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Full-Text Articles in Human Geography

Lgbtqc: Queer Perspectives On The Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities, Robert Burke May 2020

Lgbtqc: Queer Perspectives On The Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities, Robert Burke

Anthropology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Cities are broadly conceived to be queer utopia when compared with rural spaces. While the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa fit this simplistic model in some ways, the region has several unique characteristics that warrant their own investigation. I argue that the social climate of the Quad Cities is generally perceived as welcoming and inclusive by the LGBTQ+ community. However, despite an assortment of community-building institutions, some find socialization and partner-seeking a bit difficult. Many advocate for investment in a variety of physical LGBTQ+ “third places” (public gathering places), which would yield a variety of benefits for this community. …


When Nature Invades: Resident Perceptions Of The Austerity-Driven "Rewilding" Of An Urban Park In Rock Island, Illinois, Christian S. B. Elliott May 2020

When Nature Invades: Resident Perceptions Of The Austerity-Driven "Rewilding" Of An Urban Park In Rock Island, Illinois, Christian S. B. Elliott

Anthropology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

In an era of rapid urbanization, changing climate, and increasing political division, parks represent increasingly important places for urban residents to interact with and feel connected to the natural environment and receive a number of mental and physical health benefits. Unfortunately, in an age of austerity politics, parks and recreation departments in Midwest Rust Belt cities often lack adequate funding to maintain such public spaces. Recently, the business-minded Rock Island, Illinois Department of Parks and Recreation has implemented a creative cost-saving management solution: “naturalizing” sections of its city parks. This interdisciplinary study uses a mixed methods approach to discover how …


An Alternative Narrative Of Integration In Germany Through An Ethnographic Exploration Of Cuban Immigration, Ana M. Rusch Oct 2018

An Alternative Narrative Of Integration In Germany Through An Ethnographic Exploration Of Cuban Immigration, Ana M. Rusch

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This ethnographic study on Cuban immigrants conducted in Germany explored the dynamics of integration through an understudied immigrant population. Most of the research conducted on integration in Germany has overwhelmingly been on Turkish immigrants, which is Germany’s majority immigrant group. To contribute to Integration Studies, this research focused on a minority and lesser studied immigrant group, Cuban immigrants. Cuban immigrants in Germany not only have a different historical and geopolitical relationship with Germany than its majority group but they also subscribe to different cultural and ethnoreligious categories. Because of these varying circumstances, Cubans act as a counter example to the …


Waiting For A Place: At Gravedigger’S Pub, Jeffrey Alan Tolbert Jul 2016

Waiting For A Place: At Gravedigger’S Pub, Jeffrey Alan Tolbert

Faculty Journal Articles

In this essay I consider how place can defeat our attempts to analyze it by become meaningful to us in ways that exceed the scope of our scholarly interests and methods. Discussing my fieldwork at a Dublin pub, I touch on the concepts of sense of place, nostalgia, and the importance of human relationships that form in places even in the context of what might be considered "failed" research.