Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Putting The Ninth Ward On The Map: Race, Place, And Transformation In Desire, New Orleans, Rachel Breunlin

Anthropology Faculty Publications

In this article, we consider how long-term patterns of resistance to structural violence inform citizens’ responses to displacement before and after Katrina. Drawing on Abdou Maliq Simone’s (2004) conceptualization of people as infrastructure, we recenter the discussion about the rebuilding of New Orleans around displaced residents, taking the place-making practices of members of a social club as a lens through which to examine the predicament of the city as a whole. Members have been generating alternative ways of thinking about and dwelling together in a restructuring city. Their perspectives are articulated through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and the embodied practices …