Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie – 2007, Vol. 98, No. 1, pp. 53–67. © 2007 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA THE ‘BUOYANCY’ OF ‘OTHER’ GEOGRAPHIES OF GENTRIFICATION: GOING ‘BACK-TO-THE WATER’ AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF MARGINALITY DARREN P. SMITH Geography Division, University of Brighton, Brighton BN2 4GJ, United Kingdom. E-mail: D.Smith@bton.ac.uk Received: June 2006 ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the motives underpinning the formation and (re)production of a marginal social group residing in houseboats within Shoreham-by-Sea, South-east England. It is contended that the ‘boat-people’ represent a unique example of going back-to-the-water, which is tied to a predilection for a self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyle, anti-consumerism, a sense of community, and closeness to nature and natural elements. The discussion points to the importance of idyllic rural representations of the South Downs, which render positive cultural readings of the river, coast, water and tides. It is also noted that the houseboats provide an economic ‘loop-hole’ into the wider gentrified housing markets of Brighton and Hove. Focusing on recent socio-cultural and economic transformations, and linked to the regulation and commodification of the alter- native lifestyles and living arrangements, the case study provides an example of the ‘purification’ of manufactured, atypical gentrified spaces. The findings therefore disrupt ideas of gentrification being synonymous with conventional residential spaces, and extend understandings of the diversity of ‘other’ geographies of gentrification to more fully embrace sociocultural marginality. Key words: Gentrification, rurality, neoliberalism, marginality, culture INTRODUCTION Instances of resistance need to be under- stood in the specificities of when and where they erupt, with detailed attention paid to how the resistant identities of the peoples involved are pieced together in the process, and also with a sense of how ‘alternative spatialities’ of resistance are forged and whose contours elude those laid down by the dominating forces of control’ (Sharp et al. 2000, p. 30) [emphasis added]. Analyses of the shifting terrain of social geo- graphies reveal growing divisions within Britain (Dorling & Rees 2003). This is borne out by changing demographic and population distri- butions (Bailey 2005), the alarming segregation of social groups based on wealth (Dorling & Thomas 2004), and the polarisation of low- income groups within declining locations (Hamnett 2003; Atkinson 2004). As Jones & Ward (2002, p. 127) state: ‘a postindustrial landscape of deepening inequalities and entrenched social polarisation’ is unfolding. Likewise, Swyngedouw et al . (2002, p. 196) con- tend that the dynamics of places ‘hide in their underbelly perverse and pervasive processes of social exclusion and marginalisation’. Recent accounts of the restructuring of space suggest that these uneven geographies of affluence and deprivation are likely to be