Selling EthniCity: Urban Cultural Politics in the Americas

by Olaf Kaltmeier (Editor)

Overview

Bringing together a multidisciplinary team of scholars, this book explores the importance of ethnicity and cultural economy in the post-Fordist city in the Americas. It argues that cultural, political and economic elites make use of cultural and ethnic elements in city planning and architecture in order to construct a unique image of a particular city and demonstrates how the use of ethnicized cultural production - such as urban branding based on local identities - by the economic elite raises issues of considerable concern in terms of local identities, as it deploys a practical logic of capital exchange that can overcome forms of cultural resistance and strengthen the hegemonic colonization of everyday life. At the same time, it shows how ethnic communities are able to use ethnic labelling of cultural production, ethnic economy or ethno-tourism facilities in order to change living conditions and to empower its members in ways previously impossible. Of wide ranging interest across academic disciplines, this book will be a useful contribution to Inter-American studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138268418
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/17/2016
Series:	Heritage, Culture and Identity
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr. Olaf Kaltmeier is Professor for Transnational History of the Americas at Bielefeld University, Germany

Table of Contents

Selling EthniCity: Urban Cultural Politics in the Americas from the Conquest to Contemporary Consumer Societies; I: The Spectacular City and the Performance of Ethnicity; Introduction to Part 1 The Spectacular city and the Performance of Ethnicity; 1: Carnival Redux: Hurricane Katrina, Mardi Gras and Contemporary United States Experience of an Enduring Festival Form; 2: “What Did I Do to Be so Global and Blue?”—Blues as Commodity: Tourism, Politics of Authenticity, and Blues Clubs in Chicago Today; 3: Insurrection and Symbolic Work: Graffiti in Oaxaca (Mexico) 2006/2007 as Subversion and Artistic Politics; 4: Black Day in the White Racism and Violence in City: Sucre; II: The Use of Ethnicity in the Imagineering of Urban Landscapes; Introduction to Part II The Use of Ethnicity in the Imagineering of Urban Landscapes; 5: Urban Landscapes of Mall-ticulturality: (Retro-)Coloniality, Consumption, and Identity Politics: The Case of the San Luis Shopping Center in Quito; 6: Religion and Culture Set in Stone: A Case Study of the Jewish Community Center of Metro Detroit; 7: “Ambiguously Ethnic” in Sherman Alexie's Seattle: Re-Imagining Indigenous Identities in the Twenty-First Century; 8: Against the “Erasure of Memory” in Los Angeles City Planning: Strategies of Re-Ethnicizing LA in Digital Fiction; III: Ethnic Heritage and/or Cultural Commodification in the City; Introduction to Part III Ethnic heritage and/or cultural Commodification in the City; 9: Quito's Historic Center: Heritage of Humanity or of the Market?; 10: “Economically, We Sit on a Cultural Gold Mine”: Commodified Multiculturalism and Identity Politics in New Orleans; 11: Mobilizing Ethnicity: Yucatecan Maya Professionals in Mérida and their Participation in the Cultural and Political Fields; 12: A City of Newcomers: Narratives of Ethnic Diversity in Vancouver; IV: Gentrification and the Politics of Authenticity; Introduction to Part IV Gentrification and the Politics of Authenticity; 13: (Re-)Constructing the Ethnic Neighborhood: Gentrification in the United States and the Longing for a Unique Identity 1; 14: No-Go Areas and Chic Places: Socio-Spatial Segregation and Stigma in Guadalajara; 15: Spaces of Alterity and Temporal Permanence: The Case of San Francisco's and New York's Chinatowns

Editorial Reviews

'Selling EthniCity is a very important contribution to the fledgling field of Inter-American studies. Combining experts from a wide range of disciplines the book offers new insights into the way ethnicity impacts upon urban life in the contemporary Americas. This is a must-read.' Stefan Rinke, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany 'This is an important and original collection that deconstructs urban socio-geographic categories such as gentrification, cultural heritage and ethnic identity. The editor has done an excellent job in choreographing a set of critical re-evaluations of public space, ethnic authenticity and commodification in a globalizing world aided by case studies that cut across the Americas, from the US and Canada to Mexico, Ecuador and Bolivia.' Lawrence A. Herzog, San Diego State University, USA

From the Publisher