Muñiz, Janet. 2023. “Conflict and Co-Specialization on Calle Cuatro: How Placemakers Navigate Ethnic Branding.” Qualitative Sociology. (46) 515-534. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-023-09545-7

ABSTRACT

Placemaking accounts for multiple strategies used by communities to address their central concerns to create vibrant areas for people to live and connect with each other. Placemakers are the individuals who lead projects into action around develop- ment of communities that they often hold individual interest in as residents, busi- ness owners, and city leaders. Placemakers with financial stake in an area—business and property owners—are critical agents to examine in economically driven and city-led redevelopment projects. Growing economic interest in revitalization has overlapped with placemakers’ roles in cities across the USA. This study looks at intra- and interethnic conflict among placemakers in the downtown business district of a Southern California Mexican-majority community which, in 2015, became eth- nically branded to pay homage to its immigrant past and become a site of cultural tourism. Based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork and 43 in-depth interviews, I show how placemakers in two business groups navigate decision-making processes around the practices and projects they engage in, to answer the following questions: under what conditions does conflict emerge among placemakers working within an ethnic brand? How do placemakers in branded communities navigate conflict? I show how the two groups clash around the ethnic character of the area where they conduct business, and, because of these differences, co-exist through co-specializa- tion in the same space.