Setha M. Low - Böcker

Urban parks such as New York City's Central Park provide vital public spaces where city dwellers of all races and classes can mingle safely while enjoying a variety of recreations. By coming together in these relaxed settings, different groups become comfortable with each other, thereby strengthening their communities and the democratic fabric of society. But just the opposite happens when, by design or in ignorance, parks are made inhospitable to certain groups of people. This pathfinding book argues that cultural diversity should be a key goal in designing and maintaining urban parks. Using case studies of New York City's Prospect Park, Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park, and Jacob Riis Park in the Gateway National Recreation Area, as well as New York's Ellis Island Bridge Proposal and Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park, the authors identify specific ways to promote, maintain, and manage cultural diversity in urban parks. They also uncover the factors that can limit park use, including historical interpretive materials that ignore the contributions of different ethnic groups, high entrance or access fees, park usage rules that restrict ethnic activities, and park "restorations" that focus only on historical or aesthetic values. With the wealth of data in this book, urban planners, park professionals, and all concerned citizens will have the tools to create and maintain public parks that serve the needs and interests of all the public.

Robert B. Textor Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2000Honorable Mention, Victor Turner Award, Society for Humanistic Anthropology, 2001Leeds Prize, Society of Urban, National, and Transnational/Global Anthropology, 2001Friendly gossip, political rallies, outdoor concerts, drugs, shoeshines, and sex-for-sale-almost every aspect of Latin American life has its place and time in the public plaza. In this wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary study, Setha M. Low explores the interplay of space and culture in the plaza, showing how culture acts to shape public spaces and how the physical form of the plaza encodes the social and economic relations within its city. Low centers her study on two plazas in San JosÉ, Costa Rica, with comparisons to public plazas in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. She interweaves ethnography, history, literature, and personal narrative to capture the ambiance and meaning of the plaza. She also uncovers the contradictory ethnohistories of the European and indigenous origins of the Latin American plaza and explains why the plaza is often a politically contested space.

The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture is an unprecedented collection of key anthropological articles that illustrate how the conceptual and material dimensions of space are central to the production of social life. Assembles key anthropological articles that challenge accepted definitions and ideas of space and placeReveals how both the conceptual and material dimensions of space as well as of built forms and landscape characteristics are central to the production of social lifeIncludes introduction that synthesizes existing literature, highlights core issues, and maps potential directions for future researchBrings classics in cultural anthropology together with new theoretical approaches

The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture is an unprecedented collection of key anthropological articles that illustrate how the conceptual and material dimensions of space are central to the production of social life. Assembles key anthropological articles that challenge accepted definitions and ideas of space and placeReveals how both the conceptual and material dimensions of space as well as of built forms and landscape characteristics are central to the production of social lifeIncludes introduction that synthesizes existing literature, highlights core issues, and maps potential directions for future researchBrings classics in cultural anthropology together with new theoretical approaches

This book originates in two symposia held during 1985 at the annual meetings of the Society for Applied Anthropology and the Environmental Design Research Association.

Anthropological perspectives are not often represented in urban studies, even though many anthropologists have been contributing actively to theory and research on urban poverty, racism, globalization, and architecture. The New Urban Anthropology Reader corrects this omission by presenting 12 cross-cultural case studies focusing on the analysis of space and place.

This offers a varied perspective on the popular health/illness category of nerves. Relationships between gender and nerves are investigated in terms of biology and epidemiology, interpersonal and social relations, social construction of gender, affective and symbolic qualities of nerves.