Niccolo Caldararo – författare

In his investigation of the nature of madness and civilization, the French social theorist Michel Foucault expressed the difficulty most scholars have in addressing episodes of confusion that lead a society into acts of self-destruction and chaos. He maintained that one problem is “a realm, no doubt, where what is in question is the limits rather than the identity of a culture.” The decision to continue as before, as if no changes have occurred, is a kind of madness, but the identity of normal people is associated with ideas of actions defined by the culture and performed as a means of demonstrating identity. Since today we have an evolving global culture that is an amalgam of European colonial history, the defeated servants of that history, and some of those who resisted, the nature of limited action is embedded  in the values that led to the conquest of the world. This process remains a central motive factor in resistance to modifications of world economic institutions that might deflect the worst consequences of climate change for, at least, the next few generations to come.

“An Ethnography of the Goodman Building vividly incorporates a wide variety of methods to tell the story of class struggle in a building, neighborhood, and city that is replicated globally. I read it as a number of boxes inside each other opened in the course of reading. Caldararo recounts the building’s personal “biography” to convey not only the “facts about,” but the “feelings about” the flesh and blood of the building and its surrounding neighborhood.” —Jerome Krase, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York, USA

“This unique contribution to the field of urban and regional studies counteracts current trends in the ethnographies of urban movements by offering, with great hindsight, an analysis from a physical space, and from first-hand experience. The focal point is one building, and the author is a former tenant. This perspective is appealing, especially in an era of global connections where macro social movements are on the front line of urban life and research.” —Nathalie Boucher, Director and Researcher, Respire, and Affiliated Professor Assistant, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, Canada.

Through in-depth analysis and narrative investigation of an actual building occupation, Niccolo Caldararo seeks to not only offer an historical account of the Goodman Building in San Francisco, but also focus on the active resistance tactics of its residents from the 1960s to the 1980s. Taking as its focal point the building itself, the volume weaves in and out of every life involved and the struggles that surround it—San Francisco’s urban renewal, ethnic clearing, gentrification, and municipal governance at a time of booming urban growth. Caldararo, a tenant at the center of its strikes and activities, provides a unique perspective that counteracts current trends in ethnographies of urban movements by grounding its analysis in physical and tangible space.

There has recently been a renewed interest in both casual use of psychedelics as well as experimental use and attempts to discover therapeutic value. There is an effort to recapture the achievements and failures of past work to guide present use. This book is based around material derived from unpublished scientific research from Dr. Robert Mogar’s laboratory and built upon by forty years of field research by the author. The author Niccolo Caldararo participated in a number of studies of perception, including sensory deprivation and psychotropic drugs, some of recent manufacture or discovery and some of primitive or traditional societies. He places this analysis of the physiological aspects of hallucinations, delusions, visions and dreamsn context through an , as well as cross cultural data on dreams, dreaming and drug use and the social value of hallucinations, dreams and visions.

The book reviews ethnographic literature in this area and contributes to a comprehensive evaluation of past work done in this area.