The fantasy of authenticity: understanding the paradox of retail gentrification in Seoul from a Lacanian perspective

Gentrification studies have well-documented how gentrifiers’ alternative consumption practices of seeking ‘authenticity’ lead to retail gentrification. However, they pay scant attention to the paradoxical subjects of gentrification who continue to take part in gentrification by consuming authenticity, even as they criticize the gentrification-driven loss of authenticity. Drawing upon Lacanian psychoanalysis and ethnographic research in one of the gentrifying neighborhoods in Seoul, South Korea, this article demonstrates how the fantasy of authenticity sustains this paradox while facilitating the continuing retail gentrification. As part of the process, various subjects of gentrification name the neighborhood differently – Seochon and Sejong Village – and claim that their own name is more authentic than the other. In and beyond this toponym debate, the fantasy of authenticity allows the subjects to constantly cross the borders of authentic/inauthentic and gentrifier/gentrified, and thus, reinvest their endless desire for ‘something more authentic’. Ultimately, by bridging psychoanalysis and gentrification studies, I argue that we, as the subjects of gentrification, should bear responsibility for our compelling desire for and fantasy of authenticity to challenge the cycle of the ongoing retail gentrification.