The Narrative of Urban Gentrification from the Benefactors' Perspective: A Social and Interpretive Approach toward Narrative Understanding

Narrative interpretation is a process of transferring meaning from the researcher to the reader. This study aims to discuss the functions of the narrative interpretation in social studies in general and urban studies in particular. Narrative analysis moves beyond the linguistic analysis, investigating perspectives and presuppositions emerging from stories to understand the ways human experiences are formed. Although it seems that only the narrator evaluates the event, in fact, the narrator and the reader construct the meaning through interaction. An example of these narrations can be found in the representation of urban gentrification from the viewpoint of the benefactors. These representations, which are based on the life experience of the social agents, are realized and narrated in the form of open interviews. Then, they are interpreted from a hermeneutic approach. The main theme of the constructed narrative of the agents of gentrification can be understood as a "pretentious loss"