“WE ARE THE ONES THAT DRIVE THE CULTURE:” BLACK AGENCY WITHIN MARKET-DRIVEN CREATIVE PLACEMAKING PRACTICES

Abstract

While market-driven creative placemaking has become a more prevalent urban development strategy, there has been limited research on the agency and empowerment of Black community stakeholders in the planning and implementation of these initiatives. Primarily oriented around economic development goals, these initiatives can be contrasted with Black placemaking which is oriented around creating sites of endurance, belonging, and resistance, providing an avenue for the realization of Black agency and community empowerment. This study draws on Critical Race Theory and relational placemaking theory to examine Black agency in the context of the Wilmington Creative District (WCD), a market-driven creative placemaking initiative in Wilmington, Delaware. Using document analysis, in-depth interviews, and participant observations, this study describes the extent, meaning, and conditions of Black participation in the planning and implementation processes of the WCD. In the first part of the study, I find that Black citizen participation in the WCD is a condition of the racialized exclusion of Black community interests in Wilmington’s past urban redevelopment processes. Next, in the examination of the roles and experiences of Black stakeholders in the planning and implementation of the WCD, I find that Black stakeholders experience limitations to their power and authority across their roles as planners, collaborators, and creatives, but despite those limitations they assert agency over the WCD’s processes through Black placemaking strategies. In the third empirical analysis, I find that the stakeholders’ conceptualizations of the WCD are shaped by their orientations towards placemaking as a means for economic development or community empowerment. This study contributes to understanding Black stakeholder participation in the planning and implementation decision-making processes of market-driven creative placemaking practices occurring in Black-majority cities from the perspective of the Black communities who are directly impacted by these processes. The findings from this study shed light on how Black stakeholders understand the ways that their communities are excluded as equal participants and highlights the numerous ways that racial power dynamics and racism serve to limit Black agency and community empowerment. The findings also have implications for the importance of including members of marginalized communities in the decision-making processes of creative placemaking practices more broadly.