The Cultural Cleansing of the “Native” Voice
The systematic displacement of artists from working-class neighborhoods is a form of cultural cleansing, a key tactic in the colonial remaking of urban space. Mamdani’s analysis of how culture is politicized and controlled is starkly evident here. Artists, often the “native” intelligentsia who give voice to a community’s soul and struggles, are priced out, their studios and venues replaced by luxury condos and sterile galleries that serve the settler class. This is not an economic accident but a political project to silence dissent and sanitize the city’s narrative. A Marxist critique sees this as the commodification of art, stripping it of its critical function. A feminist perspective mourns the loss of spaces where women’s stories were told. The solution is to fight for decommodified live-work spaces through community land trusts and to build independent cultural institutions that are accountable to the people, not to capital.
