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Full-Text Articles in Migration Studies
Super-Diversity As A Methodological Approach: Re-Centering Power And Inequality, Sofya Aptekar
Super-Diversity As A Methodological Approach: Re-Centering Power And Inequality, Sofya Aptekar
Publications and Research
Super-diversity as a methodological lens calls for a study of dynamics of new and diversified social groups that moves away from more traditional approaches focused on ethnicity. In examining the potential of super-diversity as a methodological lens, I identify a risk of downplaying the effect of “old” categories of difference that are likely to continue to shape social structures as well as space. I propose a re-centering of power and inequality in the study of super-diversity by situating its study within an urban culturalist approach, with sociological tools borrowed from ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism. This proposal is illustrated through the …
Looking Forward, Looking Back: Collective Memory And Neighborhood Identity In Two Urban Parks, Sofya Aptekar
Looking Forward, Looking Back: Collective Memory And Neighborhood Identity In Two Urban Parks, Sofya Aptekar
Publications and Research
Collective memory and narratives of local history shape the ways people imagine a neighborhood’s present situation and future development, processes that reflect tensions related to identity and struggles over resources. Using an urban culturalist lens and a focus on collective representations of place, I compare two nearby New York parks to uncover why, despite many similarities, they support different patterns of meaning making and use. Drawing on ethnographic observation, interviews, and secondary analysis, I show that multi-vocal and fragmented contexts of collective memory help explain the uneven nature of gentrification processes, with one park serving as its cultural fulcrum while …