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Full-Text Articles in Urban Studies and Planning
Lgbtqc: Queer Perspectives On The Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities, Robert Burke
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
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 …
The Public Library As Resistive Space In The Neoliberal City, Sofya Aptekar
The Public Library As Resistive Space In The Neoliberal City, Sofya Aptekar
Publications and Research
With reduced hours, decaying infrastructure, and precariously positioned staff, local public libraries provide much needed services in cities devastated by inequality and slashed safety nets. In this article, I draw on ethnographic research of a small public library in a diverse, mostly working class neighborhood in Queens, New York. I show that in addition to providing an alternative to the capitalist market by distributing resources according to people’s needs, the library serves as a moral underground space, where middle class people bend rules to help struggling city residents. Although the library occasionally replicates hegemonic ideologies about immigrant assimilation, it provides …
The Unbearable Lightness Of The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Accomplishment Of Diversity At An Urban Farmers Market, Sofya Aptekar
The Unbearable Lightness Of The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Accomplishment Of Diversity At An Urban Farmers Market, Sofya Aptekar
Publications and Research
This article provides a critique of work on urban public space that touts its potential as a haven from racial and class conflicts and inequalities. I argue that social structures and hierarchies embedded in the capitalist system and the state’s social control over the racialized poor are not suspended even in places that appear governed by civility and tolerance, such as those under Anderson’s “cosmopolitan canopy”. Durable inequality, residential segregation, nativism, and racism inevitably shape what happens in diverse public spaces. Using an ethnographic study of an urban farmers’ market in New York City, I show that appearances of everyday …
Recipes Of Resolve: Food And Meaning In Post-Diluvian New Orleans, Jessica Claire Menck
Recipes Of Resolve: Food And Meaning In Post-Diluvian New Orleans, Jessica Claire Menck
Antioch University Dissertations & Theses
In 2005 the city of New Orleans experienced catastrophic flooding as a result of the failure of the federal levee system following Hurricane Katrina. This was an immediate disaster that evolved into a longer-term crisis as the city, state, and national government struggled to respond to the event. This study focuses on one part of managing crisis: meaning making. Specifically, the study investigates meaning making within the food community of New Orleans, asking the questions: is food a way for individuals and groups to make meaning following critical change events such as the failure of the federal levee system in …
Wild Capitalism: Environmental Activism And Postsocialist Political Ecology In Hungary, Krista Harper
Wild Capitalism: Environmental Activism And Postsocialist Political Ecology In Hungary, Krista Harper
Anthropology Department Faculty Publication Series
"Wild Capitalism" examines environmental issues in the "New Europe" of the twenty-first century. Specifically, it looks at how the meanings of "civil society" and "environment" have changed as environmentalists encounter the political and ecological realities of life after state socialism. Although environmentalism is a global social movement, environmental politics is a grassroots process in which activists creatively translate environmental issues into cultural idioms and political processes.