Post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of Leicester to create an exhibition and publication based on my PhD research entitled ‘The real faces of the Royal Borough’ in collaboration with professional Canadian artist, Nevada Christianson.
Thesis Title: Gentrification and facadism in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, London: a tale of three buildings
In 1964, the British sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term gentrification shortly after carrying out research on an urban planning project in the north of Kensington. By this, she meant the movement of the middle classes or ‘gentry’ into urban areas, movement which then significantly transformed the socio-cultural character of the area and displaced the resident working classes. I show how this now classic wave of gentrification did not stop there, and neither did it only impact the north of the borough. In so doing, I draw on three building biographies – of Lancaster West Estate in Notting Dale, and One Kensington Gardens and Webb Place both on Kensington High Street – to show how gentrification in its different forms (buy-to-leave, state-led and corporate ownership) continues to have a detrimental impact on the everyday lives of tenants across private, council, and regulated tenancies in the borough. I also consider different aspects of gentrification processes, such as the speculative financialisation of housing by the council, the slow violence of gentrification, and the unhoming and survivability it triggers, the latter seen in various creative acts of resistance. Furthermore, I explore the role of facades and facadism in relation to housing in Kensington. This is argued to be a corresponding act of gentrification, which seeks to preserve the original features and authenticity of a building while modernising the inside for wealthier residents and investors. Facadism occurs frequently in the borough where the tensions between old and new are constantly at play, reviewed and contested.
Biography
Sharda Rozena was a postgraduate researcher at the University of Leicester looking at gentrification and facadism in her home borough of Kensington, London. Sharda writes about the lived everyday reality of gentrification, including her own auto-ethnographic experiences of living with the 'slow violence' of property management companies and landlords that has led to direct and indirect or symbolic displacement. Sharda’s paper on displacement on the Lancaster West Estate before, during and after the Grenfell Fire received special commendation from the Housing Studies Association Valerie Karn Prize 2021. A year later, her paper on regulated tenancies, survivability, and gentrification at home won the Valerie Karn Prize 2022. Sharda has spoken at many conferences, including the Grenfell Inquiry seminar series conference (2020) at the Bartlett School, UCL and the RGS – IBG Conference 2021. She was interviewed for and appear in a Gentrification Mooc for Urban Studies at Glasgow University. In November 2021 she organised and chaired a panel session at the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences, which included an online reading of Dictating to the Estate, a documentary play about Grenfell Tower followed by a Q&A session with expert guests. A few months later she was chair of an Urban Salon session after a live performance of the play. In January 2022 Sharda went on an ESRC funded Overseas Institutional Visit to the University of British Colombia in Vancouver. As a result of this trip, she is now collaborating with a professional Canadian artist to create an exhibition and publication based off her research in Kensington.
Publications
Journal Articles
Rozena, S. (2022). ‘Displacement on the Lancaster West Estate in London before, during, and after the Grenfell fire.’ City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13604813.2021.2017705.
Rozena, S and Lees, L. (2021). ‘The Everyday Lived Experiences of Airbnbification in London.’ Social and Cultural Geography. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649365.2021.1939124/.
Journal Articles currently in progress
Rozena, S. (2022). ‘Regulated tenancies, survivability, and gentrification at home in Kensington.’ Submitted to City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action. Waiting for response.
Rozena, S and McKenzie, R. (2022). ‘Wealth chain investment in London: gentrification by another name.’
Other Publications
Rozena, S. (2021). ‘Hinter Den Fassaden: Wohnrealitaten in Kensington.’ ARCH + Magazine Issue 245: Fassadenmanifest. (Translated into German).
Rozena, S. (2022). ‘Opinion: Grenfell- not one but multiple stories of displacement.’ Housing after Grenfell [online blog] University of Oxford. Available at: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/housing-after-grenfell/blog/2022/06/opinion-grenfell-not-one-multiple-stories-displacement. Accessed June 24, 2022.
Book Chapters
Rozena, S. (in press, tbp 2022). ‘Gentrification’. In: Jacobs, K, Flanagan, K, Verdouw, J and De Vries, J (editors) Housing, the Home and Society: Research Handbook. Edward Elgar (Awaiting Publication)
Rozena, S (in press, tbp 2022). ‘Ethnography.’ In: Demeritt, D, and Lees, L. (editors) Concise Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Edward Elgar. (Awaiting Publication)
Human Geography
University of Leicester
2018 Cohort 1+3
Supervisory Team
Prof Loretta Lees
Dr Matt Wilde