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In this article, we develop a contextual framing for the analysis of the social, economic and political transformations that have altered Latin American cities since the turn of the century, especially by displacing deprived households from the central city. We de-centre research on gentrification through the territorial and linguistic lens of Latin America, epitomising four simultaneously paradigmatic, but diverging and diverse gentrification scenarios. In such a comparativist account, emphasis is placed on: (i) the decisive role that public institutions play for gentrification in Latin America, especially with regard to the ferocity of new real estate markets; (ii) the symbolic violence that is required to re-appropriate architectural and cultural heritage; (iii) the vehemence of formalising urbanity in economies that are dominated by informal ways of producing, living and appropriating the city. Such debates conceptualise displacement …