Matching Items (35)
Description
Residential historic preservation occurs through inhabitation. Through day-to-day domesticities a suite of bodily comportments and aesthetic practices are perpetually at work tearing and stitching the historic fabric anew. Such paradoxical practice materializes seemingly incompatible relations between past and present, people and things. Through a playful posture of experience/experiment, this dissertation attends to the materiality of historic habitation vis-à-vis practices and performances in the Coronado historic neighborhood (1907-1942) in Phoenix, Arizona. Characterized by diversity in the built and social environs, Coronado defies preservation's exclusionary tendencies. First, I propose a theoretical frame to account for the amorphous expression of nostalgia, the way it seeps, tugs, and lures `historic' people and things together. I push the argument that everyday nostalgic practice and performance in Coronado gives rise to an aesthetic of pastness that draws attention to what is near, a sensual attunement of care rather than strict adherence to preservation guidelines. Drawing on the institutional legacy of Neighborhood Housing Services, I then rethink residential historic preservation in Coronado as urban bricolage, the aesthetic ordering of urban space through practices of inclusivity, temporal juxtaposition, and the art of everyday living. Finally, I explore the historic practice of home touring in Coronado as demonstrative of urban hospitality, an opening of self and neighborhood toward other bodies, critical in the making of viable, ethical urban communities. These three moments contribute to the body of literature rethinking urbanism as sensual, enchanted, and hospitable.
ContributorsKitson, Jennifer (Author) / McHugh, Kevin (Thesis advisor) / Lukinbeal, Christopher (Committee member) / Bolin, Bob (Committee member) / Klett, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The Holocaust and the effects it has had upon witnesses has been a topic of study for nearly six decades; however, few angles of research have been conducted relating to the long-term effects of the Holocaust upon the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors--the After Generations. The After Generations are considered the proof--the living legacies--that their parents and grandparents survived. Growing up with intimate knowledge of the atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust, members of the After Generations not only carry with them their family's story, but also their own vicarious experience(s) of trauma. From this legacy comes a burden of responsibility to those who perished, their survivor parents/grandparents, the stories that were shared, as well as to future generations. Using grounded theory method, this study not only explores the long-term effects of the Holocaust upon members of the After Generations, but what it means to responsibly remember the stories from the Holocaust, as well as how individuals might ethically represent such stories/memories. Findings that developed out of an axial analysis of interview transcripts and journal writing, as well as the later development of a performance script, are embodied in a manner that allows the actual language and experiences of the participants to be collectively witnessed both symbolically and visually. Through their desire to remember, members of the After Generations demonstrate how they plan to carry on traditions, live lives that honor those that came before them, and maintain hope for the future. In so doing, the stories shared reveal the centrality of the Holocaust in the lives of members of the After Generations through their everyday choices to responsibly and actively remember through their art, writings, life-work, as well as from within their work in their local communities. Such acts of remembrance are important to the education of others as well as to the construction and maintenance of the After Generations' identities. The representation of these voices acts as a reminder of how hatred and its all-consuming characteristics can affect not only the person targeted, but multiple generations, as well.
ContributorsRath, Sandra (Author) / de la Garza, Sarah Amira (Thesis advisor) / Underiner, Tamara (Committee member) / Corey, Frederick C. (Committee member) / Eisenberg, Judith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation employs an ethnographic methodological approach. It explores young people's performance of a New Afrikan subjectivity, their negotiation of a multiple consciousness (American, African-American, New Afrikan and Pan-Afrikan) and the social and cultural implications for rearing children of African descent in the US within a New Afrikan ideology. Young people who are members of the New Afrikan Scouts, attendees of Camp Pumziko and/or students enrolled at Kilombo Academic and Cultural Institute were observed and interviewed. Through interviews young people shared their perceptions and experiences of New Afrikan childhood. The findings of this study discuss the ways in which agency, conformity and the spaces in between are enacted and experienced by New Afrikan children. The findings particularly reveal that in one sense New Afrikan adults aid young people in examining their racial and cultural subjectivity in US America. In another sense New Afrikan adults manipulate young people into performing prescribed roles that are seemingly uncritical of the implications of these performances beyond an adult agenda.
ContributorsSunni-Ali, Asantewa (Author) / Etheridge Woodson, Stephani (Thesis advisor) / Davis, Olga (Committee member) / Saldana, Johnny (Committee member) / Underiner, Tamara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
In this dissertation I use Henri Lefebvre's concept of the production of social space to study how political theatre companies and artists in the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, appropriate and resignify, through performance, their current social space as a strategy to contest Puerto Rico's neoliberal state policies. As Lefebvre suggests, modern industrial cities like San Juan maintain hegemonic power relations through spatial practices, processes through which users and inhabitants of the city conceive, perceive and live space. Lefebvre further suggests that for social justice to be possible, space must be resignified in ways that expose otherwise invisibilized struggles for social belonging and differentiation. I argue that theatrical performance, by staging various social conflicts and contradictions between the dominating space and the appropriating space, can produce new "performance cartographies" through which its audiences – in large part disenfranchised from the neoliberal processes so celebrated elsewhere on the island – may find ways to resignify space or envision new spaces for social justice on their own behalf. Specifically, I examine five theatre groups and artists from oppressed sectors in San Juan, whose work is to various degrees in opposition to neoliberalism, to reveal how both their artistic and quotidian performances might be resignifying space toward these ends. How does the work of Agua, Sol y Sereno, Y no había luz, Teatro Breve, Deborah Hunt and Tito Kayak strategically claim or appropriate space? What kind of knowledges emerge from these spatial tactics, and how are they helping envision new forms of living and social justice in the city?
ContributorsGonzález, Jorge (Author) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Foster, David W (Committee member) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This dissertation explored how immigrants cope with and thrive in old age by utilizing social networks, and the hindrances which may prevent this. Through ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews at two senior centers in Phoenix, Arizona with a high concentration of an ethnic minority group - Asian and Latino, I describe what makes the Asian dominant center more resource abundant than its Latino counterpart given prevalent tight public funding. Both centers have a large number of seniors disenfranchised from mainstream institutions who bond together via similar experiences resulting from shared countries/regions of origin, language, and migration experience. The Asian center, however, is more successful in generating and circulating resources through "bonding" and "bridging" older immigrants who, therefore benefit more from their center affiliation than the Latinos at their center.
The abundance of resources at the Asian center flowing to the social networks of seniors are attributed to three factors: work and volunteer engagement and history, the organization of the center, and individual activities. At both centers seniors bond with each other due to shared ethnicity, language, and migration experience and share information and companionship in the language in which they feel most comfortable. What differentiated the two centers were the presence of several people well connected to individuals, groups, and institutions beyond the affiliated center. The presence of these "bridges" were critical when the centers were faced with budgetary constraints and Arizona was experiencing the effect of ongoing immigration policies. These "bridges" tend to come from shared ethnicity, and better social positions due to cumulative factors which include but are not limited to higher education, professional occupation, and work and volunteer history. I have also presented cases of individuals who, although have developed expertise from past work experiences and individual activities, have limited contribution to the resource flow because of the differences in ethnicity. The study also explored a gendered life course and its impact on the social network for older Asian and Latino immigrants.
The abundance of resources at the Asian center flowing to the social networks of seniors are attributed to three factors: work and volunteer engagement and history, the organization of the center, and individual activities. At both centers seniors bond with each other due to shared ethnicity, language, and migration experience and share information and companionship in the language in which they feel most comfortable. What differentiated the two centers were the presence of several people well connected to individuals, groups, and institutions beyond the affiliated center. The presence of these "bridges" were critical when the centers were faced with budgetary constraints and Arizona was experiencing the effect of ongoing immigration policies. These "bridges" tend to come from shared ethnicity, and better social positions due to cumulative factors which include but are not limited to higher education, professional occupation, and work and volunteer history. I have also presented cases of individuals who, although have developed expertise from past work experiences and individual activities, have limited contribution to the resource flow because of the differences in ethnicity. The study also explored a gendered life course and its impact on the social network for older Asian and Latino immigrants.
ContributorsFukui, Haruna Miyagawa (Author) / Menjivar, Cecilia (Thesis advisor) / Glick, Jennifer E. (Committee member) / McHugh, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The manner in which land and water are used and managed is a major influencing factor of global environmental change. Globally, modifications to the landscape have drastically transformed social and ecological communities. Land and water management practices also influences people's vulnerability to hazards. Other interrelated factors are compounding problems of environmental change as a result of land and water use changes. Such factors include climate change, sea level rise, the frequency and severity of hurricanes, and increased populations in coastal regions. The implication of global climate change for small islands and small island communities is especially troublesome. Socially, small islands have a limited resource base, deal with varying degrees of insularity, generally have little political power, and have limited economic opportunities. The physical attributes of small islands also increase their vulnerability to global climate change, including limited land area, limited fresh water supplies, and greater distances to resources. The focus of this research project is to document place-specific - and in this case island-specific - human-environmental interactions from a political ecology perspective as a means to address local concerns and possible consequences of global environmental change. The place in which these interactions are examined is the barrier island and village of Ocracoke, North Carolina. I focus on the specific historical-geography of land and water management on Ocracoke as a means to examine relationships between local human-environmental interactions and environmental change.
ContributorsPompeii, Brian J (Author) / Bolin, Bob (Thesis advisor) / Boone, Christopher (Committee member) / Lukinbeal, Christopher (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Geography, and the social sciences more broadly, have long operated within what is arguably a paradigm of the visual. Expanding the reach of geographical consideration into the realm of the aural, though in no way leaving behind the visual, opens the discipline to new areas of human and cultural geography invisible in ocular-centric approaches. At its broadest level, my argument in this dissertation is that music can no longer be simply an object of geographical research. Re-conceptualized and re-theorized in a geographical context to take into account its very real, active, and more-than-representational presence in social life, music provides actual routes to geographic knowledge of the world. I start by constructing a theoretical framework and methodological approach for studying music beyond representation. Based on these theoretical and methodological arguments, I present four narratives that unfold at the intersections of race and music in the northeast Brazilian city of Salvador. From the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the troubled neighborhood of the Pelourinho, from the manic tempos of samba to the laid back grooves of samba-reggae, and in the year-round competition between the oppressive forces of ordinary time and the fleeting possibility of carnival, music emerges as a creative societal force with affects and effects far beyond the realm of representation. Together, these narratives exemplify the importance of expanding geographical considerations beyond a strictly visual framework. These narratives contribute to the musicalization of the discipline of geography.
ContributorsFinn, John C (Author) / McHugh, Kevin (Thesis advisor) / Lukinbeal, Christopher (Committee member) / Bolin, Bob (Committee member) / Price, Patricia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Traumas are moments which disrupt a way of being, often involving death or injury and a period of recovery for its survivors. They can be personal, experienced by an individual, or collective, experienced by a group of individuals, such as a family. Others, like the bombing of Hiroshima, impact much larger communities, such as an entire town, an entire nation, or even the world. These national traumas often include large-scale death or injury and impact the lives of thousands. In addition to their immediate physical and material affects (mortalities, economic impact, creating a need for aid), these events shatter not only an individual's sense of well- being, but also larger notions of national identity, stability and security. In many cases, they also reveal the limits of prevailing concepts of national cohesiveness, citizenship and belonging while often simultaneously upholding or reconstructing newly problematic concepts of national cohesion. Traumas are documented and grappled with through various media, including literature, poetry, art, photography, and journalism. This dissertation, "Performing Nation, Performing Trauma: Theatre and Performance after September 11th, Hurricane Katrina and the Peruvian Dirty War" examines how theatre and performance are utilized to respond to, document, memorialize and represent national traumas resulting from such historical crises as the Peruvian Dirty Wars, Hurricane Katrina, and September 11th, as well as how they resist dominant narratives that construct national traumas as such. These traumas are relived and expressed through performance perhaps precisely because the members of a nation (consciously or subconsciously) recognize that nation is also performed. This dissertation focuses on both the content of and the reception of these performances and the particular implications that performances about national traumas hold for theatre critics/scholars, performance practitioners and audience members (those immediately connected and not so obviously connected to the event).
ContributorsNigh, Katherine Jean (Author) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Woodson, Stephani (Committee member) / Whitaker, Matthew C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Drawing from Foucault's notion of heterotopias, my dissertation identifies and examines three distinct but related events that resignified (re-imagined) Chile during 2010, the year of its Bicentenary, namely: the Rescue of the 33 Miners trapped in the San José mine, the Chilean Military Parade performed in celebration of Chilean Independence, and the Mapuche Hunger Strike of 32 indigenous people accused of terrorism by the Chilean State. My central hypothesis states that these three events constitute heterotopias with strong performative components that, by enacting a utopian and a dystopian nation, denounce the flaws of Chilean society. I understand heterotopias as those recursive systems that invert, perfect or contest the society they mirror. In other words: heterotopias are discursive constructions and material manifestations of social relations that dispute, support, or distort cultural assumptions, structures, and practices currently operating in the representational spaces of a given society. In addition to following the six heterotopological principles formulated by Foucault, these case studies have performance as the central constituent that defines their specificity and brings the heterotopias into existence. Due to the performative nature of these heterotopias, I have come to call them performance heterotopias, that is, sets of behaviors that enact utopias in the historical world, the place in which we live, the site in which "the erosion of our lives, our time and our history occurs," as Foucault puts it. Here, performance would act as the interface, the point of interaction, and suture between the conceived, the perceived and the representational spaces each heterotopia articulates. Thus, a performance heterotopia would be a particular type of heterotopia which is enacted through performance. A relevant aspect that emerged from my research is that heterotopic places not only mirror, contest, and compensate their own host society, but also refer to, and intersect with other contemporaneous heterotopias enacted in that society. In my conclusion I suggest that such interactions also happen between heterotopias that emerge in different countries and cultures. If so, the mapping of utopias enacted in the macro socio geographies of Latin American countries could offer new perspectives to understand the sociopolitical processes that are underway in the region.
ContributorsBravo Goldsmith, Néstor (Author) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Melo, Carla (Committee member) / Foster, David W (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The construction of the contemporary Taiwanese child and childhood has been under-researched. It is often understood solely in contrast to a Western context as a mysterious or even exotic existence. However, this understanding differs from what I discovered in my literary reviews, which reveal many similarities - not differences - with respect to the philosophical views of the child and childhood between the so-called "East" and "West." To gain a better understanding of the Taiwanese child and childhood, I chose the annual Taipei Children's Arts Festival (TCAF) as my main research subject and adopted grounded theory and dramatic analysis as my research methods to explore the following question: What are the representations of the Taiwanese child and childhood as reflected by the cultural artifacts of TCAF between 2000 and 2011? TCAF is the largest children's arts festival in Taiwan and theatre for young audiences (TYA) has been its main component. I therefore selected four award winning TCAF plays and their production videos as my main data. Additional data consists of forewords from the programs, which were written by mayors of Taipei City, commissioners of Taipei's Department of Cultural Affairs, and festival organizers. To provide context, I give a brief history of Taiwanese children's theatre before beginning the main analysis. My findings indicate a complex construction of the Taiwanese child and childhood. The central category states that Taiwanese children are constructed as adults' futures. This explains adults' desires to preserve children's positive qualities, and reflects adults' emphasis on learning and teaching, children's agency, and their happiness. Determining one central category/hypothesis proved to be difficult, due to the variety and complexity of my data. Missing categories include concepts of the unconscious child and children's relationships to religion, family, friendships, and gender issues. The distinctions between children and adults are both distinct and ambiguous. Although differences of the East/West binary exist, social constructions of the child and childhood become increasingly similar as the world becomes more fluid. My research highlights a variety of such elements. Future research is still needed, however, in order to broaden and deepen the understanding of the Taiwanese child and childhood.
ContributorsTsai, Yi-ren (Author) / Bedard, Roger (Thesis advisor) / Woodson, Stephani E (Committee member) / Underiner, Tamara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012