From ananya at berkeley.edu  Wed Aug  1 10:00:14 2007
From: ananya at berkeley.edu (Ananya Roy)
Date: Wed Aug  1 12:29:17 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Inter-Referencing Asia: Urban Experiments Workshop
Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070801090001.02ae9980@calmail.berkeley.edu>

We invite submissions of abstracts for an SSRC-sponsored workshop 
"Inter-Referencing Asia: Urban Experiments and the Art of being 
Global."  Successful applicants will be invited to participate in the 
workshop to be held in Dubai, next February. See the following announcement.

Best wishes,
Aihwa Ong (aihwaong@berkeley.edu) and Ananya Roy (ananya@berkeley.edu)


CALL FOR PAPERS: SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL, International 
Conference on INTER-ASIAN CONNECTIONS
DUBAI, UAE, FEBRUARY 21-24, 2008

WORKSHOP TITLE: INTER-REFERENCING ASIA: URBAN EXPERIMENTS & THE ART 
OF BEING GLOBAL
WORKSHOP DIRECTORS: Aihwa Ong (aihwaong@berkeley.edu) and Ananya Roy 
(ananya@berkeley.edu) University of California, Berkeley

The 21st century will be an urban century and more significant, it 
will be a century of Asian urbanization.  The growth of Asian cities 
prompts the need for a research agenda that pays careful attention to 
the processes and forms of urbanism that are forming at such 
sites.  The analytical framework of "global cities," which is in 
currency, fails to capture the role of Asian cities as "worlding" 
nodes: those that create global connections and global regimes of 
value.  In particular, it fails to notice the ways in which Asian 
cities produce global urbanism through experiments of 
inter-referencing whereby urban elites borrow, copy, and articulate 
city-making across national borders.  In the dynamic context of such 
inter-Asian aspirations, Dubai, Singapore, and Shanghai emerge as 
"models" while aspiring cities undertake slum demolitions, invest in 
premium urban infrastructure, woo investors through special economic 
zones, deploy high-style architecture to create an urban brand, and 
compete for professionals in the bid to create world-class 
economies.  Such a production of space has profound implications for 
the future of Asian cities: to whom will the city belong? What will 
be the relationship between cities and citizenship?

We propose a workshop that focuses on the urban experiment that is 
the Asian city.  We invite paper proposals that address the following issues:
1) The "worlding" role of Asian cities in the age of late capitalism 
with a particular emphasis on the inter-city borrowings, linkages, 
and competitions that drive globalization across Asia.  How is such 
inter-referencing driven by elite actors, by the state, and by the 
circulation of professionals and managers?  What are the aesthetic 
icons and symbols associated with Asian urban aspirations?  In other 
words, what is the "art of being global" that is being cultivated at 
the site of the Asian city?

2) The types of displacements that are emerging in such Asian cities, 
ranging from the flows of labor that service the success and 
prosperity of cities to the displacement being engendered by the 
development of enclave urbanism.  What are the social and political 
limits of such displacements?  How is the politics of displacement 
mediated by civil society actors that operate both within and across 
particular Asian cities?  What are the forms of urban mobilization 
that are coalescing around the modality of displacement?

The sheer political ambition of their urban experimentations suggests 
a focus on the United Emirates, India, China, and Southeast Asia, but 
not exclusively.  We invite scholars from anthropology, urban 
planning, architecture, sociology, geography, and cultural studies, 
as well as civil society actors, cultural producers, and 
professionals who are directly engaged in projects of inter-Asia 
city-making. Paper submissions can be focused on a single city or can 
be comparative and transnational in nature.  Our workshop will foster 
interactions that can lead to collaborations, resulting in a new 
field of Inter-Asian Urban Studies.  We plan an edited volume that 
will be the first study of this new South-South urban renaissance and 
the worlding ambitions of Asian cities.

SUBMISSION AND CONFERENCE INFORMATION:

Applications are due on Friday, September 14, 2007.  They must be 
submitted directly to SSRC.  For more information, see 
http://www.ssrc.org/program_areas/global/papers/.

Selection decisions will be announced on October 19, 2007. Accepted 
participants are required to submit a 20-25 page research paper by 
January 14, 2008.

The SSRC will make every effort to subsidize the travel and 
accommodation costs associated with attending the conference, and we 
will issue a formal announcement about availability and levels of 
financial assistance for individual participants in the coming 
months. In the meantime, prospective participants are encouraged to 
seek out alternative sources of funding that may be available from 
their home institutions or other agencies. For additional inquiries, 
please contact the SSRC at 
<mailto:intl_collaboration@ssrc.org>intl_collaboration@ssrc.org.

From jancius at ohio.edu  Wed Aug  1 13:50:17 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Wed Aug  1 12:51:10 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]FUNDING: SSRC Inter-Asian Connections
Message-ID: <00c101c7d45c$0d7cc930$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

Forwarded from URBGEOG@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU

Inter-Referencing Asia: Urban Experiments Workshop


We invite submissions of abstracts for an SSRC-sponsored workshop 
"Inter-Referencing Asia: Urban Development and the Art of being Global." 
Successful applicants will be invited to participate in the workshop to be 
held in Dubai, next February. See the following announcement.

Best wishes,
Aihwa Ong (aihwaong@berkeley.edu) and Ananya Roy (ananya@berkeley.edu)


CALL FOR PAPERS: SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL, International Conference 
on INTER-ASIAN CONNECTIONS
DUBAI, UAE, FEBRUARY 21-24, 2008

WORKSHOP TITLE: INTER-REFERENCING ASIA: URBAN EXPERIMENTS & THE ART OF BEING 
GLOBAL
WORKSHOP DIRECTORS: Aihwa Ong (aihwaong@berkeley.edu) and Ananya Roy 
(ananya@berkeley.edu) University of California, Berkeley

The 21st century will be an urban century and more significant, it will be a 
century of Asian urbanization.  The growth of Asian cities prompts the need 
for a research agenda that pays careful attention to the processes and forms 
of urbanism that are forming at such sites.  The analytical framework of 
"global cities," which is in currency, fails to capture the role of Asian 
cities as "worlding" nodes: those that create global connections and global 
regimes of value.  In particular, it fails to notice the ways in which Asian 
cities produce global urbanism through experiments of inter-referencing 
whereby urban elites borrow, copy, and articulate city-making across 
national borders.  In the dynamic context of such inter-Asian aspirations, 
Dubai, Singapore, and Shanghai emerge as "models" while aspiring cities 
undertake slum demolitions, invest in premium urban infrastructure, woo 
investors through special economic zones, deploy high-style architecture to 
create an urban brand, and compete for professionals in the bid to create 
world-class economies.  Such a production of space has profound implications 
for the future of Asian cities: to whom will the city belong? What will be 
the relationship between cities and citizenship?

We propose a workshop that focuses on the urban experiment that is the Asian 
city.  We invite paper proposals that address the following issues:
1) The "worlding" role of Asian cities in the age of late capitalism with a 
particular emphasis on the inter-city borrowings, linkages, and competitions 
that drive globalization across Asia.  How is such inter-referencing driven 
by elite actors, by the state, and by the circulation of professionals and 
managers?  What are the aesthetic icons and symbols associated with Asian 
urban aspirations?  In other words, what is the "art of being global" that 
is being cultivated at the site of the Asian city?

2) The types of displacements that are emerging in such Asian cities, 
ranging from the flows of labor that service the success and prosperity of 
cities to the displacement being engendered by the development of enclave 
urbanism.  What are the social and political limits of such displacements? 
How is the politics of displacement mediated by civil society actors that 
operate both within and across particular Asian cities?  What are the forms 
of urban mobilization that are coalescing around the modality of 
displacement?

The sheer political ambition of their urban experimentations suggests a 
focus on the United Emirates, India, China, and Southeast Asia, but not 
exclusively.  We invite scholars from anthropology, urban planning, 
architecture, sociology, geography, and cultural studies, as well as civil 
society actors, cultural producers, and professionals who are directly 
engaged in projects of inter-Asia city-making. Paper submissions can be 
focused on a single city or can be comparative and transnational in nature. 
Our workshop will foster interactions that can lead to collaborations, 
resulting in a new field of Inter-Asian Urban Studies.  We plan an edited 
volume that will be the first study of this new South-South urban 
renaissance and the worlding ambitions of Asian cities.

SUBMISSION AND CONFERENCE INFORMATION:

Applications are due on Friday, September 14, 2007.  They must be submitted 
directly to SSRC.  For more information, see 
http://www.ssrc.org/program_areas/global/papers/.

Selection decisions will be announced on October 19, 2007. Accepted 
participants are required to submit a 20-25 page research paper by January 
14, 2008.

The SSRC will make every effort to subsidize the travel and accommodation 
costs associated with attending the conference, and we will issue a formal 
announcement about availability and levels of financial assistance for 
individual participants in the coming months. In the meantime, prospective 
participants are encouraged to seek out alternative sources of funding that 
may be available from their home institutions or other agencies. For 
additional inquiries, please contact the SSRC at < 
mailto:intl_collaboration@ssrc.org>intl_collaboration@ssrc.org. 

From jancius at ohio.edu  Mon Aug  6 14:40:48 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Mon Aug  6 14:04:14 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]ANN: New York City Activists Meet Sociologists
Message-ID: <006301c7d854$0f07cb50$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

Please circulate widely!

INVITATION TO A SPECIAL EVENT AT OUR 102nd ANNUAL MEETING

"New York City Activists Meet Sociologists"

Sat, Aug 11, 6-8pm
Hilton New York, Concourse G Room, Concourse Level.
Food and drink will be provided.

This reception is an opportunity for informal-we hope, even fun!-interaction between 
sociologists and local New York City activists. 

At this special Presidential event come to find activist partners for research and meet with 
other sociologists doing action or applied research. Graduate students are especially 
encouraged to come and network to find research and internship possibilities.

Please come meet and mingle with NYC activists involved in labor, electoral reform, 
environmentalism, welfare reform, community action, immigrant rights and immigration reform, 
transnational organizing, governmental watchdog action, justice, youth, school reform, 
homelessness, housing, anti-war efforts, and more.

Our hope is that this will be a mutually beneficial opportunity for activists and scholars-
and the many of us who fall somewhere in-between-to meet, talk about the ways we work 
together and figure out new and better ways to keep our scholarship related to the work of 
activists.

At the reception, alongside food and drink, we'll hear some (very) brief presentations 
allowing plenty of time for you to introduce yourself and mingle with like-minded others.

Please spread the word about this event.  If you have any question, please contact Penny 
Lewis at pennywlewis@gmail.com or Lorna Mason at lornalmason@gmail.com. 

I look forward to seeing you in August.

In solidarity,


Frances Fox Piven
President, American Sociological Association
Anne Shlay, Ph.D.
Visiting Professor, Hebrew Univeristy
052-566-8657

Professor
Department of Sociology
755 Gladfelter Hall
1115 West Berks Street   Temple University                 Philadelphia, PA 19122

Telephone: 215-204-7931
Fax: 215-204-3352



From jancius at ohio.edu  Mon Aug  6 15:08:35 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Mon Aug  6 14:09:32 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]CFP: Economy of Fascination - Thematic Production of
	Postmodern Urban Landscapes (Heidelberg)
Message-ID: <00c601c7d854$d47d4360$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

* POSTED ON BEHALF OF HEIKO SCHMID, FOR CONTACT DETAILS SEE BELOW *

Dear All,

On behalf of the Department of Geography at the University of Heidelberg 
it is my pleasure to invite you to attend the international 
symposium "Economy of Fascination - Thematic Production of Post-modern 
Urban Landscapes" in Heidelberg from November 8 to 10, 2007.

Yours sincerely,
Heiko Schmid


Description & program:
"Economy of Fascination - Thematic Production of Postmodern Urban 
Landscapes"

During the last decades and in the course of economic and cultural 
globalisation most metropolises have undergone far-reaching 
transformations towards an increasing commercialisation, theming, and 
focus on entertainment. One of the consequences of urban governance is 
that competences and responsibilities have been transferred to private and 
semi-state actors, while other consequences are that supermarkets have 
been turned into urban entertainment centres, pedestrian zones into 
festival marketplaces, and traditional housing areas have been converted 
to gated communities.

Festivalisation, theming, and hyper reality are the catchwords of a fast-
paced development which is increasingly reducing everyday "reality" and 
replacing it with a "culture of simulation". As early as 1992 SORKIN 
announced the end of public space and the transition from reality to 
virtuality. Experience and reality are being virtualised, produced, and 
simulated but also manipulated, monitored, and controlled. Meanwhile, one 
can speak even of an "Economy of Fascination" to describe the attention 
drawing tendencies of theming and entertainment that have found their way 
into everyday life and that are more and more the determining factors of 
urban landscapes.

"Economy of Fascination" is consequently the title of an international 
symposium at the Internationales Wissenschaftsforum in Heidelberg from 
November 8 to 11, 2007 that will focus on the increasing 
commercialisation, theming, and entertainment character of urban 
landscapes. Several international academics like Michael Sorkin, Mark 
Gottdiener, John Urry, Scott Lash, Neil Smith, and Michael Dear will give 
keynote lectures, but the main goal of the symposiums is to bring together 
senior academics and young scholars of different disciplines to 
intensively discuss topics of postmodern urbanism.


Program of the symposium:

Opening ceremony:
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Location: Alte Aula, Grabengasse 1

17.30: Musical prelude

17.40: Welcome address and opening of the symposium
Heiko Schmid (Department of Geography, University of Heidelberg)

18.00: Back To Zero - Theming Thanatos
Michael Sorkin (Director of the Graduate Urban Design Program, City 
College of New York)

19.00: General statement for discussion

19.20: Musical finale

20.00: Reception at the Alte Aula

---

Friday, November 09, 2007
Location: Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg, Hauptstra?e 242


Section 1: Postmodern Urbanity

8.30: Introduction
Heiko Schmid (Department of Geography, University of Heidelberg)

8.45: Reading Postmodern Urbanism
Michael Dear (Department of Geography, University of Southern California)

9.30: Aesthetics and Design: Perceptions in the Postmodern Periphery
Ludger Basten (Department of Geography, University of Bochum)

10.15: Coffee break


Section 2: Governance and Urban Dynamics

10.45: "The Most Dangerous Knack": Function, Fetish and Fascination in the 
Built Environment
Neil Smith (Center for Place, Culture and Politics, City University of New 
York)

11.30: The City Is Back (In Our Minds)
Jacques Levy (?cole polytechnique f?d?rale de Lausanne)

12.15: Culture and urban renewal. Late modern trends in urban regeneration 
and governance
Gerald Wood (Department of Geography, University of M?nster)

13.00: Lunch


Section 3: Theming and Urban Semiotics

15.00: Urban Realities; Urban Simulations: Theming, Postmodernism, and 
Everyday Urban Life
Mark Gottdiener (Department of Sociology, University at Buffalo, NY)

15.45: "Urban textures" - Conceptual notes on the relation between 
language and city
Ingo Warnke (Department of Germanistic Studies, University of Kassel)
Ulrike Gerhard (Department of Geography, University of W?rzburg)

16.30: Coffee break

17.00: Strategic Stagings of Urbanity: Urban Images in Films and Film 
Clips in Urban Development
Anke Str?ver (Department of Geography, University of M?nster)
Sybille Bauriedl (Department of Geography, University of Hamburg)

---

Saturday, November 10, 2007
Location: Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg, Hauptstra?e 242


Section 4: Urban and Semiotic Economies

8.30: Economies of Excess and Global Climate Change
John Urry (Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research, Department of 
Sociology, Lancaster University)

9.15: Cultural Geographies of Economies
Christian Berndt (Department of Geography, University of Frankfurt)
Marc Boeckler (Department of Geography, University of Eichst?tt)

10.00: Coffee break


Section 5: Cultural and regional examples

10.30: Who is running the show? Dubai's grandiose projects from a 
sustainable development perspective
Marc Lavergne (CNRS, Universit? Lyon 3)

11.15: Urban Themescapes in Present China
Dieter Hassenpflug (Department of European Urbanism, University of Weimar)

12.00: The urban staging of politics - ideology & urban architectural 
planning in Brazil. A semiotic-actionist approach
Woody Sahr (Program for post-graduation in Geografia, Universidade Federal 
do Paran?, Curitiba, Brazil)

12.45: Lunch

14.45: "A hot place to be"? Culture and tourism in the Ruhr Area
Achim Prossek (Department of Geography, University of Dortmund)

15.30: Inscribing Values into the Urban Landscapes using Flagship Museums
Noam Shoval (Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

16.15: Coffee break


Section 6: Resume

16.45: Statement and synopsis from the chairs: discussion and resume

17.45: End of the symposium

---


The symposium is open to all disciplines and academics - young scholars 
and interested discussants are most welcomed. A small conference fee of 40 
? will be charged.

More information at http://www.geog.uni-heidelberg.de/fascination/pdf/flyer.pdf


Contact and registration:
Dr. Heiko Schmid
Department of Geography
University of Heidelberg
Berliner Stra?e 48
69120 Heidelberg
Tel.: 06221/544590
Email: heiko.schmid@geog.uni-heidelberg.de
From jancius at ohio.edu  Wed Aug  8 15:08:40 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Wed Aug  8 14:12:20 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]ANN: CA Essays on Cities, Violence, and West Africa
Message-ID: <005b01c7d9e7$8ffe7800$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

The below Cultural Anthropology urban anthropology resource guide was 
forwarded to Urbanth-L by a CA assitant editor. It's a synopsis of recent CA 
articles on urban anthropology themes.   - AJ

**** Please circulate further as appropriate. ****

CA Essay on Cities, the Organization of Violence, and West Africa
http://www.anthrosource.net/doi/abs/10.1525/can.2007.22.3.400

What opportunities are available to young men in West African urban 
warscapes, and how do the nomos of these postconflict spaces subvert the 
functioning norms of cities? In the August issue of Cultural Anthropology, 
Danny Hoffman, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of 
Washington, draws on his fieldwork in Freetown, Sierra Leone and Monrovia, 
Liberia to explore new urban forms and capitalist production, disrupting 
images of postmodern African cities as negative space. Instead of focusing 
on what has been destroyed, "The City as Barracks: Freetown, Monrovia, and 
the Organization of Violence in Postcolonial African Cities" analyzes ad hoc 
modes of production in postconflict cities that aren't entirely 
postconflict. By detailing how labor is organized from remnants of violence, 
Hoffman shows how war and peace are not easily distinguishable, and how 
Freetown and Monrovia may not be much different from other postcolonial 
cities.

Examining the Brooksfield Hotel in Freetown and Duala neighborhood of 
Monrovia, Hoffman describes how human bodies are assembled, organized, and 
then redeployed for resource extraction, combat in neighboring regions, or 
humanitarian services. Far from negative, these cities are marked by an 
excessive production "that leaves no space or time for the modernist project 
of fixed city spaces, services, institutions, or relations. In its place is 
an infrastructure of people predicated on continuous strategic, and often 
violent, movement." It is the city's "capacity for violence" that provides 
its economic and governing structures; the barracks have become the nomos of 
West Africa's postmodernity. Survival depends on exchangeability, flexible 
bodies, and the speed of movement in this violent economy; the logic of the 
barracks, Hoffman argues, may be the one fixed character of this region.

Cultural Anthropology has published several essays on militarization, the 
military, and resistance. See, for example Linda Green's "Fear as a Way of 
Life" (1994); Lesley Gill's "Creating Citizens, Making Men: The Military and 
Masculinity in Bolivia" (1997); and Donald S. Moore's "Subaltern Struggles 
and the Politics of Place: Remapping Resistance in Zimbabwe's Eastern 
Highlands" (1998).

Cultural Anthropology has also published a range of essays cities and 
urbanity. See, for example, Michael Dear's "The Premature Demise of 
Postmodern Urbanism" (1994); Emanuela Guano "Spectacles of Modernity: 
Transnational Imagination and Local Hegemonies in Neoliberal Buenos Aires" 
(2002); Benjamin Chesluk's "Visible Signs of a City Out of Control: 
Community Policing in New York City" (2004); and William Cunningham 
Bissell's "Engaging Colonial Nostalgia" (2005).

Cultural Anthropology essays can be accessed electronically through 
AnthroSource, http://www.anthrosource.net/, which is available through most 
research libraries and to all members of the American Anthropological 
Association. Cultural Anthropology can also be accessed through a 
pay-per-view system. Journalists may request PDFs from Cultural 
Anthropology's editorial office: culanth@rpi.edu. 

From jancius at ohio.edu  Thu Aug  9 20:30:02 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Thu Aug  9 19:31:17 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]
 REV: Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (A review of Robert Putman's latest book)
Message-ID: <00ee01c7dadd$3aec22d0$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

The downside of diversity
A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What 
happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?

The Boston Globe
By Michael Jonas  |  August 5, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/04/the_downside_of_diversity/?page=1

IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity 
as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from 
political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us 
stronger.
But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 
people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political 
scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on 
declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a 
community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they 
give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse 
communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in 
the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic 
engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are 
lower in more diverse settings.
"The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University of 
Michigan political scientist.
The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the 
focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions 
to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. 
The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm 
large-scale immigration causes to the nation's social fabric. But with 
demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater 
diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling 
social changes that Putnam's research predicts.
"We can't ignore the findings," says Ali Noorani, executive director of the 
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The big question we 
have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?"
The study is part of a fascinating new portrait of diversity emerging from 
recent scholarship. Diversity, it shows, makes us uncomfortable -- but 
discomfort, it turns out, isn't always a bad thing. Unease with differences 
helps explain why teams of engineers from different cultures may be ideally 
suited to solve a vexing problem. Culture clashes can produce a dynamic 
give-and-take, generating a solution that may have eluded a group of people 
with more similar backgrounds and approaches. At the same time, though, 
Putnam's work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more 
diverse populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of collective 
needs and goals.
His findings on the downsides of diversity have also posed a challenge for 
Putnam, a liberal academic whose own values put him squarely in the 
pro-diversity camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad news, Putnam 
has struggled with how to present his work. He gathered the initial raw data 
in 2000 and issued a press release the following year outlining the results. 
He then spent several years testing other possible explanations.
When he finally published a detailed scholarly analysis in June in the 
journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he faced criticism for straying from 
data into advocacy. His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of 
diversity can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity 
may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.
"Having aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining such 
social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep talk," wrote 
conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent Orange County Register 
op-ed titled "Greater diversity equals more misery."
Putnam has long staked out ground as both a researcher and a civic player, 
someone willing to describe social problems and then have a hand in 
addressing them. He says social science should be "simultaneously rigorous 
and relevant," meeting high research standards while also "speaking to 
concerns of our fellow citizens." But on a topic as charged as ethnicity and 
race, Putnam worries that many people hear only what they want to.
"It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny 
the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity," he 
writes in the new report. "It would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical 
and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is 
both feasible and desirable."
Putnam is the nation's premier guru of civic engagement. After studying 
civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his attention to 
the US, publishing an influential journal article on civic engagement in 
1995 that he expanded five years later into the best-selling "Bowling 
Alone." The book sounded a national wake-up call on what Putnam called a 
sharp drop in civic connections among Americans. It won him audiences with 
presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and made him one of the 
country's best known social scientists.
Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced decline in "social 
capital," a term he helped popularize. Social capital refers to the social 
networks -- whether friendships or religious congregations or neighborhood 
associations -- that he says are key indicators of civic well-being. When 
social capital is high, says Putnam, communities are better places to live. 
Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier; and more citizens vote.
The results of his new study come from a survey Putnam directed among 
residents in 41 US communities, including Boston. Residents were sorted into 
the four principal categories used by the US Census: black, white, Hispanic, 
and Asian. They were asked how much they trusted their neighbors and those 
of each racial category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes 
and practices, including their views on local government, their involvement 
in community projects, and their friendships. What emerged in more diverse 
communities was a bleak picture of civic desolation, affecting everything 
from political engagement to the state of social ties.
Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his hands. He worried about 
coming under some of the same liberal attacks that greeted Daniel Patrick 
Moynihan's landmark 1965 report on the social costs associated with the 
breakdown of the black family. There is always the risk of being pilloried 
as the bearer of "an inconvenient truth," says Putnam.
After releasing the initial results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time 
"kicking the tires really hard" to be sure the study had it right. Putnam 
realized, for instance, that more diverse communities tended to be larger, 
have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility among 
their residents -- all factors that could depress social capital independent 
of any impact ethnic diversity might have.
"People would say, 'I bet you forgot about X,'" Putnam says of the string of 
suggestions from colleagues. "There were 20 or 30 X's."
But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection 
remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his 
findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to 
"distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to 
withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community 
and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on 
community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for 
social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a 
difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television."
"People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to 'hunker down' --  
that is, to pull in like a turtle," Putnam writes.
In documenting that hunkering down, Putnam challenged the two dominant 
schools of thought on ethnic and racial diversity, the "contact" theory and 
the "conflict" theory. Under the contact theory, more time spent with those 
of other backgrounds leads to greater understanding and harmony between 
groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity produces tension and 
discord.
Putnam's findings reject both theories. In more diverse communities, he 
says, there were neither great bonds formed across group lines nor 
heightened ethnic tensions, but a general civic malaise. And in perhaps the 
most surprising result of all, levels of trust were not only lower between 
groups in more diverse settings, but even among members of the same group.
"Diversity, at least in the short run," he writes, "seems to bring out the 
turtle in all of us."
The overall findings may be jarring during a time when it's become 
commonplace to sing the praises of diverse communities, but researchers in 
the field say they shouldn't be.
"It's an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the challenges 
created by diversity," says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser.
In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina demonstrated that 
roughly half the difference in social welfare spending between the US and 
Europe -- Europe spends far more -- can be attributed to the greater ethnic 
diversity of the US population. Glaeser says lower national social welfare 
spending in the US is a "macro" version of the decreased civic engagement 
Putnam found in more diverse communities within the country.
Economists Matthew Kahn of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15 recent 
studies in a 2003 paper, all of which linked diversity with lower levels of 
social capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked, for example, to lower 
school funding, census response rates, and trust in others. Kahn and Costa's 
own research documented higher desertion rates in the Civil War among Union 
Army soldiers serving in companies whose soldiers varied more by age, 
occupation, and birthplace.
Birds of different feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are also 
less likely to look out for one another. "Everyone is a little 
self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff," says Kahn.
So how to explain New York, London, Rio de Janiero, Los Angeles -- the great 
melting-pot cities that drive the world's creative and financial economies?
The image of civic lassitude dragging down more diverse communities is at 
odds with the vigor often associated with urban centers, where ethnic 
diversity is greatest. It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort 
diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, is a 
liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of emerging research 
suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to driving productivity and 
innovation. In high-skill workplace settings, says Scott Page, the 
University of Michigan political scientist, the different ways of thinking 
among people from different cultures can be a boon.
"Because they see the world and think about the world differently than you, 
that's challenging," says Page, author of "The Difference: How the Power of 
Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies." "But by 
hanging out with people different than you, you're likely to get more 
insights. Diverse teams tend to be more productive."
In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, 
but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace 
may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of 
creative culture.
Page calls it the "diversity paradox." He thinks the contrasting positive 
and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities, but "there's 
got to be a limit." If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it's 
easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as well. 
"That's what's unsettling about his findings," Page says of Putnam's new 
work.
Meanwhile, by drawing a portrait of civic engagement in which more 
homogeneous communities seem much healthier, some of Putnam's worst fears 
about how his results could be used have been realized. A stream of 
conservative commentary has begun -- from places like the Manhattan 
Institute and "The American Conservative" -- highlighting the harm the study 
suggests will come from large-scale immigration. But Putnam says he's also 
received hundreds of complimentary emails laced with bigoted language. "It 
certainly is not pleasant when David Duke's website hails me as the guy who 
found out racism is good," he says.
In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a 
broader context by describing how social identity can change over time. 
Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to "more 
encompassing identities" that create a "new, more capacious sense of 'we,'" 
he writes.
Growing up in the 1950s in small Midwestern town, Putnam knew the religion 
of virtually every member of his high school graduating class because, he 
says, such information was crucial to the question of "who was a possible 
mate or date." The importance of marrying within one's faith, he says, has 
largely faded since then, at least among many mainline Protestants, 
Catholics, and Jews.
While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more 
stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term 
prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.
In his paper, Putnam cites the work done by Page and others, and uses it to 
help frame his conclusion that increasing diversity in America is not only 
inevitable, but ultimately valuable and enriching. As for smoothing over the 
divisions that hinder civic engagement, Putnam argues that Americans can 
help that process along through targeted efforts. He suggests expanding 
support for English-language instruction and investing in community centers 
and other places that allow for "meaningful interaction across ethnic 
lines."
Some critics have found his prescriptions underwhelming. And in offering 
ideas for mitigating his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for stepping out 
of the role of dispassionate researcher. "You're just supposed to tell your 
peers what you found," says John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan 
Institute, a conservative think tank. "I don't expect academics to fret 
about these matters."
But fretting about the state of American civic health is exactly what Putnam 
has spent more than a decade doing. While continuing to research questions 
involving social capital, he has directed the Saguaro Seminar, a project he 
started at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government that promotes efforts 
throughout the country to increase civic connections in communities.
"Social scientists are both scientists and citizens," says Alan Wolfe, 
director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston 
College, who sees nothing wrong in Putnam's efforts to affect some of the 
phenomena he studies.
Wolfe says what is unusual is that Putnam has published findings as a social 
scientist that are not the ones he would have wished for as a civic leader. 
There are plenty of social scientists, says Wolfe, who never produce 
research results at odds with their own worldview.
"The problem too often," says Wolfe, "is people are never uncomfortable 
about their findings."
Michael Jonas is acting editor of CommonWealth magazine, published by 
MassINC, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank in Boston. 
From jancius at ohio.edu  Fri Aug 10 13:23:53 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Fri Aug 10 12:26:16 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Sam Beck)
Message-ID: <004301c7db6a$dd9c41d0$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

From: Sam Beck <sbeck@med.cornell.edu>

This is an important article and has to be taken seriously by all of us.  I 
have not read the book, but the article made me think of some 
anthropological responses.

1.  this is a correlation study, not cause and effect.  there is no possible 
way for him to have accounted for all variables that impact on the issue he 
is investigating.  It seems like there is no mention of class issues here.

2.  to varify what he presents it would be necessary to carry out 
ethnographic research among a variety of communities.  Surveys are notorious 
for reductionisms of all sorts.  We need to make some observations of 
people's behavior, rather than self-reporting.

3.  He does indicate an understanding of historical issues by indicating 
that this might only be something occurring in the moment, but may not be a 
long-term trend.  Yet, it seems that he does not indicate the conditions and 
forces and processes involved in bringing this particular issue into being.

4.  I only have anecdotal evidence.  In New York City and in Providence, RI, 
I have found people of various ethnic and racialized groups to be forming 
communities.  He seems to have his own sense about what a community looks 
like and when he cannot find people who resonate to that sense of community, 
civic engagement is absence.  This is troubling.  Communities come into 
being as a result of some very specific events and processes, otherwise 
civic engagement processes can lie dormant.

In any case, some idea and some discussion points.

Thanks for sending the article.

Sam 

From greenbau at cas.usf.edu  Fri Aug 10 15:06:14 2007
From: greenbau at cas.usf.edu (Greenbaum, Susan)
Date: Fri Aug 10 14:46:05 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Sam Beck)
References: <004301c7db6a$dd9c41d0$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>
Message-ID: <D043610742C4AD46BD1BF098093370BD035035C4@MAILBOX.cas.usf.edu>

There is no mention of class in this account, and diversity seems a little ambiguous.  I have not been able to get a copy of this latest article, and I will be very interested to read it.  
 
The study that we just concluded on interaction between relocated public housing residents and their new homeowner neighbors has similar results and comes to similar conclusions, but we don't see this as some amorphous malaise borne of ethological aversions.  Homeowners are fearful about economic losses in the value of their property and threats to the safety of their families.  They have absorbed all of the stereotypes about low income African American women and their children, and they stoke those fears with various types of hostile actions.  That this bold experiment in creating "mixed income communities" seems not to work does not, however, mean that unlike people cannot live together.  It does suggest that social engineering of the sort that Putnam has helped to promulgate is ill-considered and possibly masks other agendas, and that we should focus more on ensuring equity of opportunities and overall improvments in neighborhood based services, rather than uprooting poor people and scattering them across the landscape in search of some formula that will cure their alleged cultural shortcomings.
 
 
 

________________________________

From: urbanth-l-bounces@lists.ysu.edu on behalf of Angela Jancius
Sent: Fri 8/10/2007 12:23 PM
To: urbanth-l@lists.ysu.edu
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Sam Beck)



From: Sam Beck <sbeck@med.cornell.edu>

This is an important article and has to be taken seriously by all of us.  I
have not read the book, but the article made me think of some
anthropological responses.

1.  this is a correlation study, not cause and effect.  there is no possible
way for him to have accounted for all variables that impact on the issue he
is investigating.  It seems like there is no mention of class issues here.

2.  to varify what he presents it would be necessary to carry out
ethnographic research among a variety of communities.  Surveys are notorious
for reductionisms of all sorts.  We need to make some observations of
people's behavior, rather than self-reporting.

3.  He does indicate an understanding of historical issues by indicating
that this might only be something occurring in the moment, but may not be a
long-term trend.  Yet, it seems that he does not indicate the conditions and
forces and processes involved in bringing this particular issue into being.

4.  I only have anecdotal evidence.  In New York City and in Providence, RI,
I have found people of various ethnic and racialized groups to be forming
communities.  He seems to have his own sense about what a community looks
like and when he cannot find people who resonate to that sense of community,
civic engagement is absence.  This is troubling.  Communities come into
being as a result of some very specific events and processes, otherwise
civic engagement processes can lie dormant.

In any case, some idea and some discussion points.

Thanks for sending the article.

Sam

_______________________________________________
URBANTH-L mailing list
URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l


From jancius at ohio.edu  Fri Aug 10 20:03:50 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Fri Aug 10 19:11:21 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Lisa Maya Knauer)
Message-ID: <00a101c7dba3$a337be00$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

From: Lisa Maya Knauer <lknauer@umassd.edu>

thanks, sam. a few more assorted thoughts (i have not read the book either):

1.    it seems to me that there needs to be some further examination of
contextual issues like segregation and the contexts within which
"diverse" communities come together. that is, it's entirely possible
that in a city with a lot of "diversity" (measured, perhaps, by the
number of languages spoken in the public schools), people from those
various ethnic/racial communities live largely separate lives.  an
increase in diversity does necessary indicate an increase in interaction.
2.    other contextual factors have to do with economic shifts such as
"restructuring" and gentrification. and antagonisms can be highly
specific, shaped by labor market and neighborhood issues as well as
class (working class members of group A are resentful of group B whom
they see as taking aware scarce jobs because group B is phenotypically
marked as "other"; however, group C is not a target of resentment even
though they are "taking" as many jobs because they are not as visible;
upper class members of group A aren't threatened in the same way).
this should make for some lively discussions.

regards,
lisa maya knauer 

From jancius at ohio.edu  Sun Aug 12 00:41:47 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Sat Aug 11 23:43:19 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Linda Dwyer)
Message-ID: <007c01c7dc92$bfc78b50$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

From: Linda Dwyer <Lindwyer5@aol.com>

Perhaps there is even more fundamental questions at play:

What is the relationship between place and community in the 21st century?
*Do political boundaries (such as town or city) define communities, or are 
there overlapping communities that might be defined functionally...including 
deterritorialized "communities" connected through new technologies of 
communication?

In other words, are we attempting to define and understand current 
relationships through a nineteenth century definition of that fundamental 
relationship?

Finally, where does social capital manifest itself today?  Are there other 
forms of social capital than the face-to-face relationships of yore?

Diversity today is itself a result of global flows of people, capital, and 
communication. One might therefore wish to investigate shifts in the nature 
of social interactions, the construction of social networks, their power and 
meaning.

Linda Dwyer 

From susanmazur at hotmail.com  Sat Aug 11 16:35:13 2007
From: susanmazur at hotmail.com (susan mazur)
Date: Sun Aug 12 03:22:01 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]RE: Robert Putnam
Message-ID: <BAY120-W251B7A160FE8F188D1D0C8C4E20@phx.gbl>

His recent Skytte Award Lecture, on the same topic, in the Scandinavia Journal of Political Studies, can be accessed in full here:http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x Susan Mazur-Stommen, Ph.D. www.indiciaconsulting.com 951.687.8661> From: jancius@ohio.edu> To: urbanth-l@lists.ysu.edu> Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 19:30:02 -0400> Subject: [URBANTH-L] REV: Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (A review of Robert Putman's latest book)> > The downside of diversity> A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What > happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?> > The Boston Globe> By Michael Jonas  |  August 5, 2007> http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/04/the_downside_of_diversity/?page=1> > IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity > as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from > political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us > stronger.> But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 > people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political > scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on > declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a > community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they > give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse > communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in > the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic > engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are > lower in more diverse settings.> "The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University of > Michigan political scientist.> The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the > focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions > to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. > The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm > large-scale immigration causes to the nation's social fabric. But with > demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater > diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling > social changes that Putnam's research predicts.> "We can't ignore the findings," says Ali Noorani, executive director of the > Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The big question we > have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?"> The study is part of a fascinating new portrait of diversity emerging from > recent scholarship. Diversity, it shows, makes us uncomfortable -- but > discomfort, it turns out, isn't always a bad thing. Unease with differences > helps explain why teams of engineers from different cultures may be ideally > suited to solve a vexing problem. Culture clashes can produce a dynamic > give-and-take, generating a solution that may have eluded a group of people > with more similar backgrounds and approaches. At the same time, though, > Putnam's work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more > diverse populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of collective > needs and goals.> His findings on the downsides of diversity have also posed a challenge for > Putnam, a liberal academic whose own values put him squarely in the > pro-diversity camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad news, Putnam > has struggled with how to present his work. He gathered the initial raw data > in 2000 and issued a press release the following year outlining the results. > He then spent several years testing other possible explanations.> When he finally published a detailed scholarly analysis in June in the > journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he faced criticism for straying from > data into advocacy. His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of > diversity can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity > may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.> "Having aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining such > social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep talk," wrote > conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent Orange County Register > op-ed titled "Greater diversity equals more misery."> Putnam has long staked out ground as both a researcher and a civic player, > someone willing to describe social problems and then have a hand in > addressing them. He says social science should be "simultaneously rigorous > and relevant," meeting high research standards while also "speaking to > concerns of our fellow citizens." But on a topic as charged as ethnicity and > race, Putnam worries that many people hear only what they want to.> "It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny > the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity," he > writes in the new report. "It would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical > and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is > both feasible and desirable."> Putnam is the nation's premier guru of civic engagement. After studying > civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his attention to > the US, publishing an influential journal article on civic engagement in > 1995 that he expanded five years later into the best-selling "Bowling > Alone." The book sounded a national wake-up call on what Putnam called a > sharp drop in civic connections among Americans. It won him audiences with > presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and made him one of the > country's best known social scientists.> Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced decline in "social > capital," a term he helped popularize. Social capital refers to the social > networks -- whether friendships or religious congregations or neighborhood > associations -- that he says are key indicators of civic well-being. When > social capital is high, says Putnam, communities are better places to live. > Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier; and more citizens vote.> The results of his new study come from a survey Putnam directed among > residents in 41 US communities, including Boston. Residents were sorted into > the four principal categories used by the US Census: black, white, Hispanic, > and Asian. They were asked how much they trusted their neighbors and those > of each racial category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes > and practices, including their views on local government, their involvement > in community projects, and their friendships. What emerged in more diverse > communities was a bleak picture of civic desolation, affecting everything > from political engagement to the state of social ties.> Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his hands. He worried about > coming under some of the same liberal attacks that greeted Daniel Patrick > Moynihan's landmark 1965 report on the social costs associated with the > breakdown of the black family. There is always the risk of being pilloried > as the bearer of "an inconvenient truth," says Putnam.> After releasing the initial results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time > "kicking the tires really hard" to be sure the study had it right. Putnam > realized, for instance, that more diverse communities tended to be larger, > have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility among > their residents -- all factors that could depress social capital independent > of any impact ethnic diversity might have.> "People would say, 'I bet you forgot about X,'" Putnam says of the string of > suggestions from colleagues. "There were 20 or 30 X's."> But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection > remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his > findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to > "distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to > withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community > and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on > community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for > social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a > difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television."> "People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to 'hunker down' --  > that is, to pull in like a turtle," Putnam writes.> In documenting that hunkering down, Putnam challenged the two dominant > schools of thought on ethnic and racial diversity, the "contact" theory and > the "conflict" theory. Under the contact theory, more time spent with those > of other backgrounds leads to greater understanding and harmony between > groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity produces tension and > discord.> Putnam's findings reject both theories. In more diverse communities, he > says, there were neither great bonds formed across group lines nor > heightened ethnic tensions, but a general civic malaise. And in perhaps the > most surprising result of all, levels of trust were not only lower between > groups in more diverse settings, but even among members of the same group.> "Diversity, at least in the short run," he writes, "seems to bring out the > turtle in all of us."> The overall findings may be jarring during a time when it's become > commonplace to sing the praises of diverse communities, but researchers in > the field say they shouldn't be.> "It's an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the challenges > created by diversity," says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser.> In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina demonstrated that > roughly half the difference in social welfare spending between the US and > Europe -- Europe spends far more -- can be attributed to the greater ethnic > diversity of the US population. Glaeser says lower national social welfare > spending in the US is a "macro" version of the decreased civic engagement > Putnam found in more diverse communities within the country.> Economists Matthew Kahn of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15 recent > studies in a 2003 paper, all of which linked diversity with lower levels of > social capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked, for example, to lower > school funding, census response rates, and trust in others. Kahn and Costa's > own research documented higher desertion rates in the Civil War among Union > Army soldiers serving in companies whose soldiers varied more by age, > occupation, and birthplace.> Birds of different feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are also > less likely to look out for one another. "Everyone is a little > self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff," says Kahn.> So how to explain New York, London, Rio de Janiero, Los Angeles -- the great > melting-pot cities that drive the world's creative and financial economies?> The image of civic lassitude dragging down more diverse communities is at > odds with the vigor often associated with urban centers, where ethnic > diversity is greatest. It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort > diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, is a > liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of emerging research > suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to driving productivity and > innovation. In high-skill workplace settings, says Scott Page, the > University of Michigan political scientist, the different ways of thinking > among people from different cultures can be a boon.> "Because they see the world and think about the world differently than you, > that's challenging," says Page, author of "The Difference: How the Power of > Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies." "But by > hanging out with people different than you, you're likely to get more > insights. Diverse teams tend to be more productive."> In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, > but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace > may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of > creative culture.> Page calls it the "diversity paradox." He thinks the contrasting positive > and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities, but "there's > got to be a limit." If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it's > easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as well. > "That's what's unsettling about his findings," Page says of Putnam's new > work.> Meanwhile, by drawing a portrait of civic engagement in which more > homogeneous communities seem much healthier, some of Putnam's worst fears > about how his results could be used have been realized. A stream of > conservative commentary has begun -- from places like the Manhattan > Institute and "The American Conservative" -- highlighting the harm the study > suggests will come from large-scale immigration. But Putnam says he's also > received hundreds of complimentary emails laced with bigoted language. "It > certainly is not pleasant when David Duke's website hails me as the guy who > found out racism is good," he says.> In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a > broader context by describing how social identity can change over time. > Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to "more > encompassing identities" that create a "new, more capacious sense of 'we,'" > he writes.> Growing up in the 1950s in small Midwestern town, Putnam knew the religion > of virtually every member of his high school graduating class because, he > says, such information was crucial to the question of "who was a possible > mate or date." The importance of marrying within one's faith, he says, has > largely faded since then, at least among many mainline Protestants, > Catholics, and Jews.> While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more > stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term > prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.> In his paper, Putnam cites the work done by Page and others, and uses it to > help frame his conclusion that increasing diversity in America is not only > inevitable, but ultimately valuable and enriching. As for smoothing over the > divisions that hinder civic engagement, Putnam argues that Americans can > help that process along through targeted efforts. He suggests expanding > support for English-language instruction and investing in community centers > and other places that allow for "meaningful interaction across ethnic > lines."> Some critics have found his prescriptions underwhelming. And in offering > ideas for mitigating his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for stepping out > of the role of dispassionate researcher. "You're just supposed to tell your > peers what you found," says John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan > Institute, a conservative think tank. "I don't expect academics to fret > about these matters."> But fretting about the state of American civic health is exactly what Putnam > has spent more than a decade doing. While continuing to research questions > involving social capital, he has directed the Saguaro Seminar, a project he > started at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government that promotes efforts > throughout the country to increase civic connections in communities.> "Social scientists are both scientists and citizens," says Alan Wolfe, > director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston > College, who sees nothing wrong in Putnam's efforts to affect some of the > phenomena he studies.> Wolfe says what is unusual is that Putnam has published findings as a social > scientist that are not the ones he would have wished for as a civic leader. > There are plenty of social scientists, says Wolfe, who never produce > research results at odds with their own worldview.> "The problem too often," says Wolfe, "is people are never uncomfortable > about their findings."> Michael Jonas is acting editor of CommonWealth magazine, published by > MassINC, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank in Boston. > _______________________________________________> URBANTH-L mailing list> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l
From jsokolov at stpt.usf.edu  Sat Aug 11 23:10:36 2007
From: jsokolov at stpt.usf.edu (jay sokolovsky)
Date: Sun Aug 12 12:36:20 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Linda Dwyer)
In-Reply-To: <007c01c7dc92$bfc78b50$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>
References: <007c01c7dc92$bfc78b50$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>
Message-ID: <46BE41EC.4020802@stpt.usf.edu>

I have seen the word class  mentioned in previous emails.  But one thing 
that has not is the period under examination  is marked by the most 
rapid and sustained period of growing inequality in our nation's history 
- with the tax shift of  wealth to the very top elites, this has drawn 
money away from local communities which in  the past have had resource 
to build highly successful public instititutions, such as schools, which 
became the  core of  civic engagement.

Jay Sokolovsky

Angela Jancius wrote:

> From: Linda Dwyer <Lindwyer5@aol.com>
>
> Perhaps there is even more fundamental questions at play:
>
> What is the relationship between place and community in the 21st century?
> *Do political boundaries (such as town or city) define communities, or 
> are there overlapping communities that might be defined 
> functionally...including deterritorialized "communities" connected 
> through new technologies of communication?
>
> In other words, are we attempting to define and understand current 
> relationships through a nineteenth century definition of that 
> fundamental relationship?
>
> Finally, where does social capital manifest itself today?  Are there 
> other forms of social capital than the face-to-face relationships of 
> yore?
>
> Diversity today is itself a result of global flows of people, capital, 
> and communication. One might therefore wish to investigate shifts in 
> the nature of social interactions, the construction of social 
> networks, their power and meaning.
>
> Linda Dwyer
> _______________________________________________
> URBANTH-L mailing list
> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l



From modoughe at umn.edu  Sun Aug 12 10:24:58 2007
From: modoughe at umn.edu (Maureen O'Dougherty)
Date: Sun Aug 12 12:36:29 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]RE: Robert Putnam
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-W251B7A160FE8F188D1D0C8C4E20@phx.gbl>
References: <BAY120-W251B7A160FE8F188D1D0C8C4E20@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <46BF183A.3060702@umn.edu>

HI All,

When Bowling Alone came out, I wrote a scathing critique of it. My 
critique remained unpublished, but I was relieved to see that a number 
of excellent critical book reviews did come out. I also had the honor of 
attacking his position at a lecture he gave to a large University of 
Minnesota audience, I believe in 2004.  He became livid.  It was a kind 
of David and Goliath experience. Anyway, I haven't yet read his new 
book, but if it continues along the lines of Bowling Alone, it deserves 
a full counter attack, particularly as the findings are being touted as 
an uncomfortable truth.  Unfortunately, the way to reveal the 
distortions in his work is most likely through a critique of how he 
defines civic life in his research (in Bowling Alone he used 
organizations like the Boys Scouts but failed to note organizations like 
Act Up) and how he defines social capital (eliding the entitlements). I 
say this is unfortunate because an academic critique may not reach a 
larger audience or even the important audience of funders of community 
projects.

Maureen O'Dougherty

susan mazur wrote:
> His recent Skytte Award Lecture, on the same topic, in the Scandinavia Journal of Political Studies, can be accessed in full here:http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x Susan Mazur-Stommen, Ph.D. www.indiciaconsulting.com 951.687.8661> From: jancius@ohio.edu> To: urbanth-l@lists.ysu.edu> Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 19:30:02 -0400> Subject: [URBANTH-L] REV: Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (A review of Robert Putman's latest book)> > The downside of diversity> A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What > happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?> > The Boston Globe> By Michael Jonas  |  August 5, 2007> http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/04/the_downside_of_diversity/?page=1> > IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity > as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from > political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us > stronger.> But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 > people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political > scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on > declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a > community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they > give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse > communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in > the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic > engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are > lower in more diverse settings.> "The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University of > Michigan political scientist.> The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the > focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions > to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. > The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm > large-scale immigration causes to the nation's social fabric. But with > demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater > diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling > social changes that Putnam's research predicts.> "We can't ignore the findings," says Ali Noorani, executive director of the > Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The big question we > have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?"> The study is part of a fascinating new portrait of diversity emerging from > recent scholarship. Diversity, it shows, makes us uncomfortable -- but > discomfort, it turns out, isn't always a bad thing. Unease with differences > helps explain why teams of engineers from different cultures may be ideally > suited to solve a vexing problem. Culture clashes can produce a dynamic > give-and-take, generating a solution that may have eluded a group of people > with more similar backgrounds and approaches. At the same time, though, > Putnam's work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more > diverse populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of collective > needs and goals.> His findings on the downsides of diversity have also posed a challenge for > Putnam, a liberal academic whose own values put him squarely in the > pro-diversity camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad news, Putnam > has struggled with how to present his work. He gathered the initial raw data > in 2000 and issued a press release the following year outlining the results. > He then spent several years testing other possible explanations.> When he finally published a detailed scholarly analysis in June in the > journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he faced criticism for straying from > data into advocacy. His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of > diversity can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity > may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.> "Having aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining such > social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep talk," wrote > conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent Orange County Register > op-ed titled "Greater diversity equals more misery."> Putnam has long staked out ground as both a researcher and a civic player, > someone willing to describe social problems and then have a hand in > addressing them. He says social science should be "simultaneously rigorous > and relevant," meeting high research standards while also "speaking to > concerns of our fellow citizens." But on a topic as charged as ethnicity and > race, Putnam worries that many people hear only what they want to.> "It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny > the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity," he > writes in the new report. "It would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical > and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is > both feasible and desirable."> Putnam is the nation's premier guru of civic engagement. After studying > civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his attention to > the US, publishing an influential journal article on civic engagement in > 1995 that he expanded five years later into the best-selling "Bowling > Alone." The book sounded a national wake-up call on what Putnam called a > sharp drop in civic connections among Americans. It won him audiences with > presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and made him one of the > country's best known social scientists.> Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced decline in "social > capital," a term he helped popularize. Social capital refers to the social > networks -- whether friendships or religious congregations or neighborhood > associations -- that he says are key indicators of civic well-being. When > social capital is high, says Putnam, communities are better places to live. > Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier; and more citizens vote.> The results of his new study come from a survey Putnam directed among > residents in 41 US communities, including Boston. Residents were sorted into > the four principal categories used by the US Census: black, white, Hispanic, > and Asian. They were asked how much they trusted their neighbors and those > of each racial category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes > and practices, including their views on local government, their involvement > in community projects, and their friendships. What emerged in more diverse > communities was a bleak picture of civic desolation, affecting everything > from political engagement to the state of social ties.> Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his hands. He worried about > coming under some of the same liberal attacks that greeted Daniel Patrick > Moynihan's landmark 1965 report on the social costs associated with the > breakdown of the black family. There is always the risk of being pilloried > as the bearer of "an inconvenient truth," says Putnam.> After releasing the initial results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time > "kicking the tires really hard" to be sure the study had it right. Putnam > realized, for instance, that more diverse communities tended to be larger, > have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility among > their residents -- all factors that could depress social capital independent > of any impact ethnic diversity might have.> "People would say, 'I bet you forgot about X,'" Putnam says of the string of > suggestions from colleagues. "There were 20 or 30 X's."> But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection > remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his > findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to > "distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to > withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community > and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on > community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for > social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a > difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television."> "People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to 'hunker down' --  > that is, to pull in like a turtle," Putnam writes.> In documenting that hunkering down, Putnam challenged the two dominant > schools of thought on ethnic and racial diversity, the "contact" theory and > the "conflict" theory. Under the contact theory, more time spent with those > of other backgrounds leads to greater understanding and harmony between > groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity produces tension and > discord.> Putnam's findings reject both theories. In more diverse communities, he > says, there were neither great bonds formed across group lines nor > heightened ethnic tensions, but a general civic malaise. And in perhaps the > most surprising result of all, levels of trust were not only lower between > groups in more diverse settings, but even among members of the same group.> "Diversity, at least in the short run," he writes, "seems to bring out the > turtle in all of us."> The overall findings may be jarring during a time when it's become > commonplace to sing the praises of diverse communities, but researchers in > the field say they shouldn't be.> "It's an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the challenges > created by diversity," says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser.> In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina demonstrated that > roughly half the difference in social welfare spending between the US and > Europe -- Europe spends far more -- can be attributed to the greater ethnic > diversity of the US population. Glaeser says lower national social welfare > spending in the US is a "macro" version of the decreased civic engagement > Putnam found in more diverse communities within the country.> Economists Matthew Kahn of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15 recent > studies in a 2003 paper, all of which linked diversity with lower levels of > social capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked, for example, to lower > school funding, census response rates, and trust in others. Kahn and Costa's > own research documented higher desertion rates in the Civil War among Union > Army soldiers serving in companies whose soldiers varied more by age, > occupation, and birthplace.> Birds of different feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are also > less likely to look out for one another. "Everyone is a little > self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff," says Kahn.> So how to explain New York, London, Rio de Janiero, Los Angeles -- the great > melting-pot cities that drive the world's creative and financial economies?> The image of civic lassitude dragging down more diverse communities is at > odds with the vigor often associated with urban centers, where ethnic > diversity is greatest. It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort > diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, is a > liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of emerging research > suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to driving productivity and > innovation. In high-skill workplace settings, says Scott Page, the > University of Michigan political scientist, the different ways of thinking > among people from different cultures can be a boon.> "Because they see the world and think about the world differently than you, > that's challenging," says Page, author of "The Difference: How the Power of > Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies." "But by > hanging out with people different than you, you're likely to get more > insights. Diverse teams tend to be more productive."> In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, > but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace > may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of > creative culture.> Page calls it the "diversity paradox." He thinks the contrasting positive > and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities, but "there's > got to be a limit." If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it's > easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as well. > "That's what's unsettling about his findings," Page says of Putnam's new > work.> Meanwhile, by drawing a portrait of civic engagement in which more > homogeneous communities seem much healthier, some of Putnam's worst fears > about how his results could be used have been realized. A stream of > conservative commentary has begun -- from places like the Manhattan > Institute and "The American Conservative" -- highlighting the harm the study > suggests will come from large-scale immigration. But Putnam says he's also > received hundreds of complimentary emails laced with bigoted language. "It > certainly is not pleasant when David Duke's website hails me as the guy who > found out racism is good," he says.> In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a > broader context by describing how social identity can change over time. > Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to "more > encompassing identities" that create a "new, more capacious sense of 'we,'" > he writes.> Growing up in the 1950s in small Midwestern town, Putnam knew the religion > of virtually every member of his high school graduating class because, he > says, such information was crucial to the question of "who was a possible > mate or date." The importance of marrying within one's faith, he says, has > largely faded since then, at least among many mainline Protestants, > Catholics, and Jews.> While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more > stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term > prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.> In his paper, Putnam cites the work done by Page and others, and uses it to > help frame his conclusion that increasing diversity in America is not only > inevitable, but ultimately valuable and enriching. As for smoothing over the > divisions that hinder civic engagement, Putnam argues that Americans can > help that process along through targeted efforts. He suggests expanding > support for English-language instruction and investing in community centers > and other places that allow for "meaningful interaction across ethnic > lines."> Some critics have found his prescriptions underwhelming. And in offering > ideas for mitigating his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for stepping out > of the role of dispassionate researcher. "You're just supposed to tell your > peers what you found," says John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan > Institute, a conservative think tank. "I don't expect academics to fret > about these matters."> But fretting about the state of American civic health is exactly what Putnam > has spent more than a decade doing. While continuing to research questions > involving social capital, he has directed the Saguaro Seminar, a project he > started at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government that promotes efforts > throughout the country to increase civic connections in communities.> "Social scientists are both scientists and citizens," says Alan Wolfe, > director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston > College, who sees nothing wrong in Putnam's efforts to affect some of the > phenomena he studies.> Wolfe says what is unusual is that Putnam has published findings as a social > scientist that are not the ones he would have wished for as a civic leader. > There are plenty of social scientists, says Wolfe, who never produce > research results at odds with their own worldview.> "The problem too often," says Wolfe, "is people are never uncomfortable > about their findings."> Michael Jonas is acting editor of CommonWealth magazine, published by > MassINC, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank in Boston. > _______________________________________________> URBANTH-L mailing list> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l_______________________________________________
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From jancius at ohio.edu  Sun Aug 12 19:11:16 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Sun Aug 12 18:12:10 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Sam Beck)
Message-ID: <007201c7dd2d$bb9c7bd0$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

From: Sam Beck <sbeck@med.cornell.edu>

Linda's point is appropriate.  We need to look into the right place to find 
social capital, a term I am not fond of because it places organic 
relationships within the same conditions of capital formation where it does 
not fit.  In any case, Linda points us into the right direction.  We need to 
ask, "What are the conditions, forces and processes that do create civil 
society?"  We may not find civil society in the same places as in the past, 
although there are plenty of examples where this does occur and we should 
not deny civil society's appearance there as well.

Sam 

From lknauer at umassd.edu  Sun Aug 12 14:05:41 2007
From: lknauer at umassd.edu (Lisa Maya Knauer)
Date: Sun Aug 12 18:13:00 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]RE: Robert Putnam
In-Reply-To: <46BF183A.3060702@umn.edu>
References: <BAY120-W251B7A160FE8F188D1D0C8C4E20@phx.gbl>
	<46BF183A.3060702@umn.edu>
Message-ID: <46BF3DE5.8030802@umassd.edu>

Just to underscore the importance of taking Putnam on in a sustained and 
thoughtful way. This is especially pressing, I think, because so many 
university administrations have "seen the light" and are now touting the 
gospel of "civic engagement" and/or "community engagement" (as vague, 
feel-good concepts). My university just went through a "strategic 
planning process" (interesting how administrations always seem to find 
funding for retreats and meetings to write reports that revise reports 
that were written in the last round of retreats) where these terms were 
bandied about without ever really defining them (and I sat through some 
sessions on "university/community partnerships" where it was clear that 
only certain "communities" or certain institutions standing in for the 
community were at the table). 

 Maureen O'Dougherty wrote:
> HI All,
>
> When Bowling Alone came out, I wrote a scathing critique of it. My 
> critique remained unpublished, but I was relieved to see that a number 
> of excellent critical book reviews did come out. I also had the honor 
> of attacking his position at a lecture he gave to a large University 
> of Minnesota audience, I believe in 2004.  He became livid.  It was a 
> kind of David and Goliath experience. Anyway, I haven't yet read his 
> new book, but if it continues along the lines of Bowling Alone, it 
> deserves a full counter attack, particularly as the findings are being 
> touted as an uncomfortable truth.  Unfortunately, the way to reveal 
> the distortions in his work is most likely through a critique of how 
> he defines civic life in his research (in Bowling Alone he used 
> organizations like the Boys Scouts but failed to note organizations 
> like Act Up) and how he defines social capital (eliding the 
> entitlements). I say this is unfortunate because an academic critique 
> may not reach a larger audience or even the important audience of 
> funders of community projects.
>
> Maureen O'Dougherty
>
> susan mazur wrote:
>> His recent Skytte Award Lecture, on the same topic, in the 
>> Scandinavia Journal of Political Studies, can be accessed in full 
>> here:http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x 
>> Susan Mazur-Stommen, Ph.D. www.indiciaconsulting.com 951.687.8661> 
>> From: jancius@ohio.edu> To: urbanth-l@lists.ysu.edu> Date: Thu, 9 Aug 
>> 2007 19:30:02 -0400> Subject: [URBANTH-L] REV: Is Diversity Bad for 
>> Cities? (A review of Robert Putman's latest book)> > The downside of 
>> diversity> A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts 
>> civic life. What > happens when a liberal scholar unearths an 
>> inconvenient truth?> > The Boston Globe> By Michael Jonas  |  August 
>> 5, 2007> 
>> http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/04/the_downside_of_diversity/?page=1> 
>> > IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic 
>> diversity > as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to 
>> pronouncements from > political leaders, the message is the same: our 
>> differences make us > stronger.> But a massive new study, based on 
>> detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 > people across America, has 
>> concluded just the opposite. Harvard political > scientist Robert 
>> Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on > declining 
>> civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a > 
>> community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the 
>> less they > give to charity and work on community projects. In the 
>> most diverse > communities, neighbors trust one another about half as 
>> much as they do in > the most homogenous settings. The study, the 
>> largest ever on civic > engagement in America, found that virtually 
>> all measures of civic health are > lower in more diverse settings.> 
>> "The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University 
>> of > Michigan political scientist.> The study comes at a time when 
>> the future of the American melting pot is the > focus of intense 
>> political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions > to 
>> schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the 
>> issues. > The study is already being cited by some conservatives as 
>> proof of the harm > large-scale immigration causes to the nation's 
>> social fabric. But with > demographic trends already pushing the 
>> nation inexorably toward greater > diversity, the real question may 
>> yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling > social changes that 
>> Putnam's research predicts.> "We can't ignore the findings," says Ali 
>> Noorani, executive director of the > Massachusetts Immigrant and 
>> Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The big question we > have to ask 
>> ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?"> The 
>> study is part of a fascinating new portrait of diversity emerging 
>> from > recent scholarship. Diversity, it shows, makes us 
>> uncomfortable -- but > discomfort, it turns out, isn't always a bad 
>> thing. Unease with differences > helps explain why teams of engineers 
>> from different cultures may be ideally > suited to solve a vexing 
>> problem. Culture clashes can produce a dynamic > give-and-take, 
>> generating a solution that may have eluded a group of people > with 
>> more similar backgrounds and approaches. At the same time, though, > 
>> Putnam's work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more 
>> > diverse populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of 
>> collective > needs and goals.> His findings on the downsides of 
>> diversity have also posed a challenge for > Putnam, a liberal 
>> academic whose own values put him squarely in the > pro-diversity 
>> camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad news, Putnam > has 
>> struggled with how to present his work. He gathered the initial raw 
>> data > in 2000 and issued a press release the following year 
>> outlining the results. > He then spent several years testing other 
>> possible explanations.> When he finally published a detailed 
>> scholarly analysis in June in the > journal Scandinavian Political 
>> Studies, he faced criticism for straying from > data into advocacy. 
>> His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of > diversity 
>> can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity > 
>> may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.> "Having 
>> aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining such > 
>> social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep 
>> talk," wrote > conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent 
>> Orange County Register > op-ed titled "Greater diversity equals more 
>> misery."> Putnam has long staked out ground as both a researcher and 
>> a civic player, > someone willing to describe social problems and 
>> then have a hand in > addressing them. He says social science should 
>> be "simultaneously rigorous > and relevant," meeting high research 
>> standards while also "speaking to > concerns of our fellow citizens." 
>> But on a topic as charged as ethnicity and > race, Putnam worries 
>> that many people hear only what they want to.> "It would be 
>> unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny > the 
>> reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity," he 
>> > writes in the new report. "It would be equally unfortunate if an 
>> ahistorical > and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that 
>> addressing that challenge is > both feasible and desirable."> Putnam 
>> is the nation's premier guru of civic engagement. After studying > 
>> civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his 
>> attention to > the US, publishing an influential journal article on 
>> civic engagement in > 1995 that he expanded five years later into the 
>> best-selling "Bowling > Alone." The book sounded a national wake-up 
>> call on what Putnam called a > sharp drop in civic connections among 
>> Americans. It won him audiences with > presidents Bill Clinton and 
>> George W. Bush, and made him one of the > country's best known social 
>> scientists.> Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced 
>> decline in "social > capital," a term he helped popularize. Social 
>> capital refers to the social > networks -- whether friendships or 
>> religious congregations or neighborhood > associations -- that he 
>> says are key indicators of civic well-being. When > social capital is 
>> high, says Putnam, communities are better places to live. > 
>> Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier; and more citizens 
>> vote.> The results of his new study come from a survey Putnam 
>> directed among > residents in 41 US communities, including Boston. 
>> Residents were sorted into > the four principal categories used by 
>> the US Census: black, white, Hispanic, > and Asian. They were asked 
>> how much they trusted their neighbors and those > of each racial 
>> category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes > and 
>> practices, including their views on local government, their 
>> involvement > in community projects, and their friendships. What 
>> emerged in more diverse > communities was a bleak picture of civic 
>> desolation, affecting everything > from political engagement to the 
>> state of social ties.> Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his 
>> hands. He worried about > coming under some of the same liberal 
>> attacks that greeted Daniel Patrick > Moynihan's landmark 1965 report 
>> on the social costs associated with the > breakdown of the black 
>> family. There is always the risk of being pilloried > as the bearer 
>> of "an inconvenient truth," says Putnam.> After releasing the initial 
>> results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time > "kicking the tires 
>> really hard" to be sure the study had it right. Putnam > realized, 
>> for instance, that more diverse communities tended to be larger, > 
>> have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility 
>> among > their residents -- all factors that could depress social 
>> capital independent > of any impact ethnic diversity might have.> 
>> "People would say, 'I bet you forgot about X,'" Putnam says of the 
>> string of > suggestions from colleagues. "There were 20 or 30 X's."> 
>> But even after statistically taking them all into account, the 
>> connection > remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social 
>> capital. In his > findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse 
>> communities tend to > "distrust their neighbors, regardless of the 
>> color of their skin, to > withdraw even from close friends, to expect 
>> the worst from their community > and its leaders, to volunteer less, 
>> give less to charity and work on > community projects less often, to 
>> register to vote less, to agitate for > social reform more but have 
>> less faith that they can actually make a > difference, and to huddle 
>> unhappily in front of the television."> "People living in ethnically 
>> diverse settings appear to 'hunker down' --  > that is, to pull in 
>> like a turtle," Putnam writes.> In documenting that hunkering down, 
>> Putnam challenged the two dominant > schools of thought on ethnic and 
>> racial diversity, the "contact" theory and > the "conflict" theory. 
>> Under the contact theory, more time spent with those > of other 
>> backgrounds leads to greater understanding and harmony between > 
>> groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity produces tension 
>> and > discord.> Putnam's findings reject both theories. In more 
>> diverse communities, he > says, there were neither great bonds formed 
>> across group lines nor > heightened ethnic tensions, but a general 
>> civic malaise. And in perhaps the > most surprising result of all, 
>> levels of trust were not only lower between > groups in more diverse 
>> settings, but even among members of the same group.> "Diversity, at 
>> least in the short run," he writes, "seems to bring out the > turtle 
>> in all of us."> The overall findings may be jarring during a time 
>> when it's become > commonplace to sing the praises of diverse 
>> communities, but researchers in > the field say they shouldn't be.> 
>> "It's an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the 
>> challenges > created by diversity," says Harvard economist Edward 
>> Glaeser.> In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina 
>> demonstrated that > roughly half the difference in social welfare 
>> spending between the US and > Europe -- Europe spends far more -- can 
>> be attributed to the greater ethnic > diversity of the US population. 
>> Glaeser says lower national social welfare > spending in the US is a 
>> "macro" version of the decreased civic engagement > Putnam found in 
>> more diverse communities within the country.> Economists Matthew Kahn 
>> of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15 recent > studies in a 2003 
>> paper, all of which linked diversity with lower levels of > social 
>> capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked, for example, to lower > 
>> school funding, census response rates, and trust in others. Kahn and 
>> Costa's > own research documented higher desertion rates in the Civil 
>> War among Union > Army soldiers serving in companies whose soldiers 
>> varied more by age, > occupation, and birthplace.> Birds of different 
>> feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are also > less 
>> likely to look out for one another. "Everyone is a little > 
>> self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff," says 
>> Kahn.> So how to explain New York, London, Rio de Janiero, Los 
>> Angeles -- the great > melting-pot cities that drive the world's 
>> creative and financial economies?> The image of civic lassitude 
>> dragging down more diverse communities is at > odds with the vigor 
>> often associated with urban centers, where ethnic > diversity is 
>> greatest. It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort > 
>> diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, 
>> is a > liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of 
>> emerging research > suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to 
>> driving productivity and > innovation. In high-skill workplace 
>> settings, says Scott Page, the > University of Michigan political 
>> scientist, the different ways of thinking > among people from 
>> different cultures can be a boon.> "Because they see the world and 
>> think about the world differently than you, > that's challenging," 
>> says Page, author of "The Difference: How the Power of > Diversity 
>> Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies." "But by > 
>> hanging out with people different than you, you're likely to get more 
>> > insights. Diverse teams tend to be more productive."> In other 
>> words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, > 
>> but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the 
>> workplace > may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the 
>> economy and of > creative culture.> Page calls it the "diversity 
>> paradox." He thinks the contrasting positive > and negative effects 
>> of diversity can coexist in communities, but "there's > got to be a 
>> limit." If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it's > easy 
>> to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as 
>> well. > "That's what's unsettling about his findings," Page says of 
>> Putnam's new > work.> Meanwhile, by drawing a portrait of civic 
>> engagement in which more > homogeneous communities seem much 
>> healthier, some of Putnam's worst fears > about how his results could 
>> be used have been realized. A stream of > conservative commentary has 
>> begun -- from places like the Manhattan > Institute and "The American 
>> Conservative" -- highlighting the harm the study > suggests will come 
>> from large-scale immigration. But Putnam says he's also > received 
>> hundreds of complimentary emails laced with bigoted language. "It > 
>> certainly is not pleasant when David Duke's website hails me as the 
>> guy who > found out racism is good," he says.> In the final quarter 
>> of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a > broader 
>> context by describing how social identity can change over time. > 
>> Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to 
>> "more > encompassing identities" that create a "new, more capacious 
>> sense of 'we,'" > he writes.> Growing up in the 1950s in small 
>> Midwestern town, Putnam knew the religion > of virtually every member 
>> of his high school graduating class because, he > says, such 
>> information was crucial to the question of "who was a possible > mate 
>> or date." The importance of marrying within one's faith, he says, has 
>> > largely faded since then, at least among many mainline Protestants, 
>> > Catholics, and Jews.> While acknowledging that racial and ethnic 
>> divisions may prove more > stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples 
>> bode well for the long-term > prospects for social capital in a 
>> multiethnic America.> In his paper, Putnam cites the work done by 
>> Page and others, and uses it to > help frame his conclusion that 
>> increasing diversity in America is not only > inevitable, but 
>> ultimately valuable and enriching. As for smoothing over the > 
>> divisions that hinder civic engagement, Putnam argues that Americans 
>> can > help that process along through targeted efforts. He suggests 
>> expanding > support for English-language instruction and investing in 
>> community centers > and other places that allow for "meaningful 
>> interaction across ethnic > lines."> Some critics have found his 
>> prescriptions underwhelming. And in offering > ideas for mitigating 
>> his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for stepping out > of the role 
>> of dispassionate researcher. "You're just supposed to tell your > 
>> peers what you found," says John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan 
>> > Institute, a conservative think tank. "I don't expect academics to 
>> fret > about these matters."> But fretting about the state of 
>> American civic health is exactly what Putnam > has spent more than a 
>> decade doing. While continuing to research questions > involving 
>> social capital, he has directed the Saguaro Seminar, a project he > 
>> started at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government that promotes 
>> efforts > throughout the country to increase civic connections in 
>> communities.> "Social scientists are both scientists and citizens," 
>> says Alan Wolfe, > director of the Boisi Center for Religion and 
>> American Public Life at Boston > College, who sees nothing wrong in 
>> Putnam's efforts to affect some of the > phenomena he studies.> Wolfe 
>> says what is unusual is that Putnam has published findings as a 
>> social > scientist that are not the ones he would have wished for as 
>> a civic leader. > There are plenty of social scientists, says Wolfe, 
>> who never produce > research results at odds with their own 
>> worldview.> "The problem too often," says Wolfe, "is people are never 
>> uncomfortable > about their findings."> Michael Jonas is acting 
>> editor of CommonWealth magazine, published by > MassINC, a 
>> nonpartisan public-policy think tank in Boston. > 
>> _______________________________________________> URBANTH-L mailing 
>> list> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu> 
>> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l_______________________________________________ 
>>
>> URBANTH-L mailing list
>> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
>> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l
>>   
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> URBANTH-L mailing list
> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l


From murrayk at yorku.ca  Mon Aug 13 10:05:31 2007
From: murrayk at yorku.ca (murrayk@yorku.ca)
Date: Mon Aug 13 13:58:06 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Critique of Putnam
Message-ID: <1187010331.46c0571b5998b@mymail.yorku.ca>

This book takes on Putnam:

ARNEIL Barbara. DIVERSE COMMUNITIES - The Problem with Social Capital. Cambridge
University Press, 2006.

From FromYosee at aol.com  Mon Aug 13 00:48:54 2007
From: FromYosee at aol.com (FromYosee@aol.com)
Date: Mon Aug 13 13:58:47 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Lisa Maya Knauer)
Message-ID: <d2d.13a5aa3d.33f12ea6@aol.com>

 
Good, thought-provoking remarks.  I want to add to those.  I do  believe that 
Lisa is correct in that diverse communities do not often lead to  interaction 
among the differing groups.  In fact, populations in very  diverse cities 
might find themselves more confined to interacting within the  boundaries of 
select groups of people (e.g. ethnic and other self  identifying groups).  Thus, 
those in more homogeneous cities might  have a wider range of social networks 
and not be isolated into various  cliques.  A wider network would, in turn, 
encourage a wider and deeper  involvement of "social capital."  
Joe
 
In a message dated 8/10/2007 6:12:36 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
jancius@ohio.edu writes:

thanks,  sam. a few more assorted thoughts (i have not read the book  either):

1.    it seems to me that there needs to be some  further examination of
contextual issues like segregation and the contexts  within which
"diverse" communities come together. that is, it's entirely  possible
that in a city with a lot of "diversity" (measured, perhaps, by  the
number of languages spoken in the public schools), people from  those
various ethnic/racial communities live largely separate lives.   an
increase in diversity does necessary indicate an increase in  interaction.
2.    other contextual factors have to do with  economic shifts such as
"restructuring" and gentrification. and antagonisms  can be highly
specific, shaped by labor market and neighborhood issues as  well as
class (working class members of group A are resentful of group B  whom
they see as taking aware scarce jobs because group B is  phenotypically
marked as "other"; however, group C is not a target of  resentment even
though they are "taking" as many jobs because they are not  as visible;
upper class members of group A aren't threatened in the same  way).
this should make for some lively discussions.

regards,
lisa  maya knauer 








************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at 
http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
From feldallen at gmail.com  Mon Aug 13 03:23:06 2007
From: feldallen at gmail.com (Allen Feldman)
Date: Mon Aug 13 14:27:11 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]RE: Robert Putnam
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-W251B7A160FE8F188D1D0C8C4E20@phx.gbl>
References: <BAY120-W251B7A160FE8F188D1D0C8C4E20@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <55a248240708122323o64bd124ai78516950cabade80@mail.gmail.com>

We should  not buy we into Putnam's idea of progress model in mounting
critique. Civil rights guaranteeing freedom of movement  and settlement, is
a foundational  civic value in itself in an American society-- one that was
intensely associated with the development of private life and private
property and was not intended as a motor  for building social trust and
volunteerism. American diversity has more often than not  been a founded in
inequity. The post colonial frontier settlement of the  18th and 19th
centuries which created mixed settlement patterns of Europeans, displaced
Native Americans,Mexicans, slaves and later ex slaves,  and mixed race
fractions, was not   expected to promote communal trust and solidarity or an
equitable public sphere. Nor is the antithesis  between diversity  and
community solidarity something new. Racist social orders are inherently
diverse as are  colonial societies.  What is so unique in American society
to buck this trend-- the faithful guarantee and enforcement of civil rights?
Tell that to African-Americans who were denied the right to vote in recent
national elections or subjected to police profiling on the most diverse
space in the country-- the nation's public road system. Do we have  a study
from Putnam of communal solidarity and volunteerism on the highways? Are
spatial mobility and  trans-local communication nets discussed? Is sedentary
face to face interaction the sole  definition of community here?
Putnam's study from the summary below assumes, at baseline, an ideal
Habermasian transparent public sphere  as his definition  of civic community
with no communicative (media) distortion in which economic  inequity and
historical  institutional racism play no role in inhibiting communal
identification. Gemeinschaft was not originally associated  by Tonnies with
a  culturally, racially and ethnically diverse and economically
differentiated society with an extreme division of labor, but Putnam has
here stood Tonnies on his head.

Allen Feldman
New York University
On 8/11/07, susann mazur <susanmazur@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> His recent Skytte Award Lecture, on the same topic, in the Scandinavia
> Journal of Political Studies, can be accessed in full here:
> http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.xSusan Mazur-Stommen,
> Ph.D. www.indiciaconsulting.com 951.687.8661> From: jancius@ohio.edu> To:
> urbanth-l@lists.ysu.edu> Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 19:30:02 -0400> Subject:
> [URBANTH-L] REV: Is Diversity Bad for Cities?  public-policy think tank in
> Boston. > _______________________________________________> URBANTH-L mailing
> list> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu>
> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l_______________________________________________
> URBANTH-L mailing list
> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l
>
From elginklugh at yahoo.com  Sun Aug 12 21:41:23 2007
From: elginklugh at yahoo.com (Elgin Klugh)
Date: Mon Aug 13 14:28:15 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Lisa Maya Knauer)
In-Reply-To: <00a101c7dba3$a337be00$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>
Message-ID: <643178.38074.qm@web61215.mail.yahoo.com>

This discussion is particularly interesting from my
vantage point.  For the past two years I've lived
between Columbia, MD and Montclair, NJ.  Both of these
are very diverse communities with active and involved
residents.  I must mention that these are suburban
middle/upper middle class communities.  But they each
have a fair amount of economic diversity.  
For these two communities, diversity has been a draw
to attract new residents.  Perhaps the high degree of
civic engagement in both communities is a result of
like-minded people gravitating to them, but I've found
that there is a little more going on.  In each
community, the local government sponsors programs
aimed at bridging cultural and racial divides. 
Montclair has an ongoing "conversations on race," and
Columbia has a plethora of programs.  These
communities value diversity but also understand that
it requires active maintenance.  I look forward to
getting into the Putnam book and I wonder what he'd
have to say (or has said) about communities that
appear antithetical to his general arguments.

Elgin Klugh





--- Angela Jancius <jancius@ohio.edu> wrote:

> From: Lisa Maya Knauer <lknauer@umassd.edu>
> 
> thanks, sam. a few more assorted thoughts (i have
> not read the book either):
> 
> 1.    it seems to me that there needs to be some
> further examination of
> contextual issues like segregation and the contexts
> within which
> "diverse" communities come together. that is, it's
> entirely possible
> that in a city with a lot of "diversity" (measured,
> perhaps, by the
> number of languages spoken in the public schools),
> people from those
> various ethnic/racial communities live largely
> separate lives.  an
> increase in diversity does necessary indicate an
> increase in interaction.
> 2.    other contextual factors have to do with
> economic shifts such as
> "restructuring" and gentrification. and antagonisms
> can be highly
> specific, shaped by labor market and neighborhood
> issues as well as
> class (working class members of group A are
> resentful of group B whom
> they see as taking aware scarce jobs because group B
> is phenotypically
> marked as "other"; however, group C is not a target
> of resentment even
> though they are "taking" as many jobs because they
> are not as visible;
> upper class members of group A aren't threatened in
> the same way).
> this should make for some lively discussions.
> 
> regards,
> lisa maya knauer 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> URBANTH-L mailing list
> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l
> 




       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. 
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/

From renu.ahmd at gmail.com  Mon Aug 13 18:56:21 2007
From: renu.ahmd at gmail.com (Renu Desai)
Date: Mon Aug 13 21:14:28 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]
 Call for Papers: Interrogating Urbanism in Contemporary South Asia
Message-ID: <acf695a30708131756o2584c380q145f6de20d7f3583@mail.gmail.com>

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE SYMPOSIUM:

"CITIES AND CITIZENSHIP" INTEROGATING URBANISM IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIA"
February 14, 2008
University of California, Berkeley (exact location to be announced)
Sponsored by the Center for South Asia Studies, University of California,
Berkeley

CALL FOR PAPERS

The history of cities has long favored the West as the center of
urbanization, thus casting the cities of the Global South in the rhetoric of
delayed development and borrowed modernities. Indeed, the postcolonial
condition of South Asian cities has been continually rendered as the shadow
of former colonial cities struggling to cope with inefficiencies of the
postcolonial state in managing urbanization and more recently with pressures
of globalization and transnational forces. In order to move beyond a
dialogue which frames the cities of the developing world as derivative of a
Euro-Ameri-centric core we propose an interrogation of South Asian cities
through the theoretical lens of citizenship.

The evolving definition of citizenship?originally a product of the urban
enclave (as in the medieval bastide or the polis) to a right defined by a
larger national political community?is being recalibrated once again as
cities around the world become the salient units of economic and political
change. The notion of republican citizenship, as premised on an idea of
universal liberalism, has most strenuously been challenged in the urban
sphere, be it through the ghettoization of minorities or the growing
enclaves of the wealthy. At the same time, diverse initiatives and
grassroots mobilizations have emerged to counter old and new urban
inequalities and spatial exclusions. Although the re-scripting of urban
space in cities across the world is thus producing new notions of
citizenship, both restrictive and expansive, the modalities through which
these are produced remain contingent upon historical and geographical
specificities.

South Asian cities have recently come center-stage through innovative
explorations in fiction, photography, and documentary film. This one-day
symposium will provide a forum for cross-disciplinary dialogue which brings
these perspectives from the humanities in conversation with those in the
social sciences in order to investigate the urban realm. We encourage
submissions that deal with cities in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri
Lanka as a means to expand the discussion of South Asian urbanism beyond the
case-study of India.

We invite papers that speak to the issues outlined in the following three
themes:

I. Propertied Citizenship and Landscapes of Consumption
Following market liberalization, South Asian cities have witnessed a rapid
integration into global consumer markets and commodity networks, fostering
new and more aggressive consumption practices. With the re-ordering of urban
space in a global economic context in which cities compete for capital,
jobs, and tourists, property has also become an increasingly significant
register through which elite groups pressure the state to "clean up" cities
in order to privilege their own needs and sensibilities. These shifts are
reflected in new urban phenomena such as the mushrooming of shopping malls
and gated communities and the proliferation of technology parks. We invite
papers which focus on the city as a nexus of global networks, local vectors
of management and reform, and consumption
practices.

II. Recalibrating Urban Governmentality
Following neo-liberal reforms in recent decades, South Asian cities have
played a crucial role in the rescaling of the state and the decentralization
of government apparatuses. For example, the pressures of globalization on
labor coupled with efforts to ensure a city's position in the new global
economy has led to the creation of extra-governmental spaces of production,
such as Special Economic Zones. The rise of civil-society movements and
non-governmental organizations has also led to a significant recalibration
of urban governmentality. Notwithstanding these new modalities of
governmentality which involve a constellation of non-state actors, the right
to land and resources made by an individual or community continues to engage
the state and political actors at various scales, often mobilizing informal
practices such as squatting and land-grabbing which involve highly
politicized negotiations. We invite papers that examine the role of the
state in the contemporary urban realm and that speak to various agents and
processes that challenge the managerial sovereignty of the state therein.

III. Re-scripting Identity through Urban Space
The diversity within South Asian societies, the historical legacies of
colonialism, and most recently the processes of globalization have
continually brought forth challenges to the modern nation-state and
democracy in the region. Many of these challenges are articulated and played
out in the urban arena, through an assemblage of spatial practices. For
example, the occupation of the city through religious processions, the
construction of violent spatial imaginaries that pit religious groups
against each other, and the redefinition of the urban subject through
hegemonic constructions of masculinity or femininity, appropriate the city
as a site of contestation over the nation and the state. We invite papers
that focus on the re-scripting of ethnic, racial, class, and gendered
identities in/through urban space and which explore this through different
media such as art, film, literature, performance and so forth.

Paper abstracts will be accepted by e-mail at
southasiancities@gmail.com<https://calmail.berkeley.edu/webmail/src/compose.php?send_to=southasiancities%40gmail.com>
through
September 15, 2007. Abstracts should be 400-500 words in length and authors
should attach the abstract as a Word document as well as include the text of
the abstract in the body of the message. Please be sure to include the
following information in the e-mail as well: Full name, departmental
affiliation, and the title of your abstract. Accepted authors will receive
e-mail notification no later than October 15, 2007.  Accepted authors will
be expected to submit a draft working paper by January 10, 2008.

For additional information, please contact the symposium coordinators:
Romola Sanyal (
romi_s@berkeley.edu<https://calmail.berkeley.edu/webmail/src/compose.php?send_to=romi_s%40berkeley.edu>)
or Renu Desai (renu_d@berkeley.edu
<https://calmail.berkeley.edu/webmail/src/compose.php?send_to=renu_d%40berkeley.edu>
).
From dbabson at maxwell.syr.edu  Mon Aug 13 00:15:40 2007
From: dbabson at maxwell.syr.edu (David W Babson)
Date: Mon Aug 13 21:18:20 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Linda Dwyer)
In-Reply-To: <007c01c7dc92$bfc78b50$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>
References: <007c01c7dc92$bfc78b50$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>
Message-ID: <BAE8B950E62D7E4C825803892916BC963610CE@SUEXCL-02.ad.syr.edu>

I was more intrigued by the second part of the Boston Globe article,
which pointed out that, while diverse societies may be less "socially
comfortable" they are more flexible and resilient by virtue of the
varieties of experience, opinion and personality that they contain, and
which their members can express.  This has long been touted (and
exaggerated, and misrepresented) as a great strength of the United
States--we have better ideas because we have more ideas, drawn from more
diverse people, and we (in this mythic narrative) are willing to put up
with the friction between differing viewpoints in order to solve our
problems.  When this system breaks down, the nation does not do as well.
As an example, consider the prevalence of group think, "yes men," and
the active ignoring/suppression of diverse opinions in the present
administration, and the way in which this organizational culture has
contributed to its catastrophic failure, and to the damage it has
wreaked upon the nation and the world.  I am sure that members of the
administration can feel quite comfortable with the low likelihood of
their facing anyone different from themselves as they go about their
daily duties, but this lack of diversity has lead the administration
into, to put it as kindly as possible, gross and horrific mistakes,
again, again and again.  Of course, this is not the whole cause of these
mistakes, by any means, but it is a major part of their cause.  It comes
down to:  Would you rather live a comfortable life, up to the point that
your inflexibility causes, perhaps, catastrophic change, or would you
rather accomplish something, and would you rather solve or avoid social
problems?  After these past seven years, I can only see this sort of
question becoming more and more important.

D. Babson.


-----Original Message-----
From: urbanth-l-bounces@lists.ysu.edu
[mailto:urbanth-l-bounces@lists.ysu.edu] On Behalf Of Angela Jancius
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 11:42 PM
To: urbanth-l@lists.ysu.edu
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Linda Dwyer)

From: Linda Dwyer <Lindwyer5@aol.com>

Perhaps there is even more fundamental questions at play:

What is the relationship between place and community in the 21st
century?
*Do political boundaries (such as town or city) define communities, or
are 
there overlapping communities that might be defined
functionally...including 
deterritorialized "communities" connected through new technologies of 
communication?

In other words, are we attempting to define and understand current 
relationships through a nineteenth century definition of that
fundamental 
relationship?

Finally, where does social capital manifest itself today?  Are there
other 
forms of social capital than the face-to-face relationships of yore?

Diversity today is itself a result of global flows of people, capital,
and 
communication. One might therefore wish to investigate shifts in the
nature 
of social interactions, the construction of social networks, their power
and 
meaning.

Linda Dwyer 

_______________________________________________
URBANTH-L mailing list
URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l

From af31 at nyu.edu  Mon Aug 13 22:58:35 2007
From: af31 at nyu.edu (Allen Feldman)
Date: Mon Aug 13 22:13:51 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Critique of Putnam
In-Reply-To: <1187010331.46c0571b5998b@mymail.yorku.ca>
References: <1187010331.46c0571b5998b@mymail.yorku.ca>
Message-ID: <d4fbbc8745e7.46c0d40b@mail.nyu.edu>


We should  not buy we into Putnam's idea of progress model in mounting critique. The civil liberty of freedom of movement  and settlement, is a foundational  civic value in itself in American society-- one that was intensely associated with the development of private life and private property-- and was not intended as a motor  for building social trust and volunteerism. American diversity has more often than not  been a founded on  inequity. The post colonial frontier settlement of the  18th and 19th centuries which created mixed settlement patterns of Europeans, displaced Native Americans,Mexicans, slaves and later ex slaves,  and mixed race fractions, was not   expected to promote communal trust and solidarity or an equitable public sphere. Nor is the antithesis  between diversity  and community solidarity exceptional. Racist social orders are inherently diverse as are  colonial societies.  What is so unique in American society to buck this trend-- the faithful guarantee and enforcement of civil rights? Tell that to African-Americans who were denied the right to vote in recent national elections or subjected to police profiling on the most diverse space in the country-- the nation's public road system. Do we have  a study from Putnam of communal solidarity and volunteerism on the highways? Are spatial mobility and  trans-local communication networks discussed? Is sedentary face to face interaction the sole  definition of community here?
Putnam's study from the summary below assumes, at baseline, an ideal Habermasian transparent public sphere  as his definition  of civic community with no communicative (media) distortion in which economic  inequity and historical  institutional racism play no role in inhibiting communal identification. Gemeinschaft was not originally associated  by Tonnies with a  culturally, racially and ethnically diverse and economically differentiated society with an extreme division of labor, but Putnam has here stood Tonnies on his head.

Allen Feldman
New York University
From tpatt_1 at hotmail.com  Tue Aug 14 00:27:35 2007
From: tpatt_1 at hotmail.com (Tim Patterson)
Date: Tue Aug 14 12:50:20 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Linda Dwyer)
In-Reply-To: <BAE8B950E62D7E4C825803892916BC963610CE@SUEXCL-02.ad.syr.edu>
Message-ID: <BAY132-DAV1587EC9B2D58DD75EEB4F2C4DD0@phx.gbl>

Diversity in the built environment is more contextual then what is portrayed
here; in so far as the urban design and architectural features and their
profound influence on an individual, family or communities' conformability,
narrative practice and overall place making with their follow citizens is
and has been typically overlooked if not neglected by popular media images
of the city.  Further, I would argue that American cities are in a class of
there own regardless of their impact on urban studies; however, Canadian or
British or other cities may find more diverse expression based on there
historical development and contemporary situations thereby adding a
different context to diversity.

T Patterson
          

-----Original Message-----
From: urbanth-l-bounces@lists.ysu.edu
[mailto:urbanth-l-bounces@lists.ysu.edu] On Behalf Of David W Babson
Sent: August 12, 2007 9:16 PM
To: Angela Jancius; urbanth-l@lists.ysu.edu
Subject: RE: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Linda Dwyer)

I was more intrigued by the second part of the Boston Globe article,
which pointed out that, while diverse societies may be less "socially
comfortable" they are more flexible and resilient by virtue of the
varieties of experience, opinion and personality that they contain, and
which their members can express.  This has long been touted (and
exaggerated, and misrepresented) as a great strength of the United
States--we have better ideas because we have more ideas, drawn from more
diverse people, and we (in this mythic narrative) are willing to put up
with the friction between differing viewpoints in order to solve our
problems.  When this system breaks down, the nation does not do as well.
As an example, consider the prevalence of group think, "yes men," and
the active ignoring/suppression of diverse opinions in the present
administration, and the way in which this organizational culture has
contributed to its catastrophic failure, and to the damage it has
wreaked upon the nation and the world.  I am sure that members of the
administration can feel quite comfortable with the low likelihood of
their facing anyone different from themselves as they go about their
daily duties, but this lack of diversity has lead the administration
into, to put it as kindly as possible, gross and horrific mistakes,
again, again and again.  Of course, this is not the whole cause of these
mistakes, by any means, but it is a major part of their cause.  It comes
down to:  Would you rather live a comfortable life, up to the point that
your inflexibility causes, perhaps, catastrophic change, or would you
rather accomplish something, and would you rather solve or avoid social
problems?  After these past seven years, I can only see this sort of
question becoming more and more important.

D. Babson.


-----Original Message-----
From: urbanth-l-bounces@lists.ysu.edu
[mailto:urbanth-l-bounces@lists.ysu.edu] On Behalf Of Angela Jancius
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 11:42 PM
To: urbanth-l@lists.ysu.edu
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Linda Dwyer)

From: Linda Dwyer <Lindwyer5@aol.com>

Perhaps there is even more fundamental questions at play:

What is the relationship between place and community in the 21st
century?
*Do political boundaries (such as town or city) define communities, or
are 
there overlapping communities that might be defined
functionally...including 
deterritorialized "communities" connected through new technologies of 
communication?

In other words, are we attempting to define and understand current 
relationships through a nineteenth century definition of that
fundamental 
relationship?

Finally, where does social capital manifest itself today?  Are there
other 
forms of social capital than the face-to-face relationships of yore?

Diversity today is itself a result of global flows of people, capital,
and 
communication. One might therefore wish to investigate shifts in the
nature 
of social interactions, the construction of social networks, their power
and 
meaning.

Linda Dwyer 

_______________________________________________
URBANTH-L mailing list
URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l

_______________________________________________
URBANTH-L mailing list
URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l


From john.mccreery at gmail.com  Tue Aug 14 14:46:20 2007
From: john.mccreery at gmail.com (John McCreery)
Date: Tue Aug 14 12:50:33 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Is Diversity Bad for Cities? (Linda Dwyer)
In-Reply-To: <BAE8B950E62D7E4C825803892916BC963610CE@SUEXCL-02.ad.syr.edu>
References: <007c01c7dc92$bfc78b50$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>
	 <BAE8B950E62D7E4C825803892916BC963610CE@SUEXCL-02.ad.syr.edu>
Message-ID: <8659f5a00708132146g23d39ebaje67e62958e7d10aa@mail.gmail.com>

Serendipitously, the July 2007 (No. 29) issue of Social Networks
includes an article by Marina Hennig, that provides a German
sociologist's perspective on the "Community Question" based on network
analysis of families in three German cities. The literature review
provides an excellent overview of what Hennig calls the Community
Lost, Community Saved, and Community Liberated positions that scholars
have taken on this question. Her conclusion is summarized in the
abstract as follows:

"Particular network types are not associated with low levels of social
relations. Moreover, structural factors do not explain the existence
of different network types. Thus, the networks are not a product of
only one community model. They suggest that it is less helpful to talk
about "Saved," "Lost," or "Liberated" communities than it is to regard
communities as a mixture of strongly-knit nuclear clusters and of
broader, sparesly-knit relations that provide access to different
groups and their resources."

Hope this is helpful.

-- 
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/

From enigbo01 at newschool.edu  Tue Aug 14 04:07:16 2007
From: enigbo01 at newschool.edu (OlatokunboAdeola Enigbokan)
Date: Tue Aug 14 12:52:31 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Where IS the Bronx? /Critique of Putnam
Message-ID: <46C11C64020000DB00005109@IGATE.NEWSCHOOL.EDU>

INEQUALITY is key to understanding the lack of communial solidarity and civic involvement that Putnam finds plagues American cities. 

Residing and teaching in New York City, I am faced with the daily reality of travelling between Harlem, where I live, The Bronx, where I teach in a public university, and Lower Manhattan, where I teach in a private university. (I am paid the same meagre salary for adjuncting at both schools, despite the exponential difference in tuition).

At the public institution my students are working class and working poor Black and Latino native New Yorkers many of whom are first generation college students, and in Lower Manhattan, I meet a group of upper-middle class or rich white students who come to the city from suburbs and sprawl, lured by the romance of entertainment and fashion, and "making it" in the big apple. ( i use all of the class-identification terms loosely, of course)

One classroom aims for professions like "nurse", and "accountant" while working jobs in retail and fast food service. The other is filled with students who aim to command "an empire of beauty," or "work at the United Nations" while putting in time at coveted unpaid internships in the publishing industry, or volunteering with international NGOs. (from student surveys)

The distance between these two worlds is more than the hour-and-a-half-long subway ride--a fact which became apparent when one (Lower Manhattan) student asked sincerely in class one day "Where is The Bronx?" 

This lack of geographical awareness is no joke. The embodied INEQUALITIES of mobility and opportunity, built into the city's landscape, make it impossible to even imagine Other spaces, much less communicate and cohere civilly across spaces.   

(Even the overload of mass-mediated imagery, for all its insistence on bringing the world to our fingertips, leaves dark clouds of question marks hovering over our urban jungles. For Putnam, with the light and magic of statistical inference, clouds of question marks transform into unpassable chasms--craters of decay in "THE" American civic fabric.)

Where IS The Bronx? 

In that simple question there is all of the INEQUALITY of opportunity, the disparate histories, the lived reality of urban segregation, though hopefully, the promise of its eventual end.


I HEART my broken city, and all of my geographically challenged students,

Adeola Enigbokan
Environmental Psychology
CUNY Graduate Center







>>> Allen Feldman <af31@nyu.edu> 08/13/07 9:58 PM >>>

We should  not buy we into Putnam's idea of progress model in mounting critique. The civil liberty of freedom of movement  and settlement, is a foundational  civic value in itself in American society-- one that was intensely associated with the development of private life and private property-- and was not intended as a motor  for building social trust and volunteerism. American diversity has more often than not  been a founded on  inequity. The post colonial frontier settlement of the  18th and 19th centuries which created mixed settlement patterns of Europeans, displaced Native Americans,Mexicans, slaves and later ex slaves,  and mixed race fractions, was not   expected to promote communal trust and solidarity or an equitable public sphere. Nor is the antithesis  between diversity  and community solidarity exceptional. Racist social orders are inherently diverse as are  colonial societies.  What is so unique in American society to buck this trend-- the faithful guarantee and enforcement of civil rights? Tell that to African-Americans who were denied the right to vote in recent national elections or subjected to police profiling on the most diverse space in the country-- the nation's public road system. Do we have  a study from Putnam of communal solidarity and volunteerism on the highways? Are spatial mobility and  trans-local communication networks discussed? Is sedentary face to face interaction the sole  definition of community here?
Putnam's study from the summary below assumes, at baseline, an ideal Habermasian transparent public sphere  as his definition  of civic community with no communicative (media) distortion in which economic  inequity and historical  institutional racism play no role in inhibiting communal identification. Gemeinschaft was not originally associated  by Tonnies with a  culturally, racially and ethnically diverse and economically differentiated society with an extreme division of labor, but Putnam has here stood Tonnies on his head.

Allen Feldman
New York University


From jancius at ohio.edu  Wed Aug 15 18:39:09 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Wed Aug 15 17:40:19 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]ANN: the Eric Wolf Prize
Message-ID: <007901c7df84$c89b5a50$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

Announcement for the Eric Wolf Prize

The Political Ecology Society (PESO) announces the Eric Wolf Prize for the
best article-length anthropology paper based on dissertation research.  We
seek papers based in substantive anthropological field research that make an
innovative contribution to Political Ecology, widely conceived.  To be
eligible for the competition, scholars must have received their Ph.D. within
the two years prior to publication of this announcement and must be
nominated by a faculty member. A cash prize of $500 accompanies the award
and the paper will be published in the Journal of Political Ecology.

The preferred format for papers is electronic, but CDs and paper will also
be accepted. Please use the style guidelines provided on the Journal of
Political Ecology webpage: http://jpe.library.arizona.edu/. Electronic
copies should be sent to twcollins@utep.edu and paper and CD copies to: Tim
Collins; Department of Sociology & Anthropology; University of Texas at El
Paso; 500 West University Avenue; El Paso, TX 79968. The deadline for
submission is January 15, 2008

From acjancius at ysu.edu  Wed Aug 15 22:36:17 2007
From: acjancius at ysu.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Wed Aug 15 21:36:40 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]ANN: Diaspora Community Festivals and Tourism
Message-ID: <001801c7dfa5$dcaf6ab0$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

***Apologies for cross posting***

List members might be interested in the following conference:

Journeys of Expressions VI : Diaspora Community Festivals and Tourism,
York, United Kingdom, 4-6 October 2007 

and its approaching early bird registration deadline (17. August 2007)!!

 
Journeys of Expressions VI

Diaspora Community Festivals and Tourism is the sixth of our continuing
conference series exploring the multi-faceted relationships between
tourism and festivals. Journeys of Expressions aims to discuss touristic
practices in relation to traditional and contemporary diaspora community
festivity. The conference will encourage an interdisciplinary debate
between academics and practitioners of various backgrounds including
tourism studies, festival studies, sociology, anthropology, cultural
studies, cultural geography, politics, etc.

The conference will also include presentations from Arthur France, one
of the founders of the Leeds Caribbean Carnival and Hughbon Condor, one
of the UK's leading Carnival costume and troupe designers.


Conference Themes

* Themes the conference will address include:
* Defining and conceptualising diasporas in connection with festivals
and cultural events;
* Histories of diaspora communities' mobilities and the transformation
and adaptation of festivity and cultural events to new community
circumstances and settings;
* Relationships between diaspora communities and the 'homeland' and
expressions of collective memory through festivals and cultural events;
* The distribution and circulation of globalised diaspora festival forms
- e.g. carnival, mela, Irish, Chinese, Jewish - religious and secular,
established, emerging and contested;
* The role of diaspora festivals and cultural events in policies and
programmes to promote community cohesion, crime reduction and
anti-racism;
* Festivals, cultural events and the identities of diaspora community
members - inter-generational issues;
*         Festivals, cultural events and the multi- (inter-) cultural
city;
* Settings and spaces for diaspora festivals and cultural events;
* Issues surrounding new and recently introduced diaspora community
festivals and cultural events;
*         Performing diaspora community arts through festivals;
*         Diaspora tourism markets.

 
Conference format

The conference is designed to be a discussion led, small scale event
hosting approximately 50-70 international delegates. In the tradition of
the Journeys of Expression series, we wish to animate an
interdisciplinary debate on the suggested themes and accepted paper
proposals from academics from various disciplinary backgrounds
including: tourism studies, anthropology, cultural studies, cultural
geography, religious studies, performance studies, history, social
policy, politics, etc. While providing a platform for academic exchange,
this conference also includes spaces to socialise with fellow academics
and carry debates beyond the formal settings of the conference venues.  


Conference Registration

The normal conference rate for delegates is ?225. If you register before
17 August 2007, we offer an early bird rate at ?185. We also offer a
student rate at ?145 for full time students (please provide photocopy
proof). 

 
Further Information

For more information on accepted papers, registration, programme etc
please visit www.tourism-culture.com <http://www.tourism-culture.com/>
or send an email to d.carl@leedsmet.ac.uk

From jancius at ohio.edu  Sun Aug 19 08:07:17 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Sun Aug 19 07:11:10 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]CFP: Migrations and Identities
Message-ID: <003401c7e251$83728fa0$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

Call for papers

migrations & identities is a new journal published bi-annually by  
Liverpool University Press. The title represents a programme: We aim  
to interrogate notions of 'identity' while asking how the fact of  
mobility and displacement shapes understandings of self and the wider  
world, among both migrants and 'host' societies.  By the same token,  
we seek to understand how ideas and concepts are transformed as they  
'migrate' from one place and culture to another.

Multi- and interdisciplinary in both conception and management,  
migrations & identities aims to cover the widest possible range of  
places, periods and methods, subject only to a shared curiosity and  
enthusiasm about the possibilities of working at the interface  
between the investigation of the material conditions of migration  
processes and the study of ideas and subjectivities.

In particular, we hope that scholars working in many fields will find  
in migrations & identities a forum for discussion of the methods  
appropriate to a project of linking observable experience and  
mentalities in difference times and places, and that among the topics  
of discussion will be the real challenges involved in conversing  
across disciplinary boundaries.

We are now inviting proposals for contributions for the inaugural  
issue, to be published in the summer of 2008.  We welcome both  
critical surveys considering how particular disciplines or fields of  
study have dealt with the relationship between migration and  
identity, and case studies which exemplify a self-conscious approach  
to the methodological issues it raises. Your proposal should be for  
an article of 5-8,000 words, and should take the form of an abstract  
of no more than 300 words.

Please send abstracts to Mark Choonara at inmotion@liv.ac.uk no later  
than 15th September 2007.
From jancius at ohio.edu  Mon Aug 20 13:25:33 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Mon Aug 20 12:26:13 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]
 Essay Competition: Urban Planet: Collective Identities, Governance
 and Empowerment in Megacities
Message-ID: <008201c7e346$be7a4b10$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

2008 Berlin Roundtables on Transnationality -- 

Urban Planet: Collective Identities, Governance and Empowerment in 
Megacities
Deadline for essay submission: 15 December 2007

Irmgard Coninx Research Grant 2008
Workshop and Conference in Berlin, 11-16 June 2008

International Essay Competition and Workshop organized by the Irmgard Coninx 
Foundation, the Social Science Research Center Berlin and the 
Humboldt-University Berlin.


--Workshop participation in Berlin-- 
50 successful applicants to the essay competition will be invited to discuss 
their research with prominent scholars at some of Europe's leading research 
institutions. The workshop will take place at the Social Science Research 
Center Berlin on 11 - 16 June 2008.

--Irmgard Coninx Research Grant-- 
An international jury will award a three-months fellowship to three 
participants to be used for research at the Social Science Research Center 
Berlin, the Humboldt-University Berlin and the State library Berlin. The 
Grant includes a monthly stipend of EUR 1,000 plus accommodation and its 
winners will be invited to join a follow-up workshop in Berlin in 2008/2009.

--Program details-- 
In continuation of previous Roundtables on population politics and on 
migration into cities, the Eight Berlin Roundtables on Transnationality will 
focus on "Collective Identities, Governance and Empowerment in Megacities".
These issues will be discussed in three workshops chaired. They will be 
accompanied by evening lectures of prominent scholars and politicians such 
as Mike Davis (author of "Planet of Slums") and Klaus T?pfer (former 
Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme).
The Irmgard Coninx Foundation will cover travel and accommodation costs.

For details please visit our website: www.irmgard-coninx-stiftung.de

Details for the essay competition:
http://www.irmgard-coninx-stiftung.de/index.php?id=117
For inquiries please contact us: info@irmgard-coninx-stiftung.de
Irmgard Coninx Stiftung
c/o Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin
f?r Sozialforschung
Reichpietschufer 50
D-10785 Berlin

Tel: +49 30 25491-411
Fax: +49 30 25491-684
Email: info(at)irmgard-coninx-stiftung.de
Email: info@irmgard-coninx-stiftung.de
Visit the website at http://www.irmgard-coninx-stiftung.de/ 

From oralhistoryandperformance at gmail.com  Mon Aug 20 21:42:46 2007
From: oralhistoryandperformance at gmail.com (Oral History and Performance Conference Committee)
Date: Wed Aug 22 05:06:37 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Oral History and Performance CFP
Message-ID: <776536300708201742m1cd18b35t38515a3b0033802c@mail.gmail.com>

Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region, in partnership with the Columbia
University Oral History Research Office and the New York Public Library for
the Performing arts, invites proposals for papers and performances for the
March 14 and 15, 2008 Oral History and Performance Conference, to be held at
Columbia University in New York City.

As one of the great performing arts meccas of the world and a vital center
for community-based and grassroots oral history research, New York City is
an ideal place to explore the intersection of oral history and performance.
The conference program committee hopes to bring together performing artists,
oral historians, and other practitioners in a multi-disciplinary conference
that will highlight the diversity of work centered around oral history and
performance.

Where oral history and performance meet lies an important emerging field of
endeavor, with rich cross-disciplinary resonances across anthropology,
sociology, history, performance studies, art history, public history,
arts-based education, community development and many other areas.
Performances, in a variety of genres, are a powerful means for increasing
access to oral history sources and engaging broad audiences with diverse
historical materials. Proposals dealing with the methodological and
theoretical issues around transforming interviews into performances are
welcome.  This conference should also provide an opportunity to examine how
stories are performed, in interviews and in other contexts.

The program committee welcomes proposals using multiple approaches, media,
and theoretical frameworks, falling at various points along the wide
continuum of paper and performance.

The deadline for proposals is October 1, 2007.  See the Call for Papers and
Performances for full details, available online at
http://www.ohmar.org/pastconferences/conf2008spring.htm.

Conference Program Committee:
Renee Braden, National Geographic Society
Jeff Friedman, Rutgers University
Susan Kraft, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Harriet Lynn, Heritage Theatre Artists' Consortium
Amy Starecheski, Columbia University Oral History Research Office
From moewe at gmx.li  Wed Aug 15 13:35:44 2007
From: moewe at gmx.li (Dani Kranz)
Date: Wed Aug 22 05:09:04 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Where IS the Bronx? /Critique of Putnam
In-Reply-To: <46C11C64020000DB00005109@IGATE.NEWSCHOOL.EDU>
References: <46C11C64020000DB00005109@IGATE.NEWSCHOOL.EDU>
Message-ID: <20070815103544.113610@gmx.net>

Dear All

I haven't read Putman's book yet, however there are some issues that struck me, in particular the one raised by Adeola and one more general observation from my experiences of ethnographic fieldwork in urban areas.

1. What Adeola describes reminds me of my own surrounding in London, and the universities I went to. As an undergrad I went to Middlesex, which was marketed as a local university to the locals (not to us internationals) and it was indeed local and highly international. As  post-grad I went two to University of London colleges, Goldsmiths and LSE. In my MA class at Goldsmiths we were 3 Londoners (two long-term residents, one 'native') and 11 students who had come from abraod for their master's and all left London again. From the PhD students I met at LSE there were those who had come to London for their degrees and stayed on (25%), but about 50% had come in for their PhD and were bound to leave again or work for a high paying job regardless of destination.
My fellow students at Middlesex wanted jobs similar to what Adeola describes for the public institution, LSE in particular eerily resembles the private one. I think what s/he observed is not a phenomema restricted to the US, but one that can be found in any countries with similar inequalities. In those were fees are lower, say Germany, the inequalities find different expressions, but exist very much too. The same goes for her/his observations about the travel to work.

2. Huge urban diverse areas have patterns of social capital/cohesions that are expressed differently to those assumed in small communities. In urban areas the social cohesion between individuals is not necessarily based on proximity, in as much as mobility exists, individuals will migrate towards other individuals with similar interests or likes (I'm not fatalastic enought to quote Tajfel here though there is certainly a lot of truth to what he says). This brings me to the issue of homogenous communities which presumably have a higher social cohesion and based on this higher social capital. What does that entail? Giving to local charity? In the highly diverse East London where I live the locals give to charities too, charities of their choice, which can be found on the local high road - there is an outlet of a charity for the blind, a PDSA (pets in need of vets), and two different outlets for the Kashmiri rescue fund. In Cologne, Germany, where I researched Jews, those gave to several charities, some favoured charities with Jewish or Israeli focus, others were whole-hearted members of Greenpeace and donated to them, yet others donated to local Cologne charities. In as much, giving to charity is a very personal expression of a personal favour. This brings me to the very practical point, which I was going to make: in diverse areas social policies are certainly more difficult to draft, and anything geared at 'the' community is doomed to failure as there are multiple communities, and multiple belongings. I am wondering who has such a problem with this, the locals, or the governemtal agencies who don't know how to cope? These diverse areas are more difficult to govern, and less docile (somebody used the term more resilient, I agree). Furthermore, the assumption of homogenous cities or small villages as having an 'organic community' is rather dubious. It seems to me that this is more a craving for security that is based on nostalgia and the hope to answer every difficult and complex questions very simply. On the extrem side, I just came across the book _Ordnung und Angst_ (Order and Fear) by Susanne Sp?lbeck, which deals with Russian Jewish refugees in the East of Germany shortly after the collaps of the GDR. Russians. Jews. Germans. Prejudices. Stereotypes. Fear that was built up over years in the GDR. The village she researched had about 1,600 (German) residents, and 70 Jews from Russia who were put there, Sp?lbeck shows that the fear of the 'other' was often symptomatic and played out social dramas of the homogenous German population. Homogeneity and even a small village is no safe haven, differences and fear find different expressions in such a surrounding, but the nevertheless exist. Projecting them on a stranger or strangers, or the general other is a psychological mechanism to cope, in diverse metropolitan areas and apparently homogenous communities alike.
This finally brings me to the point of crime and fear thereof (I mean crime against a person or property, not white collar crime). Who exactly is afraid of what? I'm sure that residents of diverse rich neighbourhoods are less scared of crime than those living in deprived diverse and homogenous neighbourhoods alike. Crime is not an outcome of diversity, crime is an outcome of poverty.

Dani



-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 03:07:16 -0400
Von: "OlatokunboAdeola Enigbokan" <enigbo01@newschool.edu>
An: af31@nyu.edu
CC: urbanth-l@lists.ysu.edu
Betreff: [URBANTH-L]Where IS the Bronx? /Critique of Putnam

> INEQUALITY is key to understanding the lack of communial solidarity and
> civic involvement that Putnam finds plagues American cities. 
> 
> Residing and teaching in New York City, I am faced with the daily reality
> of travelling between Harlem, where I live, The Bronx, where I teach in a
> public university, and Lower Manhattan, where I teach in a private
> university. (I am paid the same meagre salary for adjuncting at both schools,
> despite the exponential difference in tuition).
> 
> At the public institution my students are working class and working poor
> Black and Latino native New Yorkers many of whom are first generation
> college students, and in Lower Manhattan, I meet a group of upper-middle class or
> rich white students who come to the city from suburbs and sprawl, lured by
> the romance of entertainment and fashion, and "making it" in the big
> apple. ( i use all of the class-identification terms loosely, of course)
> 
> One classroom aims for professions like "nurse", and "accountant" while
> working jobs in retail and fast food service. The other is filled with
> students who aim to command "an empire of beauty," or "work at the United
> Nations" while putting in time at coveted unpaid internships in the publishing
> industry, or volunteering with international NGOs. (from student surveys)
> 
> The distance between these two worlds is more than the
> hour-and-a-half-long subway ride--a fact which became apparent when one (Lower Manhattan)
> student asked sincerely in class one day "Where is The Bronx?" 
> 
> This lack of geographical awareness is no joke. The embodied INEQUALITIES
> of mobility and opportunity, built into the city's landscape, make it
> impossible to even imagine Other spaces, much less communicate and cohere
> civilly across spaces.   
> 
> (Even the overload of mass-mediated imagery, for all its insistence on
> bringing the world to our fingertips, leaves dark clouds of question marks
> hovering over our urban jungles. For Putnam, with the light and magic of
> statistical inference, clouds of question marks transform into unpassable
> chasms--craters of decay in "THE" American civic fabric.)
> 
> Where IS The Bronx? 
> 
> In that simple question there is all of the INEQUALITY of opportunity, the
> disparate histories, the lived reality of urban segregation, though
> hopefully, the promise of its eventual end.
> 
> 
> I HEART my broken city, and all of my geographically challenged students,
> 
> Adeola Enigbokan
> Environmental Psychology
> CUNY Graduate Center
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >>> Allen Feldman <af31@nyu.edu> 08/13/07 9:58 PM >>>
> 
> We should  not buy we into Putnam's idea of progress model in mounting
> critique. The civil liberty of freedom of movement  and settlement, is a
> foundational  civic value in itself in American society-- one that was intensely
> associated with the development of private life and private property-- and
> was not intended as a motor  for building social trust and volunteerism.
> American diversity has more often than not  been a founded on  inequity. The
> post colonial frontier settlement of the  18th and 19th centuries which
> created mixed settlement patterns of Europeans, displaced Native
> Americans,Mexicans, slaves and later ex slaves,  and mixed race fractions, was not  
> expected to promote communal trust and solidarity or an equitable public
> sphere. Nor is the antithesis  between diversity  and community solidarity
> exceptional. Racist social orders are inherently diverse as are  colonial
> societies.  What is so unique in American society to buck this trend-- the
> faithful guarantee and enforcement of civil rights? Tell that to
> African-Americans who were denied the right to vote in recent national elections or
> subjected to police profiling on the most diverse space in the country-- the
> nation's public road system. Do we have  a study from Putnam of communal
> solidarity and volunteerism on the highways? Are spatial mobility and 
> trans-local communication networks discussed? Is sedentary face to face interaction
> the sole  definition of community here?
> Putnam's study from the summary below assumes, at baseline, an ideal
> Habermasian transparent public sphere  as his definition  of civic community
> with no communicative (media) distortion in which economic  inequity and
> historical  institutional racism play no role in inhibiting communal
> identification. Gemeinschaft was not originally associated  by Tonnies with a 
> culturally, racially and ethnically diverse and economically differentiated
> society with an extreme division of labor, but Putnam has here stood Tonnies on
> his head.
> 
> Allen Feldman
> New York University
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> URBANTH-L mailing list
> URBANTH-L@lists.ysu.edu
> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l

-- 
Ist Ihr Browser Vista-kompatibel? Jetzt die neuesten 
Browser-Versionen downloaden: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/browser

From jancius at ohio.edu  Wed Aug 22 13:17:31 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Wed Aug 22 12:18:11 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]FUNDING: Scholar Rescue Fund Fellowships
Message-ID: <00c201c7e4d7$facc67f0$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

Scholar Rescue Fund Fellowships: Fall Application Cycle Now Open
Fall Application Deadline: October 1, 2007

The Institute of International Education's Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) provides fellowships for established scholars whose lives and work are threatened in their home countries. These fellowships permit professors, researchers and other senior academics to find temporary refuge at universities and colleges anywhere in the world, enabling them to pursue their academic work and to continue to share their knowledge with students, colleagues, and the community at large. When conditions improve, these scholars will return home to help rebuild universities and societies ravaged by fear, conflict and repression. During the fellowship, conditions in a scholar's home country may improve, permitting safe return; if safe return is not possible, the scholar may use the fellowship period to identify a longer-term opportunity.

Application Cycles:
Fall 2007: Applications received by October 1; decision by November 1.
Winter 2008: Applications received by January 15; decision by March 1.
Spring 2008: Application received by April 1; decision by June 1.

To apply, please download the information and application materials from: www.iie.org/programs/srf/apply.htm <https://urmail.richmond.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.iie.org/programs/srf/apply.htm <https://urmail.richmond.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://urmail.richmond.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://urmail.richmond.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.iie.org/programs/srf/apply.htm> > 

To host an SRF scholar, please visit: www.iie.org/programs/srf/host.htm <https://urmail.richmond.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.iie.org/programs/srf/host.htm <https://urmail.richmond.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://urmail.richmond.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://urmail.richmond.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.iie.org/programs/srf/host.htm> >  or email SRF@iie.org <mailto:SRF@iie.org>
From jancius at ohio.edu  Wed Aug 22 13:23:53 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Wed Aug 22 12:25:07 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]NSF IGERT Traineeship Funding: Water in the Urban
	Environment
Message-ID: <00da01c7e4d8$f293a660$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

NSF IGERT Traineeship Opportunity
Deadline: February 1, 2008

University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) seeks applicants for our NSF 
Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program, "Water 
in the Urban Environment." Solutions to complex problems associated with the 
effect of urbanization on the water cycle require integrated ecological, 
economic and engineering approaches, as well as innovations in 
policy-making. This program is training a generation of graduate students to 
understand these linkages and to be prepared to work in multidisciplinary 
teams to improve understanding and management of urban environmental 
systems. The program is centered on three interwoven themes: (1) urban 
hydrology and contaminant transport; (2) urban biogeochemical cycles, 
aquatic ecosystems, and human health; and (3) urban water policy, 
management, and institutions.
The program takes advantage of the presence at UMBC of the field 
headquarters of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (http://beslter.org), one of 
two urban sites in the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research network; 
partnerships with public agencies, nonprofits, and private consultants; and 
proximity to the Chesapeake Bay, a coastal ecosystem severely affected by 
urban land use change.

Applicants for IGERT Traineeships must be US citizens or permanent 
residents. Awardees accepted to one of the nine participating PhD programs 
will receive a stipend of $30,000 per year plus $10,500 cost-of-education 
allowance. Applications for Fall 2008 are due February 1, 2008. For further 
information see http://www.umbc.edu/cuere/igert or contact Bernadette 
Hanlon, IGERT Coordinator at bhanlon1@umbc.edu, or Prof. Claire Welty, IGERT 
Program Director at weltyc@umbc.edu.
The UMBC IGERT Program seeks the applications of minorities, women, and 
individuals with disabilities.

Bernadette Hanlon
Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
(410) 455-1762
Email: bhanlon1@umbc.edu
Visit the website at http://www.umbc.edu/cuere/igert 

From Kate.Browne at ColoState.EDU  Wed Aug 22 18:34:35 2007
From: Kate.Browne at ColoState.EDU (Browne,Kate)
Date: Wed Aug 22 22:46:32 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Our documentary now on PBS !
Message-ID: <C2F2242F.50BA%Kate.Browne@colostate.edu>

Dear Colleagues,

I am very pleased to announce that our new documentary, Still Waiting, Life
After Katrina, is airing on most PBS stations around the country beginning
this week and and on into September. I have attached a 30 second trailer and
the PBS schedules indicating where and when it will be shown (though these
times can change). Our website is:

http://www.stillwaiting.colostate.edu/

The film is a collaborative project of two-time Emmy winning filmmaker Ginny
Martin, and Kate Browne, Afro-Creole specialist and professor of
anthropology at Colorado State University. Still Waiting was filmed between
October 2005 and March 2007 and was funded by National Science Foundation,
Colorado State University and by Women in Film.

The unusual size and interconnectedness of the 155-member family portrayed
in this film point to a cultural truth that, while unfamiliar in most of the
US, resonates strongly in the New Orleans area. The group?s well-knotted
bonds of love and reciprocity function like an emotional ecosystem, capable,
it seems, of absorbing the profound betrayal of nature and ?the system.? But
as the story of their evacuation to Dallas gives way to the story of their
return to the bayou and the unexpected difficulties they face, the hopes of
reclaiming life as it once existed look increasingly remote.

Still Waiting draws viewers into the remarkable story of resilience, family,
and attachment to place.

I hope you get a chance to watch it!

Kate Browne

***************************************
Katherine E. Browne
Professor
Department of Anthropology
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1787
970-491-5813
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~kbrowne/
****************************************




From rahulks7 at yahoo.com  Sat Aug 11 01:23:38 2007
From: rahulks7 at yahoo.com (rahul srivastava)
Date: Wed Aug 22 22:51:33 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]blog linked to urbanism
In-Reply-To: <D043610742C4AD46BD1BF098093370BD035035C4@MAILBOX.cas.usf.edu>
Message-ID: <129641.68238.qm@web56207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>

www.airoots.org is a blog with a focus on urban
anthropology.  Look forward to any feedback.
warm regards,
Rahul Srivastava 




       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games.
http://sims.yahoo.com/  

From eric-erbacher at gmx.de  Thu Aug 23 11:26:51 2007
From: eric-erbacher at gmx.de (Eric C. Erbacher)
Date: Thu Aug 23 13:03:13 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Accomodation in Chicago & Atlanta
Message-ID: <20070823082651.195550@gmx.net>

Dear all,

I'm a Ph.D. student in American Cultural Studies at the Technische Universit?t Dresden, Germany working on a dissertation on medial representations of gentrification processes in several U.S. cities. This September, I?ll be on a research trip in the U.S. to visit libraries and archives in New York City, Chicago, and Atlanta. 
While New York does not pose much of a problem, both Chicago and Atlanta have turned out to be quite problematic in terms of finding affordable accommodation for 9 nights each. 
I?d greatly appreciate any help and advice the urban studies community might be able to give me on possibilities to stay in both Chicago and Atlanta during September.

Thanks a lot,

Eric Erbacher

eric-erbacher@gmx.de

Research Assistant
North American Cultural Studies
Technische Universit?t Dresden
Germany


-- 
Psssst! Schon vom neuen GMX MultiMessenger geh?rt?
Der kanns mit allen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/multimessenger

From jancius at ohio.edu  Thu Aug 23 14:22:09 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Thu Aug 23 13:23:15 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]ANN: Beyond the Stereotypes: Dynamics of Muslim Life in
	the Globalized World
Message-ID: <00f101c7e5aa$280118b0$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

Invitation to Symposium: Beyond the Stereotypes; Dynamics of Muslim Life
in the Globalized World", Amsterdam, October 26, 2007 organized by new
journal _Contemporary Islam_ 


The Editors of the new journal Contemporary Islam are pleased to invite
you to the one-day symposium "Beyond the Stereotypes: Dynamics of Muslim
Life in the Globalized World", to be held on 26 October 2007 in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The aims of the symposium are to encourage
the academic discussion on the topic and to celebrate the
publication/launch of the new journal. 

This unique event, with contributions from miriam cooke, Richard Martin,
Lawrence Rosen and Bryan Turner will be a ground-breaking mini symposium
offering insights into the contemporary dynamics of Muslim life by
focusing on questions concerning the presence of Muslims in the West, as
well as the relationship that Muslims have with globalization and its
consequences on their lives, dreams and everyday experiences. 
Earlier this year, Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life, the
research journal that focuses on topical issues by taking an
interdisciplinary approach that benefits from a cross-cultural
perspective, was launched within Springer's Religious Studies publishing
program. This program approaches Western and Non-Western religion from
the perspective of the social sciences and philosophy, featuring
publications that are topical, renewing, and globally-oriented while
being at the forefront of research. The first issue of the new journal
is freely accessible on springerlink.com 

If you are interested in attending the symposium, please click here.
Registration is limited and will be processed first-come, first-served,
based on date of receipt. Please allow 1 or 2 weeks to receive our
confirmation of your registration, or to be notified that the capacity
has been reached and registration has closed. 

We look forward to personally welcoming you to our symposium in
Amsterdam! 

Sincerely, 

Dr. Gabriele Marranci & Prof. Daniel Varisco
Editors Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life The Editors of
Contemporary Islam gratefully acknowledge the sponsorship of Springer in
support of this mini symposium. 

  Ms. Floor Oosting, MA 
Senior Publishing Editor 
Springer 
P.O. Box 17 | 3300 AA 
Dordrecht | The Netherlands 
tel +31 (0) 78 65 76 205 
fax +31 (0) 78 65 76 337 
Email: symposium-contemporaryislam@hotmail.com
Visit the website at
http://www.springer.com/east/home/social+sciences/religious+studies?SGWI
D=5-148302-12-379700-0 
From jancius at ohio.edu  Mon Aug 27 13:02:13 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Mon Aug 27 12:03:10 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]FUNDING: Postdoctoral Fellow, National University of
	Singapore
Message-ID: <020501c7e8c3$a4075840$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

The National University of Singapore's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
invites applications for up to twenty Postdoctoral Fellowships (PDF) to be
based in various departments/ programmes and to be affiliated with the 6
newly set-up Research Clusters: Global Cities, Cognition and Behavior,
Health, Migration, Religion; Science, Technology and Society.

The PDF scheme is intended for scholars at the beginning stages of their
academic careers. The successful candidate is generally expected to have
completed their doctoral studies not more than three years prior to the time
of application. A candidate who has satisfied all the requirements for a PhD
and is awaiting the conferment of the degree may also be considered.

The Fellowship will be tenable from August 2008 for a year. It is renewable,
upon review, for a second year. Attractive remunerations and benefits will
be offered.

The closing date for applications is *31 December 2007 *, for appointments
to begin in August 2008. Applicants will be informed of the outcome by
February 2007.

Please visit http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/research/pfp.html for details.

*Contact Info:
*Interested applicants are invited to *email* their applications consisting
of:

1) An application form (downloadable at
http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/research/pfp.html)
2) CV with complete list of publications
3) At least 2 letters of reference
4) A research proposal

to *fass_research@nus.edu.sg* with *subject title :"Application for
Postdoctoral Felllowship - Applicant's Name"*

If the reference letters are to be emailed by the referees directly, please
email to *fass_research@nus.edu.sg* with *subject title: "Postdoctoral
Fellowship - Reference letter for Applicant's Name"*

*Website: *http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/

From vergara.benito at gmail.com  Mon Aug 27 11:31:24 2007
From: vergara.benito at gmail.com (Benito Vergara)
Date: Mon Aug 27 13:38:51 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]JOB: U of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Anthro, Asst Prof
Message-ID: <34ec80c40708271031y3d97ed8fm67215471c5065ed@mail.gmail.com>

JOB: University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Anthropology
Assistant Professor

The Department of Anthropology in the College of Liberal Arts at the
University of Minnesota invites applications for a full-time Assistant
Professor of Anthropology. Ph.D. in Anthropology or related field in
hand by date of appointment. Exceptional ABDs may be considered for
appointment at the level of tenure-track instructor. Specialization in
historical archaeology; a demonstrated research record and
publications in issues of power, diasporas, inequality, and structural
violence among communities and populations with a legacy of
subordination by slavery, discrimination, and/or colonization in the
Americas preferred. Duties/Responsibilities: maintain an active
program of research and publication; value and encourage research and
teaching across the sub-disciplines of anthropology and in
interdepartmental programs, and be committed to expanding an already
existing Cultural Heritage Studies Master's program. An individual
willing to have at least one geographical focus in Minnesota
preferred. Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in the department
as well as participate in committee service. This is a 100%-time,
tenure-track faculty appointment beginning Fall Semester 2008. Review
of applications will begin on October 22, 2007. Position will remain
open until filled. Application instructions: Only online applications
will be accepted. Go to:
employment.umn.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=60426. The University
of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.

Web Site : http://employment.umn.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=60426

From vergara.benito at gmail.com  Mon Aug 27 11:39:22 2007
From: vergara.benito at gmail.com (Benito Vergara)
Date: Mon Aug 27 13:39:31 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]JOB: Brown University, Anthro, Asst. Prof.
Message-ID: <34ec80c40708271039n78b2e30bt6395f8357bbb0893@mail.gmail.com>

JOB: Brown University
Anthropology
Assistant Professor

Brown University's Department of Anthropology invites applications for
a tenure-track assistant professor in sociocultural anthropology,
appointment to be effective July 1, 2008. The successful candidate
will contribute to the department's program in Anthropology and
Population and to Brown's interdisciplinary Population Studies and
Training Center. Research interests in the study of population are
broadly defined and may include, but are not limited to, migration,
reproduction, population politics, the social and population
dimensions of public health, gender and family organization, and
population and the environment. Geographical area of expertise is
open, although preference will be given to candidates with
international interests and areas of specialization that complement
current faculty strengths. Candidates already holding faculty
positions, as well as all others having PhD in hand before August,
2008, are welcome to apply. The successful candidate will teach
anthropology at the undergraduate and graduate levels, have an
outstanding research agenda and actively participate in an
interdisciplinary population research and training community.

Candidates should send a letter of application, a curriculum vitae,
and contact information for three references. Recommenders will be
contacted by the search committee. Review of applications will begin
on November 1, 2007.

For further information or to apply write to:
Anthropology and Population Search
c/o William S. Simmons, Department Chair
Department of Anthropology, Box 1921
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912

From jancius at ohio.edu  Tue Aug 28 16:31:08 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Tue Aug 28 15:32:17 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]
 CFP: Public Space and Social Cohesion in the City (St. Petersburg)
Message-ID: <006a01c7e9aa$0a10be10$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

CALL FOR PAPERS

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 

'PUBLIC SPACE AND SOCIAL COHESION IN THE CITY: 
PRESENT AND FUTURE'

St. Petersbourg, Russia, 3-4 July 2008 

Urban public space continues to be the focus of debate as to its conceptualisation, interrogation and its design and production. In particular, urban public space is increasingly being considered as, on the one hand, productive of a new set of exclusions in the city, but also, on the other, as offering a range of possibilities for the co-existence of strangers in the city. As cities increasingly become the site of multiple cultures and undergo new rounds of regeneration they are also seen as key locus in which new forms of sociability may emerge as part of cosmopolitan urban imaginaries in which 'public space' is considered vital, particularly through the promotion of innovative urban design, new architectural developments and the management of public space, but also in the form of more marginal or 'loose' spaces. However, cities are also sites of a variety of types of 'public' spaces which are 'gated', guarded, surveilled and managed with the effect that access to public space is restricted for certain social groups. Central to these tensions are continuing debates over the meaning of 'public space' and how these link to authority and special (reginal, national, local) politics conducted on behalf of particular forms of publicness.

The conference will therefore continue debates on the status of contemporary urban 'public space' and its potential to generate various forms of sociability. The key focus of the conference is the question of whether we are really witnessing the end of 'public space', or if there are still potentialities for its regeneration and revival in a socially-inclusive way? 

Papers at the conference may deal with any of the following points or other related issues:  

? The changing iconography of public space as an indicator of processes of social inclusion or exclusion; 
? The role of symbolic townscapes in the creation of urban imagery and the construction of the 'Other'; 
? Places and the signs of memory and identity of ethnic, religious, migrant and other subcultures; 
? Public space as the scene of contested identities or hegemonic identities - as a common place for all or as different places for different people;
? Public space and cosmopolitan urban imaginaries;
? Conceptualisations of urban public space;
? Ideal urban public space - ordered spaces or 'loose' spaces?; 
? Urban public space as a driving force for social change, including innovative urban design and planning.

Researchers and scholars working in social and human studies including anthropology, ethnology, sociology, social and cultural geography, urban design and planning and related fields in urban studies are invited to send abstracts of up to 300 words by December 15th 2007 by e-mail to Professor Svetlana Hristova at sv.hristova@aix.swu.bg. We would welcome also abstracts from post-graduate students and urban practitioners.

Funding is available to support the attendance of a number of conference participants. If you wish to be considered for full financial support, or for a travel grant, please also include a statement of a maximum of one A4 page stating 1) why financial support is necessary for you to attend the conference, 2) how much financial support you are requesting, and 3) what form of financial support you are applying for (i.e. full costs or for travel grant only). Please also send a brief CV.

The conference is the final stage of the international project 'The Re-Imaging of Public Space in European Cities and Its Role in Social and Ethnocultural Integration' which concentrates on the relation between growing cultural pluralization, its vizualization in and through public space, and alternative approaches to managing social change and growing social tensions through urban regeneration and re-appropriation of the urban environment. The project is funded by INTAS and co-ordinated by the South-West University 'Neofit Rilsky' (Bulgaria), with the participation of Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), the Institute for Independent Studies, St. Petersburg (Russia) and the State University 'Ivan Franko', Lviv (Ukraine), and the Center for Intercultural Studies at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Utrecht (The Netherlands). 



Dr Craig Young
Programme Leader - Human Geography
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography
Manchester Metropolitan University
Dept of Environmental and Geographical Sciences
Manchester Institute for Social
and Spatial Transformations
John Dalton Building
Chester St.
Manchester M1 5GD

0161-247-6198/1601
Fax 0161-247-6318



From jancius at ohio.edu  Tue Aug 28 18:56:22 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Tue Aug 28 18:02:20 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]REV: Barraclough on Sonenshein, _The City at Stake_
Message-ID: <01a001c7e9be$ec0fb960$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

[cross-posted from H-Urban@h-net.msu.edu]

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Urban@h-net.msu.edu (August 2007)

Raphael Sonenshein. _The City at Stake: Secession, Reform, and the Battle
for Los Angeles_. Updated edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2006. xxi + 306 pp. Maps, tables, notes, bibliography, afterword, index.
$57.50 (cloth), ISBN 0-691-11590-7; $23.95 (paper), ISBN 0-691-12603-8.

Reviewed for H-Urban by Laura Barraclough, Department of Liberal Studies,
Antioch University Los Angeles

The Next Chapter in Sonenshein's Tour de Force of Los Angeles Politics

Historically, in cities dominated by machine politics like Boston and New
York, urban elites used reform to effectively disenfranchise immigrant and
minority voters. Yet in this comprehensive, compelling, and meticulously
researched study, Sonenshein argues that reform does not inherently belong
to either conservatives or liberals, but "rather is a contested value of
great importance" (p. 262). His primary goal in this masterful study of
charter reform in Los Angeles is to recover a concern with institutional
structure among political scientists and to re-conceptualize reform as a
potentially powerful tool for progressive politics.

The author suggests that understandings of reform as an elitist tool are
rooted in regional bias and limited scholarly attention to urban politics in
the U.S. West and Southwest. In cities like Los Angeles, characterized by
nonpartisan elections, low levels of political organization, and the
dispersal of government authority, reform has been far more influential "not
just as the province of the 'good government' crowd, but as the game itself"
(p. 15). Under such conditions, the battle is not between reformers and
party machines, but between competing visions of reform, such as the quest
for business-like efficiency versus the struggle for minority
representation. Western and southwestern cities thus provide excellent
places in which to analyze how civic visions and coalitions are built and
sustained in spite--or perhaps because of--these conditions.

The text is composed of nineteen short chapters, organized into six sections
that trace the origins, process, and results of charter reform. Chapter 3
merits particular attention as one of the few chapters that could stand
alone, perhaps for use in an undergraduate course. It shows how years of
charter amendments created a confusing, contradictory institutional
structure and built general consensus on the need for systematic and
comprehensive reform--specifically, an enhanced role for the mayor, greater
control of elected officials over departments and commissions, and increased
democratic participation for ordinary citizens.

The convergence of two forces--the election of Mayor Richard Riordan and the
threat of San Fernando Valley secession--made charter reform viable for the
first time in decades. In 1997, the Los Angeles City Council agreed to
appoint a commission to draft a new city charter, but insisted that the
council have right of review before the charter went before the voters.
Incensed, Mayor Riordan financed a proposition to create an elected
commission that could take its charter straight to the voters, which voters
passed that same year. For two years, the commissions worked separately
towards the same goal, and each was subject to powerful influences--the
appointed commission to the city council, and the elected commission to the
mayor and to organized labor. According to Sonenshein: "From the start, the
two commissions were like competing siblings. Both had a mission that would
have made more sense with only one commission, and each operated with an eye
on the other" (pp. 105-106).

The author demonstrates that the leadership exhibited by the chairs of the
two commissions was a major factor contributing to the ultimate success of
charter reform. From the beginning, both chairs believed there had to be a
single charter, and eventually decided to work together with the support of
a joint conference committee to identify and make recommendations on all
disagreements between the two commissions. Once united, the two commissions
occupied the high ground of the charter reform debate, and the mayor and the
city council were faced with the decision to either support the unified
charter or appear opposed to popular reforms.

Voters approved the unified charter in June 1999 by a margin of 60 percent.
The new charter expanded mayoral authority significantly, created a system
of advisory neighborhood councils, and instituted area planning commissions.
Two reforms that had once been on the table--a larger city council and
administrative decentralization, such as a borough system--did not succeed.
The new charter dissolved support for San Fernando Valley secession, which
voters resoundingly rejected in 2002, and facilitated the resolution of the
scandal involving the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department
and the statewide recall of Governor Gray Davis in 2003.

The study raises a number of important questions for the study of
coalition-building in diverse cities. Few are better equipped to venture
answers to these questions than Sonenshein, whose earlier study of Mayor Tom
Bradley's coalition of African American and white Jewish voters is canonical
in the scholarly field of Los Angeles and urban politics.[1] Sonenshein
shows that charter reform ultimately succeeded in Los Angeles despite the
city's diversity, fragmentation, and low social capital. To explain this
outcome, he develops a model of interracial coalitions that takes into
account the importance of interests, ideology, and leadership.

Sonenshein posits that "reform constituencies" support reform coalitions
because of their beliefs about government and civic life, and that this
ideology, rather than narrowly defined self-interest, is crucial to
institutional change. He argues that "[i]n reducing all political action to
self-interest we risk missing something important about civic capacity and
civic participation. To many ordinary people who are not political actors
except as voters and observers, what is right and wrong in government is
quite important" (p. 264). Jewish voters on the west side of Los Angeles
overwhelmingly supported the new charter, even though they generally felt
well served by city government. He suggests that Latino immigrants may
similarly provide the ideological as well as practical impetus for reform,
which was partly confirmed by the 2005 election of Antonio Villaraigosa, the
city's first Latino mayor in over 150 years, which Sonenshein considers in
the afterword of the 2006 edition.

_The City at Stake_ is full of useful charts, tables, and maps, as well as
an exceptional appendix that summarizes the new charter's provisions.
Sonenshein's bibliography is likewise a valuable reference. The book is
appropriate for graduate-level courses in urban politics or public policy
and would be of interest to a popular audience with specialized interests in
urban and public affairs. Because of its exhaustive and sometimes
overwhelming level of detail, the book would not be a good choice for most
undergraduates or non-specialists. The book's discussion of the San Fernando
Valley secession movement, though adequate, is presented here primarily as
an impetus for charter reform; researchers interested in an in-depth study
may be disappointed. Similarly, though Sonenshein raises interesting
questions about civic participation among Latino immigrants, he ventures
only superficial answers that are best supplemented by other recent
studies.[2]

By far the most interesting and unique aspect of this book derives from
Sonenshein's role as executive director of the appointed charter commission.
He had access to the key players in Los Angeles politics, whose interviews
form the backbone to this book. The study is peppered with Sonenshein's
candid interpretations of the people and events that influenced the outcomes
of charter reform, secession, and municipal elections. The following excerpt
is typical: "I have often thought since then that finding the high ground
was the key to making charter reform succeed, but I had never really felt
the high ground until that nineteen to zero vote. We had done the right
thing, and in so doing had restored the faith of the people in the room, and
also outside it, that Los Angeles government could be reformed" (p. 166).
Sonenshein's observations enable the reader to enter the often inaccessible
world of city politics through a privileged and trusted insider's eye.
Written in an accessi!
 bl!
e, engaging style, the study feels more like a memoir or political
autobiography than a scholarly monograph. Together with his earlier study,
_The City at Stake_ is the definitive study of urban politics in Los
Angeles.

Notes

[1]. Raphael Sonenshein, _Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los
Angeles_ (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).

[2]. Robert Gottlieb, Mark Vallianatos, Regina M. Freer, and Peter Dreier,
_The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City_ (Berkeley, Calif.:
University of California Press, 2005).



      Copyright (c) 2007 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits
      the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit,
      educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the
      author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and
      H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses
      contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu. 

From jancius at ohio.edu  Wed Aug 29 16:29:10 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Wed Aug 29 15:31:12 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]CFP: Gender Issues in International Migration (Asian
	Women)
Message-ID: <00b301c7ea72$e2cd38a0$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

Call for Papers
Asian Women
2007 Winter Issue, 2008 Spring Issue

Asian Women seeks submissions for recent gender issues such as women and 
welfare, women's rights, eco-feminism, health, women and bio-technology, 
women and history, men's studies, and other relevant themes in gender 
studies, slated for publication in 2007 issues.  Asian Women is accepting 
submissions for 2007 Winter issue with a special theme of War, Women, and 
Military, and Women in Conflicts and for 2008 Spring and Summer issue with a 
theme of Gender Issues in International Migration.

Please visit http://asianfem.sookmyung.ac.kr/issue/k_issue.htm?type=b for 
more specific information about submission.

Asian Women, an interdisciplinary journal covering various Women's Studies, 
Men's Studies, and Gender Studies themes, hopes to share intelligent 
original papers as well as case studies with you.  Also, any contributions 
of theoretical papers, regional reports, or case studies based on feminist 
studies and Asian studies will be welcomed.  The editors welcome submissions 
that are based on either collaborative or independent scholarship.  They 
also receive submissions from a wide variety of Asia and other countries. 
Contributors need to send their manuscripts to the Research Institute of 
Asian Women any time.  However, for the prompt evaluation procedure and 
publication for 2007 Winter issue, contributors should send their 
manuscripts by 30th of September 2007.  For more information, contact the 
Managing Editor, Research Institute of Asian Women, Sookmyung Women's 
University, 52 Hyochangwon-gil, Youngsan-ku, Seoul, Korea 140-742 or e-mail 
her at asianfem@sm.ac.kr. 

From ayanez at csusm.edu  Thu Aug 23 13:04:14 2007
From: ayanez at csusm.edu (Anibal Yanez-Chavez)
Date: Wed Aug 29 22:34:48 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]
 Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Planning, California State
 University San Marcos
Message-ID: <572C1E4A5AEDE74EB3E6AB5C5EEFB65510A4E449@express.csusm.edu>

PLEASE POST OR FORWARD:

 

Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Planning

California State University San Marcos

 

The Liberal Studies Department at California State University, San Marcos, seeks to hire a full-time, tenure track, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Planning.  Applicants must have a Ph.D. in Public Policy, Planning, Environmental Studies, Political Science, Sociology or other related field, with expertise in two or more of the following areas:  cross national studies, multiculturalism, politics and governance, environmental studies, public policy, urban planning, political economy, border studies, or migration studies.  Candidates should have an interdisciplinary background and a program of engaged community-based scholarship.  GIS expertise is preferred.  The position requires collaboration in the teaching and development of offerings in the Liberal Studies Department and in our new Border Studies option.

 

Deadline for application is October 31, 2007, or until the position is filled.  Applicants must submit a letter of interest (which includes evidence of teaching success, commitment to interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship, and understanding of engaged scholarship), curriculum vitae, two samples of scholarly work, and three letters of recommendation.  Address all correspondence to:  Liberal Studies Search Committee, College of Arts and Sciences, California State University San Marcos, San Marcos, CA  92096-0001.  CSU San Marcos is an Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Title IX Employer.  The University has a strong commitment to the principles of diversity and, in that spirit, seeks a broad spectrum of candidates including women, members of minority groups and people with disabilities.

 

 

Dr. An?bal Y??ez-Ch?vez, Chair

Liberal Studies Department

College of Arts and Sciences

California State University, San Marcos

San Marcos CA 92096-0001

voicemail: 760-750-4142

fax: 760-750-4111

 
From koptiuch at asu.edu  Wed Aug 29 09:56:00 2007
From: koptiuch at asu.edu (Kristin Koptiuch)
Date: Wed Aug 29 22:35:37 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Terrific audio/slide show on Latinos in New Orleans
Message-ID: <4AA5A0387D61C548AAEC2FE058D39E1C0BD2AE@exwest.asurite.ad.asu.edu>


Hi, a colleague sent me this terrific audio slide show on Latinos in New Orleans, and I'm sure most of you will love to see it too.

http://www.arc.org/peter/nola5min2007/

best, Kristin Koptiuch

http://www.west.asu.edu/koptiuch/

From dhaines1 at gmu.edu  Thu Aug 30 14:09:43 2007
From: dhaines1 at gmu.edu (David Haines)
Date: Thu Aug 30 17:51:39 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Position listing: Immigration
Message-ID: <200708301710.l7UHA9sW021800@ppoint1.cc.ysu.edu>

Position Listing
George Mason University

The Department of Sociology and Anthropology announces
a tenure track opening for an Assistant Professor with a
Ph.D. in either sociology or anthropology. We seek candi-
dates whose research and teaching expertise lies in the
study of immigration, ethnicity, and social and economic
inequality within the United States. The successful candidate
should have demonstrated excellence in the conduct of social
research (whether using official statistics, survey research, or
ethnography, or a mixture of methodological approaches), and
should be prepared to actively contribute to the Mason Project
on Immigration, an interdisciplinary program comprised of
faculty in the humanities and social sciences who are committed
to shaping the national debate about immigration.
   (see http://cssr.gmu.edu/immigration/immigration.html)
Excellence in teaching is also expected. The Department of
Sociology and Anthropology is a joint department that has grown
rapidly in recent years and is poised to introduce a new PhD in
Sociology. George Mason University is a large public university
located in Northern Virginia, a highly diverse and vibrant region
just west of Washington, D.C. George Mason is the largest and
most diverse university in Virginia. Applicants should send letters,
cv's, writing samples, teaching materials, and letters of
recommendation to:
   Chair, Immigration Search Committee, Dept of Sociology and
   Anthropology, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax VA 22030 MS 3G5.
Review of applications will begin on November 1, 2007. George
Mason University is an Equal Opportunity Employer; women and
minority candidates are especially encouraged to apply.


From wiesj at xavier.edu  Mon Aug 27 08:54:46 2007
From: wiesj at xavier.edu (wiesj@xavier.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 30 17:52:32 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]
 Call for Contributions: Gender-Based Violence and Front-Line/Local
 Workers
Message-ID: <fa4ff2052146.2146fa4ff205@xavier.edu>

*Please Distribute*

Request for Contributions

Volume Abstract: To Be Titled Upon Receipt of Chapter Abstracts
Hillary J. Haldane (University of California- Santa Barbara) and 
Jennifer R. Wies (Xavier University)

        As our attention to structural violence and inequalities 
continues to grow, our understandings of local level violence and the 
systems responsive to such violence must also develop.  Through 
theorizing the ?local? and placing the local at the center of inquiry, 
this volume examines ethnographic examples of the front-line political 
economies of gender-based violence service provision.  By exploring 
the situations of front line workers and local sites of service 
provision, this text reorients the analysis of gender-based violence 
to the interface between the state and the victims: the front-line 
workers.  By recentering the analysis to the local, we hope to 
revitalize our studies of front line workers in the gender-based 
violence field.          
        This volume contains three sections that represent three 
fields of service provision to gender-based violence victims.  The 
first is the medical and/or public health arena, where gender-based 
violence victims and front line workers direct service providers 
interact at the level of physician-patient, medical advocate-victim, 
and mental health counselor-client.  The second point of contact is 
located in the legal and criminal justice system, where gender-based 
violence victims encounter lawyers, legal advocates, and law 
enforcement personnel.  The final intersection of analysis is that of 
the education system.  Education systems produce gender-based violence 
workers in the classroom, via conferences trainings, and through 
orientation into organizations working to provide services to victims 
of gender-based violence.  In addition, the intersection between the 
education system and gender-based violence workers serves as a site of 
examining the creation of public educatio
n and awareness regarding gender-based violence and allows an analysis 
of ways that gender-based violence issues are framed for public 
consumption.
        The significance of this volume collection is that it brings 
together scholars in a conversation that might not necessarily be in 
dialogue with each other.  In this volume scholars connect their work 
to macro theories of structural violence and illuminate the 
disjuncture between transnational theory and local practice.  This 
framework mimics a larger framework of front line gender-based 
violence work that is conducted at multiple sites of service.  As 
front line workers strive to coordinate services to victims of gender-
based violence, the scholars in this volume follow their example and 
transcend disciplinary artificial boundaries to mirror what is 
occurring ?on the ground.?  
        Beginning with an introduction that reviews the 
Anthropological work focusing on gender-based violence and front line 
service provision, the volume presents four essays within each of the 
three sections.  Each section contains a summary of the essays and 
highlights the possibilities for theoretical and practical 
collaborations.  The concluding chapter demonstrates the theoretical 
and applied benefits of an analysis of structural violence from the 
vantage point of front-line labor.

Please submit a note of interest as soon as possible to Jennifer Wies, 
PhD (Xavier University) at wiesj@xavier.edu.  Abstract drafts will be 
due by year's end.


*********************
Jennifer R. Wies, PhD
Director, Xavier University Women's Center
3800 Victory Parkway
Cincinnati OH 45207
513-745-3737
513-745-3999 (fax)
wiesj@xavier.edu

The Xavier University Women's Center is located at 1415 Dana Avenue, 
ML #7780.  

From jancius at ohio.edu  Thu Aug 30 19:13:12 2007
From: jancius at ohio.edu (Angela Jancius)
Date: Thu Aug 30 18:14:06 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]NEWS: Remembering Katrina, Re-Committing to Justice
Message-ID: <006801c7eb52$f7d75b00$1effa04c@D7ZX4M91>

Remembering Katrina, Re-Committing to Justice

Please forward widely!

Dear Friend of United for Peace and Justice,

Today, August 29th, is the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane
Katrina. Today there are still tens of thousands of
families without homes. 30,000 families are scattered
across the country in FEMA apartments, 13,000 are in
trailers, and hardly any of the 77,000 rental units
destroyed in New Orleans have been rebuilt. And this is
just one of the many issues the people of New Orleans
and the Gulf Coast are still dealing with.

Today, United for Peace and Justice re-affirms our
commitment to the struggle to shift the use of our tax
dollars away from war and toward the rebuilding of the
communities still suffering from Katrina, and serving
the many other needs of communities around the country.
On this sad anniversary, we urge you to re-commit to
this critically important work, a struggle that is
interwoven with our efforts to end the war and
occupation in Iraq.

We want to call your attention to a new short film
produced Brave New Foundation, "When the Saints Go
Marching In." http://whenthesaints.org/

Here's what the filmmakers have to say: "During the
making of this video, we heard the heartbreaking
stories of good people unable to return home. We have
heard the story of the Aguilar family who lost their
home to the storm and only received $4,000 in payments
from their insurance company. We have met Mr.
Washington, an 87-year-old man and former carpenter,
who owned three homes prior to the storm. He is still
living in a FEMA trailer today. And we've met Julie,
who could have returned to her job and normal life, if
the government had opened up the public housing units
that she had lived in prior to the storm."

Click here to watch their stories:
http://whenthesaints.org/

After watching the film and hearing these voices, there
is something very specific you can do to help. Sign the
petition urging the Senate to pass the Gulf Coast
Recovery Bill of 2007 (S1668). The bill is expected to
come to a vote after Labor Day. Its passage will be an
important step toward rebuilding the infrastructure in
the Gulf Coast region.

Sign the petition today: http://whenthesaints.org/

Please pass the video on and encourage people to sign
the petition. It's important we all support the Gulf
Coast region's right to return home and put the needed
resources toward rebuilding these families' lives.

** Save the date! Saturday, October 27th ** National
Mobilization to End the Iraq War! 10 Massive
Demonstrations for Peace and Justice!
http://www.oct27.org

============================================

Help us continue to do this critical work: Make a
donation to UFPJ today --
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/donate

UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
http://www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545 To
subscribe, visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org/email


From l_guevarra at ucpress.edu  Thu Aug 30 11:52:34 2007
From: l_guevarra at ucpress.edu (L Guevarra)
Date: Mon Sep  3 23:14:21 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]NEW REPACKAGE: Urban Fortunes
Message-ID: <p06230937c2fcb4627caf@[172.16.0.89]>

Dear Urbanth-L:


The University of California Press  is pleased to announce the repackage of:

Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place, 20th Anniversary Edition

John R. Logan is Professor of Sociology at Brown University. 
<B>Harvey L. Molotch </B>is Professor of Sociology at New York 
University.

http://go.ucpress.edu/Logan

"Twenty years after publication, _Urban Fortunes _remains the best 
book on urban sociology around. Starting from a political economy 
analysis, Logan and Molotch develop a picture of the formative 
processes creating the contemporary American city while managing to 
avoid the pitfalls of determinism."-Susan Fainstein, Harvard 
University

"The most celebrated research synthesis [in urban sociology]. . . in 
several decades."-John Walton, _Annual Review of Sociology _

This sociological classic is updated with a new preface by the 
authors looking at developments in the study of urban planning during 
the twenty-year life of this influential work.

Full information about the bookis available online: http://go.ucpress.edu/Logan


-- 
Lolita Guevarra
Electronic Marketing Coordinator
University of California Press
Tel. 510.643.4738 | Fax 510.643.7127
lolita.guevarra@ucpress.edu


From sanjay.srivastava at deakin.edu.au  Fri Aug 24 12:11:36 2007
From: sanjay.srivastava at deakin.edu.au (Sanjay Srivastava)
Date: Mon Sep  3 23:15:04 2007
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Conference announcement
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20070824110613.01abed78@deakin.edu.au>

Dear List Editor,

Would it be possible to submit the following 
conference announcement on URBANTH? It may be of 
interest to those working on urban contexts of sociality. Thank you.
Sanjay Srivastava

-------------------------

In Relation To
New Cultures of Intimacy and Togetherness in Asia

New Delhi, India, May 9-10, 2008


This conference seeks to bring together scholars 
working across areas such as sociology, gender 
studies, film/media studies, anthropology, 
popular culture, and urban studies in order to 
explore emerging cultures of intimacy and 
friendship in contemporary non-Western contexts. 
We are particularly interested in perspectives 
that relate the topic to the making of social 
selves at a time great economic and cultural 
change in many Asian societies. Socially, 
?non-Western? has often been considered 
synonymous with traditional, conservative, static 
and illiberal, particularly in contexts of 
intimate/personal relationships that are expected 
to conform to certain values, norms and 
expectations of ?heritage?. However, following 
modernity at large and contexts of change such as 
economic liberalization, globalization and the 
worldwide web, there is, increasingly, a 
perception (if not a belief) that social 
structures and networks have been affected, and 
?new? cultures of intimacy and togetherness are 
emergent (if not already established). There is a 
decided conviction that such new structures and 
networks are visible in day-to-day contexts at 
work, home and leisure, and that they reflect 
political, cultural, emotional and intellectual transitions and upheavals.

At this conference, we would like to explore this 
notion of emergent cultures of ?new? intimacies 
and togetherness in the contemporary non-Western 
world, in as varied a social and cultural register as possible.

Some Possible Themes:

Televisual/Cinematic Intimacies
New/Changing Spaces of Intimacy
New Cultures of Marriage
Intimacy, Togetherness and Class
Non-heterosexual Cultures of Intimacy
Advice Columns and the Reading Public
Intimacies and Consumer Cultures
?Youth? Cultures and Intimacies
The ?New Woman? and the ?New Man?
The Metrosexual/the Uber-sexual
?Friends? ? Transformed Intimacies in Living Spaces
Sex and the City
Intimacies and New Urban Spaces
Changing Workplace Cultures
New Lexicons of Conversation/Communication


Inquiries, abstracts (350 words), and expressions of interest to:
<mailto:intimaciesconference@yahoo.com>intimaciesconference@yahoo.com

Brinda Bose, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, India
Sanjay Srivastava, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia




Professor Sanjay 
Srivastava 

School of Communication and Creative Arts
Faculty of Arts
Deakin 
University 
Phone: + 61-3-9244-6009
221 Burwood 
Highway                                          Fax: + 61-3-9251-7851
Melbourne 3125
Australia


For information on the Delhi film 'Kotla Walks. 
Performing Locality', go to  www.kotlawalks.com 
