Peeking back shop: Professional and housing trajectories of small Montreal shopkeepers
Based on a two-year field study involving semi-structured interviews with 50 small shopkeepers in two Montreal inner-city neighbourhoods undergoing gentrification, this article examines commercial change from the point of view of storeowners. It first develops a typology of storeowners, considering their position in the life cycle, their family situation and their past career. It then moves on to question their attitudes towards the neighbourhood in which they operate, looking at their representations both prior and after their arrival in the area. Overall, the professional and housing trajectories of the new Montreal shopkeepers are strongly influenced by ethical and esthetic considerations that connects them more closely to the wage-earning middle classes from which many of them originate than to the retailing petty bourgeoisie of the past.