關於「仕紳化」的定義，最早見於英國社會學者露絲．格拉斯（Ruth Glass）的文章。惟，仕紳化的意義在階級涇渭分明的西方國家有其嚴謹的社會脈絡，臺灣以中小企業發展、中產階級為中堅的社會脈絡，所對應之空間發展或許並不完全符合其定義與辯論。然而，當下不少地區正經歷著巨大變遷，包括建成環境改變、不動產價格上漲、仕紳遷入跡象明顯、遷入家戶人口較少、原居民和移居者之間的人際關係疏離、土地利用轉趨為複雜的消費空間等。這些現象似乎都歸因於仕紳的遷入與佔領，所導致土地使用上劇烈改變，它帶來的影響似乎不亞於所謂的仕紳化衝擊。然而兩者存在與其定義上最根本的不同，臺灣案例並沒有如同文獻中所謂「階級替代」或「上濾作用」跡象。這種特殊的現象，本研究不認為是與西方文獻「仕紳化」對話的社會背景，而是學術界邁向某種「仕紳化想像」的關懷。本文以宜蘭縣員山鄉七賢村為例，透過現地問卷與面對面訪談，仔細地檢驗當地的現況是否符合仕紳化的社會關係與過程。最後，從個案研究證據中，我們提出異於西方對於仕紳化想像，及其與仕紳化理論差異。期許能透過這篇文章討論，反思西方理論在臺灣社會的應用。

The term ‘gentrification’ was initially coined by the British sociologist, Ruth Glass, in 1964. Based on the class displacement, she exerted it to investigate the process of urban changes that were beginning to affect inner London. However, the social background differs from the Western situations that make the conceptual application problematic in Taiwan. Nevertheless, nowadays regions are facing tremendous changes, such as built environment changing, property price surging, invasion of gentries, less members in household, old- and new-comers aliening, land use complicating and transforming into consuming space and so on. These phenomena seem to be attributed to the occupying process by gentries. These impacts on the society and the environment could not be neglected. However, the former is not acknowledged as the results of gentrification with the class replacement or upward filtering, which is the fundamental definition for gentrification. This paper attempts to explore this particular phenomenon in our society. The Qixian Village in Yuanshan Township, Yilan County, is a suitable and applicable investigation as a case study, followed by a series of critical reviews on gentrification and gentries. We collected data via questionnaire and face-to-face interviews to the locals of the Qixian Village. Finally, evidence from the case study, we find there is no significant ‘gentrification’ happened here but an imaginary to ‘gentrification’ discussed in Taiwan. We propose that it is towards an “imaginary of gentrification” to differ from the Western concept. Expectations according to our results and discussions in this paper reflect on the application of Western theory in the context of Taiwanese societies.