Glimpses through the Gates: Gentrification and the Continuing Histories of the Devon County Pauper Lunatic Asylum

Abstract

This paper considers the continuing histories of the post-asylum landscape of the Devon County Pauper Lunatic Asylum, built between 1842 and 1845 and closed in 1987, with reference to its gentrification into Devington Park, a gated housing community. It begins by considering how disciplinary power has been reconfigured and revalorized by gentrification, including the deployment of “neo-disciplinary power” to control those outside the Devington Park boundary so as to maintain the positional good of security offered by the development. The paper then moves to consider the influence of gentrification on participant psychogeographies, demonstrating how the preservation paradox has engendered a shift from dormant to active participation. In terms of Tuan’s (1974) concept of topophilia Devington Park has become nostalgically haunted by “past structures of meaning and material presences from other times and lives” (Till 2005:9)

Keywords:

• Asylum
• Post-asylum geography
• Psychogeography
• Gentrification
• Photovoice