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Upriver
by Michael F. BrownIn this remarkable story of one manâe(tm)s encounter with an indigenous people of Peru, Michael Brown guides his readers upriver into a contested zone of the Amazonian frontier, where more than 50,000 Awajúnâe"renowned for their pugnacity and fierce independenceâe"remain determined, against long odds, to live life on their own terms. When Brown took up residence with the Awajún in 1976, he knew little about them other than their ancestorsâe(tm) reputation as fearsome headhunters. The fledgling anthropologist was immediately impressed by his hostsâe(tm) vivacity and resourcefulness. But eventually his investigations led him into darker corners of a world where murderous vendettas, fear of sorcery, and a shocking incidence of suicide were still common. Peruâe(tm)s Shining Path insurgency in the 1980s forced Brown to refocus his work elsewhere. Revisiting his field notes decades later, now with an older manâe(tm)s understanding of lifeâe(tm)s fragility, Brown saw a different story: a tribal society trying, and sometimes failing, to maintain order in the face of an expanding capitalist frontier. Curious about how the Awajún were faring, Brown returned to the site in 2012, where he found a people whose combative self-confidence had led them to the forefront of South Americaâe(tm)s struggle for indigenous rights. Written with insight, sensitivity, and humor, Upriver paints a vivid picture of a rapidly growing population that is refashioning its warrior tradition for the twenty-first century. Embracing literacy and digital technology, the Awajún are using hard-won political savvy to defend their rainforest home and right of self-determination.
Uprooted (Second Edition)
by Khetam Dahi Novia ElvinaIn a simple yet honest and powerful prose, Dahi, through the eyes of a child turning adolescent, narrates the everyday existence of immigrant and working-class families.
Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind
by Grace Olmstead"A superior exploration of the consequences of the hollowing out of our agricultural heartlands."—Kirkus ReviewsIn the tradition of Wendell Berry, a young writer wrestles with what we owe the places we&’ve left behind. In the tiny farm town of Emmett, Idaho, there are two kinds of people: those who leave and those who stay. Those who leave go in search of greener pastures, better jobs, and college. Those who stay are left to contend with thinning communities, punishing government farm policy, and environmental decay. Grace Olmstead, now a journalist in Washington, DC, is one who left, and in Uprooted, she examines the heartbreaking consequences of uprooting—for Emmett, and for the greater heartland America. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Uprooted wrestles with the questions of what we owe the places we come from and what we are willing to sacrifice for profit and progress. As part of her own quest to decide whether or not to return to her roots, Olmstead revisits the stories of those who, like her great-grandparents and grandparents, made Emmett a strong community and her childhood idyllic. She looks at the stark realities of farming life today, identifying the government policies and big agriculture practices that make it almost impossible for such towns to survive. And she explores the ranks of Emmett&’s newcomers and what growth means for the area&’s farming tradition. Avoiding both sentimental devotion to the past and blind faith in progress, Olmstead uncovers ways modern life attacks all of our roots, both metaphorical and literal. She brings readers face to face with the damage and brain drain left in the wake of our pursuit of self-improvement, economic opportunity, and so-called growth. Ultimately, she comes to an uneasy conclusion for herself: one can cultivate habits and practices that promote rootedness wherever one may be, but: some things, once lost, cannot be recovered.
Uprooting Bias in the Academy: Lessons from the Field
by Laura Grindstaff Linda F. Bisson Lisceth Brazil-Cruz Sophie J. BarbuThis open access book analyzes barriers to inclusion in academia and details ways to create a more diverse, inclusive environment. It describes the implementation of UC Davis ADVANCE, a grant program funded by the National Science Foundation, to increase the hiring and retention of underrepresented scholars in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and foster a culture of inclusion for all faculty. It first describes what the barriers to inclusion are and how they function within the broader society. A key focus here is the concept of implicit bias: what it is, how it develops, and the importance of training organizational members to recognize and challenge it. It then discusses the limitations of data collection that is guided by the convention assumption that being diverse automatically means being inclusive. Lastly, it highlights the importance of creating a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and institution-wide vision of an inclusive community.
Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City
by Richard E. OcejoOnce known for slum-like conditions in its immigrant and working-class neighborhoods, New York City's downtown now features luxury housing, chic boutiques and hotels, and, most notably, a vibrant nightlife culture. While a burgeoning bar scene can be viewed as a positive sign of urban transformation, tensions lurk beneath, reflecting the social conflicts within postindustrial cities. Upscaling Downtown examines the perspectives and actions of disparate social groups who have been affected by or played a role in the nightlife of the Lower East Side, East Village, and Bowery. Using the social world of bars as windows into understanding urban development, Richard Ocejo argues that the gentrifying neighborhoods of postindustrial cities are increasingly influenced by upscale commercial projects, causing significant conflicts for the people involved.Ocejo explores what community institutions, such as neighborhood bars, gain or lose amid gentrification. He considers why residents continue unsuccessfully to protest the arrival of new bars, how new bar owners produce a nightlife culture that attracts visitors rather than locals, and how government actors, including elected officials and the police, regulate and encourage nightlife culture. By focusing on commercial newcomers and the residents who protest local changes, Ocejo illustrates the contested and dynamic process of neighborhood growth.Delving into the social ecosystem of one emblematic section of Manhattan, Upscaling Downtown sheds fresh light on the tensions and consequences of urban progress.
Upsetting Food: Three Eras of Food Protests in the United States
by Jeffrey HayduBattle lines have long been drawn over how food is produced, what food is made available to whom, and how best to protect consumers from risky or unhealthy food. Jeffrey Haydu resurrects the history of food reform and protest in Upsetting Food, showing how activists defined food problems, articulated solutions, and mobilized for change in the United States. Haydu’s sociological history starts in the 1830s with diet reformer Sylvester Graham, who blamed alcohol and store-bought bread—signs of a commercializing urban society—for poor health and moral decline. His successors at the turn of the twentieth century rallied against impure food and pushed for women to be schooled in scientific food preparation and nutrition. Decades later, in the 1960s and ’70s, a grassroots movement for organic food battled commercial food production in favor of food grown ecologically, by small farmers, and without artificial chemicals. Each campaign raised doubts about food safety, health, and transparency, reflecting how a capitalist system can undermine trust in food. But Haydu also considers how each movement reflects the politics, inequalities, and gender relations of its time. And he traces how outcomes of each campaign laid the groundwork for the next. The three eras thus come together as parts of a single, recurring food movement. Upsetting Food offers readers a historical background to better understand contemporary and contentious food politics.
Upside Down: Madness, Murder, and the Perfect Marriage
by Jerid M. FisherTimothy Wells and Christine Sevilla's love was inspiring. Married for almost twenty years, the husband and wife passionately adored each other. Friends, family, and acquaintances all wished to have a relationship as solid as that of Tim and Christine. There was no sign that their marriage was anything less than ideal-until the day Wells brutally murdered his wife.This deep, disturbing exploration of the psyche of Timothy Wells is not a whodunit but a "whydunit." Written with Wells's cooperation, this riveting account thoroughly presents the circumstances leading up to Sevilla's murder. It features interviews and letters from the Wells and Sevilla families as well as testimony from friends, neighbors, and ex-spouses. Trapped inside his own mind, Wells' emotional insecurities left him with no escape from his severe depression and swiftly multiplying anxieties. In chilling detail, this true narrative traces the path of a man doomed by his own inner demons.
Upside: Profiting from the Profound Demographic Shifts Ahead
by Kenneth Gronbach M.J. MoyeDemographics not only define who we are, where we live, and how our numbers change, but they open up hidden business opportunities that lie ahead.What will happen when retiring Boomers free up jobs? How will Generation Y alter housing and transportation? Which states will have the most dynamic workforces when the Millennials settle into their careers? The next generational wave is shaking up the rank and file. How will it all affect you?Demographer Kenneth Gronbach has put this powerful yet little-understood science to work finding the answers to all these questions and more. After synthesizing data to show how the different generations have impacted and will continue to impact markets and economies, Gronbach has provided you the lively and certainly surprising answers.In Upside, you will find out:What each age cohort is likely to buy both now and in the futureWhat sectors are likely to grow or lagHow profits dovetail with consumer numbersHow to make sense of the numbers to chart your own pathWhether you are an investor, marketer executive, or entrepreneur, the comprehensive data and findings in Upside will help you target promising trends, spot the potential for profits, and discover hidden business opportunities you would not have found previously.
Upsold: Real Estate Agents, Prices, and Neighborhood Inequality
by Max BesbrisWhat do you want for yourself in the next five, ten years? Do your plans involve marriage, kids, a new job? These are the questions a real estate agent might ask in an attempt to unearth information they can employ to complete a sale, which as Upsold shows, often results in upselling. In this book, sociologist Max Besbris shows how agents successfully upsell, inducing buyers to spend more than their initially stated price ceilings. His research reveals how face-to-face interactions influence buyers’ ideas about which neighborhoods are desirable and which are less-worthy investments and how these preferences ultimately contribute to neighborhood inequality. ? Stratification defines cities in the contemporary United States. In an era marked by increasing income segregation, one of the main sources of this inequality is housing prices. A crucial part of wealth inequality, housing prices are also directly linked to the uneven distribution of resources across neighborhoods and to racial and ethnic segregation. Upsold shows how the interactions between real estate agents and buyers make or break neighborhood reputations and construct neighborhoods by price. Employing revealing ethnographic and quantitative housing data, Besbris outlines precisely how social influences come together during the sales process. In Upsold, we get a deep dive into the role that the interactions with sales agents play in buyers’ decision-making and how neighborhoods are differentiated, valorized, and deemed to be worthy of a certain price.
Upstanding: How Company Character Catalyzes Loyalty, Agility, and Hypergrowth
by Frank A. CalderoniThe CEO of Anaplan explains how a company’s character is a critical driver of sustained success In his career as an executive at IBM, Cisco, and now as CEO of Anaplan, Frank A. Calderoni discovered that character is just as vital for companies as it is for individuals. In Upstanding: How Company Character Catalyzes Loyalty, Agility, and Hypergrowth, the author explores the powerful link between corporate strategy, company culture, and individual character, and how activating this link is essential to realizing strong company character—and an essential ingredient for organizations to achieve hypergrowth, agility, and loyalty. This innovative resource features real-life examples of how today’s most successful companies are building upstanding character while increasing employee engagement, happiness, and performance. The book is written to help executives, company founders, managers, and other leaders develop strategies that supercharge organizational performance while building a strong and high-engagement culture—providing real-world insights from the author’s own career along with a diverse cross-section of business thought leaders and CEOs of companies both small and large, local and global. The author draws upon his experience leading a $10 billion hypergrowth software company to explain how the fusion of culture and strategy, driven by a company’s character, leads to sustained internal and external success. Designed to empower leaders to make character the cornerstone of corporate culture, this invaluable resource: Explores what “upstanding character” means for an organization, and how building a culture based on empathy, courage, authenticity, integrity, respect, and other factors drives higher performance and value creation for employees, customers, partners, and shareholders Reviews research on how culture drives performance, and operational practices for building upstanding organizational character and driving value-aligned behavior Features original interviews with Shantanu Narayen, Cy Wakeman, Eric Hutcherson, Kellie McElhaney, Geoffrey Moore, and other leaders inside and outside the tech sector Provides practical tools and approaches for increasing inclusion and belonging, improving communication, strengthening engagement, and rewarding upstanding character in employees Discusses the “Big 9” cultural values that are essential to creating upstanding company character, such as agility, collaboration, diversity, integrity, and respect With a foreword by Shantanu Narayen, Chairman and CEO of Adobe, Upstanding: How Company Character Catalyzes Loyalty, Agility, and Growth is essential reading for executives and business leaders interested in strategy, leadership, organizational culture, and management innovation, as well as leadership teams and HR professionals who are responsible for guiding their organization’s culture and developing its character.
Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen
by Dan HeathWall Street Journal Bestseller New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath explores how to prevent problems before they happen, drawing on insights from hundreds of interviews with unconventional problem solvers.So often in life, we get stuck in a cycle of response. We put out fires. We deal with emergencies. We stay downstream, handling one problem after another, but we never make our way upstream to fix the systems that caused the problems. Cops chase robbers, doctors treat patients with chronic illnesses, and call-center reps address customer complaints. But many crimes, chronic illnesses, and customer complaints are preventable. So why do our efforts skew so heavily toward reaction rather than prevention? Upstream probes the psychological forces that push us downstream—including &“problem blindness,&” which can leave us oblivious to serious problems in our midst. And Heath introduces us to the thinkers who have overcome these obstacles and scored massive victories by switching to an upstream mindset. One online travel website prevented twenty million customer service calls every year by making some simple tweaks to its booking system. A major urban school district cut its dropout rate in half after it figured out that it could predict which students would drop out—as early as the ninth grade. A European nation almost eliminated teenage alcohol and drug abuse by deliberately changing the nation&’s culture. And one EMS system accelerated the emergency-response time of its ambulances by using data to predict where 911 calls would emerge—and forward-deploying its ambulances to stand by in those areas. Upstream delivers practical solutions for preventing problems rather than reacting to them. How many problems in our lives and in society are we tolerating simply because we&’ve forgotten that we can fix them?
Urban Activism in Western Europe from the 1950s to the 1980s (Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements)
by Christian Wicke Tim VerlaanBringing together contributions from social, political, and urban historians, this collection examines social movements in Western European cities from the 1950s to the 1980s. Since their post-war recovery and reconstruction, cities in this part of the world underwent far-reaching societal transitions such as deindustrialisation and the rise of the service economy, the expansion and decline of local welfare regimes, suburbanisation and urban redevelopment, and the democratisation of urban politics. Indeed, the sources for urban activism have been manifold and the rehistoricization of this era through an urban lens is therefore valuable. The authors of this volume seek to provide a comprehensive and multifaceted understanding of how structural socio-economic, political, and cultural changes; ideological shifts; and urban spaces were intertwined in various place-dependent ways. By doing so, they offer fresh comparative and conceptual perspectives on urban activism. The book focuses on the ‘long 1970s’ – a structural break in time across the industrial West, which corresponded with the emergence of new social movements and an urban crisis that left a wasteland of abandoned factories, dilapidated workers’ housing, and stalling redevelopment schemes in its wake. Addressing how the post-industrial revolution socially, ideologically, and physically manifested itself in the urban environment, this book provides useful insights for colleagues in the fields of urban history, social history, political history, and social movement studies.
Urban Agriculture for Improving the Quality of Life: Examples from Bulgaria (Urban Agriculture)
by Dona PickardThis book presents the findings of a multidisciplinary study on the effects of urban agriculture (UA) on the social, economic and environmental aspects of the quality of life in Sofia - the capital of Bulgaria. The analyses are based on a sociological survey representative of 3 districts of Sofia (among 750 people), in-depth interviews, focus groups, expert statements, ecological monitoring of UA sites, and spatial mapping of natural resources for UA. It also focuses on UA effects on the social well-being of citizens and communities, the correlation between social capital and UA attitudes, the challenges for UA to integrate disadvantaged social groups, the factors for success of small UA businesses, as well as the role of policy and civil society in developing UA. This work is also important for the analysis of the underlying links between all aspects of urban agriculture, many of which are valid beyond the local socio-economic context and environmental specifics of the city of Sofia.
Urban Agriculture in Public Space: Planning and Designing for Human Flourishing in Northern European Cities and Beyond (GeoJournal Library #132)
by Deni Ruggeri Beata SirowyThis open access book discusses urban agriculture initiatives integrated in public space of dense inner-city neighbourhoods, thereby ensuring its accessibility for large and diverse segments of urban populations. It specifically focuses on the potential impacts of urban agriculture on human well-being (both on individual and community levels), and how planning, design, policy and management practices can maximize these impacts. The book addresses urban agriculture on both a micro and macro scale to facilitate a transition to more sustainable lifestyles and enhance the quality of urban life. It also discusses ways to permanently integrate urban agriculture in existing and planned public spaces in a visually attractive, socially inclusive, and democratic manner to claim and reclaim the right to the city. Based on the research outcomes of the project “Cultivating Public Space: urban agriculture as a basis for human flourishing and sustainability transition in Norwegian cities” funded by the Research Council of Norway, the book emerges from a Norwegian context, but extends to include international urban agriculture cases from the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and more. By including a diversity of voices and cultural perspectives, the editors aimed to make this book engaging and relevant to an international audience of researchers, policy makers, urban designers, planners, educators, community activists, residents, and public space users of the sustainable, compact city of today and the future.
Urban Agroecology: Interdisciplinary Research and Future Directions (Advances in Agroecology #23)
by Monika Egerer Hamutahl CohenToday, 20 percent of the global food supply relies on urban agriculture: social-ecological systems shaped by both human and non-human interactions. This book shows how urban agroecologists measure flora and fauna that underpin the ecological dynamics of these systems, and how people manage and benefit from these systems. It explains how the sociopolitical landscape in which these systems are embedded can in turn shape the social, ecological, political, and economic dynamics within them. Synthesizing interdisciplinary approaches in urban agroecology in the natural and social sciences, the book explores methodologies and new directions in research that can be adopted by scholars and practitioners alike. With contributions from researchers utilizing both social and natural science approaches, Urban Agroecology describes the current social-environmental understandings of the science, the movement and the practices in urban agroecology. By investigating the role of agroecology in cities, the book calls for the creation of spaces for food to be sustainably grown in urban spaces: an Urban Agriculture (UA) movement. Essential reading for graduate students, practitioners, policy makers and researchers, this book charts the course for accelerating this movement.
Urban Analytics with Social Media Data: Foundations, Applications and Platforms
by Tan Yigitcanlar Nayomi KankanamgeThe use of data science and urban analytics has become a defining feature of smart cities. This timely book is a clear guide to the use of social media data for urban analytics. The book presents the foundations of urban analytics with social media data, along with real-world applications and insights on the platforms we use today. It looks at social media analytics platforms, cyberphysical data analytics platforms, crowd detection platforms, City-as-a-Platform, and city-as-a-sensor for platform urbanism. The book provides examples to illustrate how we apply and analyse social media data to determine disaster severity, assist authorities with pandemic policy, and capture public perception of smart cities. This will be a useful reference for those involved with and researching social, data, and urban analytics and informatics.
Urban And Regional Analysis For Development Planning
by Richard RhodaDr. Rhoda concisely presents the wide range of analytical methods available to urban and regional development planners. Focusing on the needs of the practitioner, in each chapter he concentrates on a particular analytical issue, describing several types of relevant analyses and offering guidelines for selecting appropriate techniques to solve speci
Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies (Questioning Cities)
by Thomas Bender Ignacio FaríasThis book takes it as a given that the city is made of multiple partially localized assemblages built of heterogeneous networks, spaces, and practices. The past century of urban studies has focused on various aspects—space, culture, politics, economy—but these too often address each domain and the city itself as a bounded and cohesive entity. The multiple and overlapping enactments that constitute urban life require a commensurate method of analysis that encompasses the human and non-human aspects of cities—from nature to socio-technical networks, to hybrid collectivities, physical artefacts and historical legacies, and the virtual or imagined city. This book proposes—and its various chapters offer demonstrations—importing into urban studies a body of theories, concepts, and perspectives developed in the field of science and technology studies (STS) and, more specifically, Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The essays examine artefacts, technical systems, architectures, place and eventful spaces, the persistence of history, imaginary and virtual elements of city life, and the politics and ethical challenges of a mode of analysis that incorporates multiple actors as hybrid chains of causation. The chapters are attentive to the multiple scales of both the object of analysis and the analysis itself. The aim is more ambitious than the mere transfer of a fashionable template. The authors embrace ANT critically, as much as a metaphor as a method of analysis, deploying it to think with, to ask new questions, to find the language to achieve more compelling descriptions of city life and of urban transformations. By greatly extending the chain or network of causation, proliferating heterogeneous agents, non-human as well as human, without limit as to their enrolment in urban assemblages, Actor-Network Theory offers a way of addressing the particular complexity and openness characteristic of cities. By enabling an escape from the reification of the city so common in social theory, ANT’s notion of hybrid assemblages offers richer framing of the reality of the city—of urban experience—that is responsive to contingency and complexity. Therefore Urban Assemblages is a pertinent book for students, practitioners and scholars as it aims to shift the parameters of urban studies and contribute a meaningful argument for the urban arena which will dominate the coming decades in government policies.
Urban Australia and Post-Punk: Exploring Dogs in Space
by David Nichols Sophie PerilloRichard Lowenstein’s 1986 masterpiece Dogs in Space was and remains controversial, divisive, compelling and inspirational. Made less than a decade after the events it is based on, using many of the people involved in those events as actors, the film explored Melbourne’s ‘postpunk’ counterculture of share houses, drugs and decadence. Amongst its ensemble cast was Michael Hutchence, one of the biggest music stars of the period, in his acting debut. This book is a collection of essays exploring the place, period and legacy of Dogs in Space, by people who were there or who have been affected by this remarkable film. The writers are musicians, actors and artists and also academics in heritage, history, urban planning, gender studies, geography, performance and music. This is an invaluable resource for anyone passionate about Australian film, society, culture, history, heritage, music and art.
Urban Avant-Gardes: Art, Architecture and Change
by Malcolm MilesUrban Avant-Gardes presents original research on a range of recent contemporary practices in and between art and architecture giving perspectives from a wide range of disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences that are seldom juxtaposed, it questions many assumptions and accepted positions. This book looks back to past avant-gardes from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries examining the theoretical and critical terrain around avant-garde cultural interventions, and profiles a range of contemporary cases of radical cultural practices. The author brings together material from a wide range of disciplines to argue for cultural intervention as a means to radical change, while recognizing that most such efforts in the past have not delivered the dreams of their perpetrators. Distinctive in that it places works of the imagination in the political and cultural context of environmentalism, this book asks how cultural work might contribute to radical social change. It is equally concerned with theory and practice - part one providing a theoretical framework and part two illustrating such frameworks with examples.
Urban Awakenings: Disturbance and Enchantment in the Industrial City
by Samuel Alexander Brendan GleesonThis book presents a series of urban investigations undertaken in the metropolis of Melbourne. It is based on the idea that ‘enchantment’ as an affective state is important to ethical and political engagement. Alexander and Gleeson argue that a sense of enchantment can give people the impulse to care and engage in an increasingly troubled world, whereas disenchantment can lead to resignation. Applying and extending this theory to the urban landscape, the authors walk their home city with eyes open to the possibility of seeing and experiencing the industrial city in different ways. This unique methodology, described as ‘urban tramping’, positions the authors as freethinking freewalkers of the city, encumbered only with the duty to look through the delusions of industrial capitalism towards its troubled, contradictory soul. These urban investigations were disrupted midway by COVID-19, a plague that ended up confirming the book’s central thesis of a fractured modernity vulnerable to various internal contradictions.
Urban Biodiversity: From Research to Practice (Routledge Studies in Urban Ecology)
by Alessandro Ossola Jari NiemeläUrban biodiversity is an increasingly popular topic among researchers. Worldwide, thousands of research projects are unravelling how urbanisation impacts the biodiversity of cities and towns, as well as its benefits for people and the environment through ecosystem services. Exciting scientific discoveries are made on a daily basis. However, researchers often lack time and opportunity to communicate these findings to the community and those in charge of managing, planning and designing for urban biodiversity. On the other hand, urban practitioners frequently ask researchers for more comprehensible information and actionable tools to guide their actions. This book is designed to fill this cultural and communicative gap by discussing a selection of topics related to urban biodiversity, as well as its benefits for people and the urban environment. It provides an interdisciplinary overview of scientifically grounded knowledge vital for current and future practitioners in charge of urban biodiversity management, its conservation and integration into urban planning. Topics covered include pests and invasive species, rewilding habitats, the contribution of a diverse urban agriculture to food production, implications for human well-being, and how to engage the public with urban conservation strategies. For the first time, world-leading researchers from five continents convene to offer a global interdisciplinary perspective on urban biodiversity narrated with a simple but rigorous language. This book synthesizes research at a level suitable for both students and professionals working in nature conservation and urban planning and management.
Urban Blues
by Charles KeilCharles Keil examines the expressive role of blues bands and performers and stresses the intense interaction between performer and audience. Profiling bluesmen Bobby Bland and B. B. King, Keil argues that they are symbols for the black community, embodying important attitudes and roles—success, strong egos, and close ties to the community. While writing Urban Blues in the mid-1960s, Keil optimistically saw this cultural expression as contributing to the rising tide of raised political consciousness in Afro-America. His new Afterword examines black music in the context of capitalism and black culture in the context of worldwide trends toward diversification. "Enlightening. . . . [Keil] has given a provocative indication of the role of the blues singer as a focal point of ghetto community expression."—John S. Wilson, New York Times Book Review"A terribly valuable book and a powerful one. . . . Keil is an original thinker and . . . has offered us a major breakthrough."—Studs Terkel, Chicago Tribune "[Urban Blues] expresses authentic concern for people who are coming to realize that their past was . . . the source of meaningful cultural values."—Atlantic "An achievement of the first magnitude. . . . He opens our eyes and introduces a world of amazingly complex musical happening."—Robert Farris Thompson, Ethnomusicology "[Keil's] vigorous, aggressive scholarship, lucid style and sparkling analysis stimulate the challenge. Valuable insights come from treating urban blues as artistic communication."—James A. Bonar, Boston Herald
Urban Challenges in the Globalizing Middle-East: Social Value of Public Spaces (The Urban Book Series)
by Simona Azzali Silvia Mazzetto Attilio PetruccioliThis publication aims to investigate the nature of social life in public and urban spaces in the cities of the Middle East, considering the value of environmental approaches. It aims to develop a better understanding of the patterns of social interactions and activities in public places, which have been influenced by cultural heritage values.Sustainable and livable open spaces can help in improving living conditions in cities. Public spaces are relevant as they satisfy many human needs. In public spaces, people interact and meet; people with different cultures and social backgrounds can communicate and learn from each other in social and spontaneous ways. However, decision-makers tend to forget the value of public spaces, especially in the absence of a national regulatory framework in emerging globalized cities.The book provides a multi-disciplinary approach in reading the characteristics and values of public spaces in the emerging cities of the Middle East.
Urban Change and Citizenship in Times of Crisis: Figurations of Conflict and Resistance
by Jürgen Mackert Gregor Fitzi Hannah Wolf Bryan TurnerAt times of triumphant neo-liberalism cities increasingly become objects of financial speculation. Formally, social and political rights might not be abolished, yet factually they have become inaccessible for large parts of the population. The contributions gathered in this volume shed light on the clash between the perspectives of restructuring and reordering urban environments in the interest of investors and the manifold and innovative agencies of resistance that claim and stand up for the rights of urban citizenship. Renewed waves of urban transformation employ state coercion to foster the expulsion of poor and marginalised inhabitants from those urban spaces that attract interest from speculators. The intervention of state agencies triggers the work of hegemonic culture for reframing the housing issue and implementing moral and political legitimation, as well as legislation that restricts urban citizenship rights. The case studies of the volume comparatively show the different and sometimes contradictory patterns of these conflicts in Berlin, Sydney, Belfast, Jerusalem, Amsterdam, and İstanbul as well as in metropoles of Latin America and China. Innovative resistance agencies emerge that paint possible paths for the re-establishment of the right to the city as the core of urban citizenship.