Each year the editors, copyeditors and others involved in City & Society select the top articles from the year. The article that receives the most votes is given the Best Paper Prize. This award is always announced at the SUNTA Business Meeting at the American Anthropological Association (AAA) Meeting and the recipient is given $100.00 and a plaque. City & Society wants to thank SUNTA for supporting this award that was initiated in 2016.
2019 WINNER: DR. CAMILLE FRAZIER (CLARKSON UNIVERSITY)
"URBAN HEAT: RISING TEMPERATURES AS CRITIQUE IN INDIA'S AIR-CONDITIONED CITY"
(CITY & SOCIETY, Early View)
"URBAN HEAT: RISING TEMPERATURES AS CRITIQUE IN INDIA'S AIR-CONDITIONED CITY"
(CITY & SOCIETY, Early View)
INTERVIEW (AUDIO)
BY DR. ALEX JONG-SEOK LEE (MEDIA STRATEGIST, CITY & SOCIETY) AT THE AAA ANNUAL MEETING IN VANCOUVER, BC ON NOV. 22, 2019
BY DR. ALEX JONG-SEOK LEE (MEDIA STRATEGIST, CITY & SOCIETY) AT THE AAA ANNUAL MEETING IN VANCOUVER, BC ON NOV. 22, 2019
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INTERVIEW (TRANSCRIPT)
Dr. Alex Jong-Seok Lee [AL]: So, first of all, congratulations. And thank you for meeting me, Camille. Dr. Camille Frazier [CF]: Thank you. AL: Do you mind telling me and all the other City & Society readers about yourself? CF: Yeah, so I’m Camille Frazier. I’m assistant professor of anthropology at Clarkson University in northern New York. This will be my second year there. My PhD is from UCLA just two years, I guess, a year ago, a year and a half—I’m losing track of time already. And my dissertation is based in Bangalore, which this article is about. It’s actually a little bit different than this piece. It focused more on food supply networks and processes of urbanization and how that’s changing peri-urban farmers in relationships with urban consumers and anxieties and aspirations around that process. So, that’s generally… I’m working on the book now. Yeah. AL: Great. Was this something that you’ve actually included in your dissertation or just something that, kind of, you really just wanted to talk about on the side? Or you wanted to produce it as an article? CF: It’s more the latter, so it was very relevant for the work I did and actually gives really good background to the city itself. But the conversations about the rising heat in the city was something that just came up so often. I felt like I had to write about it. And it does have to do with broader environmental concerns about the livability of the city, which is going to be the central problematic of the book I’m working on. But primarily, I’m looking at livability through foods. So, this is livability through weather. So, it’s related but actually something that I just really wanted to say something about but it didn’t fit into the book quite as nicely as it maybe could. So, that’s why I wrote this article. AL: That’s great. How are defining livability? That’s fascinating. CF: Well, I’m figuring it out (laughs) because it wasn’t… this is sort of a new way that I’m going with: book as opposed to the dissertation. But I’m thinking about different definitions of livability. So, in Bangalore there’s a lot of questions right now about will the city die?.. AL: You mentioned comfort a lot… CF: Yeah. Comfort. So, there’s a lot of interest. There’s a lot of, sort of, excitement around the changing food culture of Bangalore. It’s an international city. You can get food from all different parts of the world. You can eat foods even there that you can’t eat in other parts of India. Beef is not banned there, for example. But there’s also sort of anxiety about what negative effects that has—ecological, ethical. So, I’m sort of interested in different definitions of livability and then the, sort of… and within the same person you can have the same excitement about Bangalore as global city and a sense of anxiety about what that means for changing food cultures. Anxiety about worsening food quality. Anxiety about the future of farming, where food will come from. So, that’s sort of the different ways I’m trying to think about it. AL: That’s great. So, why City & Society? CF: Well, it seems a very fitting place to put this, mainly because the journal has a lot of interesting articles related to urban life, to changing urban spaces. So… and this article actually was started as a much shorter paper that I wrote for (oh gosh, how many years has it been?) probably four, three or four years ago. I wrote it for a conference and then submitted it as the graduate student paper prize to SUNTA and won that (laughs). AL: Congrats by the way. Quite a streak you got going! CF: So, at that point, that’s when I learned about SUNTA. That’s when I learned a lot more about City & Society. And then after following that and following the journal I decided that it would be a good home for this piece. So, that’s where I submitted it. It actually took me a long time to get through revisions and all that stuff. But it was a great process working with Sheri and Derek, the editors. And I’m really happy with where it ended up. AL: Yeah, that’s great. It’s a great piece. CF: Thank you. AL: Your welcome. Are there any particular theoretical perspectives—I know you’re looking at scholars, you talked about urban policy—is there any one or two that you’d really like to foreground, that you really like? CF: Well, for this particular piece I thought it was nice to think about weather talk, which is sort of a conversation that people are having. There’s sort of a mini-group whose kind of interested in weather as a thematic force. So, that was very interesting for me to engage with. But, more broadly, just conversations around what counts as climate change and changing climate change narratives. So, I was really interested in how in Bangalore climate change on a global level is definitely something people talk about. Like it’s not as if that's not unknown. It’s very much part of the conversation. But the way that people talk about Bangalore’s rising temperature, in particular, they highlight what’s been going on in the city, specifically, and those processes of urban development’s relationship to the changing local climate. So, I was sort of interested in how can we think about climate narratives and climate change narratives that allow for a much more sort of local version of events that doesn’t say, “There’s nothing about global climate change here” but that tells the story a bit differently. So, I was also engaging with a much broader conversation about telling climate narratives. AL: Sure, you focus on kind of the visceral, sensorial ways in which people understand and talk about… CF: Mmm hmm, and how you experience the city. So, I do talk about urban embodiment and things like that, as well. AL: This is sort of not prepared but, sweat. This sort of thing. Did they kind of talk about how… CF: (laughs) Yeah. AL: And if you don’t mind me asking your own position within it, when I was reading it I was wondering, your own personal responses to the heat. CF: That’s a good question. AL: Part of me was wondering, was it really that hot? Was it really that cool in the past? Just your thoughts on that. CF: My thoughts on it. Well, you know, I have a relatively recent relationship to Bangalore. So, the very first time I ever visited was very brief and it was 2007. So, I haven’t seen the Bangalore of yore, if that makes sense. But, I can say that as someone coming from Los Angeles when I was doing my fieldwork it felt pretty comparable honestly in terms of the hottest heat—it’s pretty darn hot—but it’s not the kind of heat that you expect in other parts of India. So, it really actually is a really pleasant place to be. And in the cooler months it’s definitely never cold. But people bundle up. They put wool hats on their kids. I mean there is a sense that this is not as hot of a place and not as humid of a place as other parts of India. That being said it is not very comfortable or easy to navigate the city today largely because of other issues. So, I do touch on them in the article. It’s like relative heat combined with the exhaust fumes of traffic make that heat feel way worse honestly. It’s stifling. I think it’s stifling in a way that the city might not have been previously even if the temperatures had been relatively comparable. Although there is sort of evidence of falling temperatures across time and seeing a general rising trend. But, I think, honestly, it’s a mixture of the built environment changing the really clogged streets. Just really the sense that this is a crowded place and that that changes your experience. I mean you get headaches sort of (laughs) whenever you go out and ride an auto rickshaw between the heat and just the smell of traffic. It’s a lot. AL: Interesting. A little bit more into the actual article, I liked how you kind of unpacked the idea of “middle class.” But one question I did have was, unless I’m mistaken, I don’t recall too much description of the actual occupations that they did? I was curious as far as did that or any other identity categories have any influence on these critiques, complaints? CF: People’s experiences… AL: In your opinion, yeah. CF: I mean that’s a really good question. I think part of what I wanted to capture in the article was how widespread this conversation was. So, I do mention that… I mean you'd talk about how heat from anyone from the auto rickshaw driver who honestly has one of the worst experiences of it (probably also construction—where there’s sort of jobs that put you in that in ways that). So, everyone talks about it. But what I’d say is that there is… I was trying to highlight that within the middle-class narrative, which is where most of my interlocutors in urban space were very much middle class and then sort of upper middle class. And with them it really kind of ran the gamut. But part of it was that there was a distinguishing between people who had been in Bangalore before, this sort of like old middle class, which was largely government sector. It was sort of people who worked at university. It was sort of this other version of middle-class life in the city bumping up against more recent newcomers to the city who also would complain about the heat. But there was a sense that you should have been there for at least some period of time before you really got that justification to complain. And it really was sort a way of distinguishing, in some ways, a profession or relationship with the city. That being said, really everyone talked about it. So, when I’m using… I’m trying to in this article, I’m not trying unpacking—as you say—middle class in terms of profession but I’m thinking more about like lifestyle in the city and how… AL: How widespread this is… CF: And part of that… yeah… and how part of that lifestyle also is dependent on your claims to history to the city. And that gets embedded in the stories of temporal change. AL: Right, that’s a great point. On that note of like the complaint—culture, if you will—I liked how you opened with Deepa and then you end with her and she's... CF: Who was a professor. AL: Oh. CF: So, that’s kind of an example of the old middle-class. AL: Sure. Correct if I’m wrong but there’s sort of this more hopeful take at the end as far as the analyst of, “Oh, well, maybe it will be a galvanizing force.” But I wonder if among your own respondents, did they also, were there any that talked like that themselves. Or was it mostly just this complaint that, people were quite cynical like Deepa? CF: Yeah, that is a very good question. So, I think generally people are pretty cynical about the direction that Bangalore is going. And, again, these are people who feel a loss. They feel a nostalgia for a city that came before. AL: Sure, which gets to my next question, great. CF: Yeah, So, I think that there’s definitely like aspiration. There’s definitely a sense of real hope in the city. And honestly it was surprising to me. Coming from the U.S. where I feel a sense of decline generally. Like that is often the kind of narrative of the U.S. at the moment. If you go to Bangalore that’s not the narrative. The narrative is like, “startups and entrepreneurship!” And this real energy around what Bangalore will be. It’s a global city. But within even closely underneath that narrative there is that narrative, “But what’s going to happen to our city?” And that’s where the questions of livability also come front and foremost. Okay, so the city is changing in ways that are exciting but what do you lose. Is this city going to eat itself up? Pretty much, that’s part of the conversation. AL: Sure. I see. CF: So, I would say that there is a lot of hopeful narratives about what Bangalore can be but there’s also a lot people who feel like they have to stem the tide. And we might be getting to a point where, the point of no return. And so, people are also quite pessimistic about it, as well. AL: That's so interesting. CF: Yeah, depending on who they are. AL: Right. So, it’s always that kind of tension, anxiety. CF: I think so. And I think that’s just part of change, urban change. AL: Sure, absolutely, expressed in the language of the surroundings, the weather… CF: Around food. And that’s what my book is going to look at how food becomes an expression of that. But this article was also how weather was an expression of that. AL: Can I ask how you met the community in general? Sort of your entry into the field. CF: Yeah, so a lot of the conversations that I talk about in this paper happened without me searching for them. So, like that’s just how prevalent talking about the weather is (laughs). But what my research did was that it got me to look at… I started in the middle of food supply networks that connected vegetable farmers outside the city with consumers in the city within these new formats for revitalizing shifting food supply chains because people are really anxious about where there food is coming from now—related to water, contamination, related pesticide overuse. So, I started in the middle of the supply chains and would work myself to the farmer end of it and would work my way to the consumer end of it. So, through that process I would meet a lot of consumers who shopped for food, for organic food. Consumers who were looking for other kinds of relationships to their food sources. So, some of those people are in here. But others are people that just, people who are just traditional anthropological technique (laughs), which is: you meet someone who introduces you to someone... AL: Sure, sure. CF: So, honestly, this piece is really kind of weird. And that’s why it actually took a long time to write, too, because it came from more of a, “I want to write this down,” as opposed to, a “This is what I went to do fieldwork about.” And so, there’s actually really quite a lot of different sources. There’s blogs in here, there’s all sorts of… AL: That’s great though, you sort of made it into a… CF: I hope so (laughs!). Just to capture that prevalence of that story. AL: Sure, I love that you mention nostalgia because one thing that I found really interesting—probably one of my favorite parts of the piece—was how it felt so, somewhat ironic in that, at one point I’m quoting you, that “The garden city was seen as a refuge for British coming from the eastern coastal region.” And I get the impression that under British colonial rule, you write, it’s a city imagined throughout India to be idyllic but that was sort of by design? So, I was wondering if this is kind of a, were you making that gesture that it’s a kind of colonial nostalgia, as well? I wonder if, if that... you were critiquing it on some level? I felt like it was sort of in the background. CF: Part of it. It is in the background. And I actually do have another article that’s out in Political Ecology. AL: Also, the manmade lakes, they’re not even real likes. CF: They’re not, but those are very ancient. AL: Sure, okay… CF: Those are precolonialism and honestly under colonialism a lot of those lakes got destroyed. AL: Very interesting. CF: So, there’s sort of a negative history around the transformation of agricultural spaces into recreational spaces under British colonialism, which Srinivas has written a lot about. So, there are people who have written about those histories. What I will say is that I don’t know that… no one was explicitly nostalgic for colonial Bangalore. AL: Sure. CF: What they were nostalgic for—and I talk about this in another article that I have out in Political Ecology, Journal of Political Ecology—that talks about the nostalgia for the bungalow home and its garden. So, that is a sort of remnant of the intersections of this area of South Asia. This area of southern India with a colonial bungalow sort of architecture within British cantonment areas. And, so it is a nostalgia for a kind of dwelling, a kind of living that is linked with the idyllic slow pace of life--the garden city, which comes from a very long history of horticultural production in Bangalore and in its area. So, pre-British, there were already Islamic gardens that today are the largest botanical garden in the middle of the city under the British that got turned into a botanical garden where they actually would propagate species from around the world. So, Bangalore was kind of a center of colonial experimentation with botany. So, there’s that but those histories actually are not just attributed to the British. They’re very, they’re also attributed to the climate of the area and the sort of sense that this is a special place. There’s a caste community that’s been there for a very long time that is very famous for their horticultural skills. So, that’s something that I explore in other papers. AL: That’s great. Kind of winding down, but, you did your fieldwork from June 2014 to January 2016, I think. CF: Yes, that’s right. AL: So, my question is I’m sure you’ve been following up. I’m sure you might have even gone back. So, what’s the situation today? Has it changed in any ways, in terms of policy? Is there anything that’s happened? CF: So, I was just back this summer. And I feel like I had the experience that nothing had changed and that everything had changed, which I think is an experience people feel about their field sites in a lot of ways (laughs). But what I mean by that is that Bangalore changes so quickly. I mean, honestly, for the time I lived there stuff would change, just in terms of the landscape of the city. So, businesses come and go. Roads change form. There’s always the building of new apartment complexes. I mean it looks different pretty quickly. So, I expected that and that was true. But, honestly, so much of it is also the same. So, I went back and reconnected with people who were my primary interlocutors and they would… there were a few things that were different. But, again, most of my research was about food. So, that’s where I did a lot of this sort of, most recent, sort of check in stuff. But I think in general people just feel like the environment of the city is getting worse and worse. So, there’s even more frustration with traffic, which, honestly my experience was worse. It is already worse. That was sort of my experience of it. Part of that is like an increase of rideshare. I mean there’s all sorts of things that are happening in the city that are getting more cars and getting more vehicles out on the road. AL: I wonder is tourism also something that is happening there, as well? CF: Tourism does occur but honestly, I think most people who come through Bangalore come through for work. There’s actually a very large expatriate community. AL: Oh, okay. CF: But they’re very temporary. When I was just there this last time, I went out with a friend who lives in Bangalore and we went out with a whole group of people who work for, I think it was Shell, the oil company. So, like they have an office in Bangalore that does backend IT stuff for them. So, there’s that kind—and they’re there for two months. So, it’s like that kind of revolving international community in Bangalore. AL: That’s fascinating because my image was maybe other folks from India, from other regions coming in and there’s this sort of this IT as enemy... CF: as tourism... AL: …and I wonder if that gets verbalized in terms of other ways of othering them. And is it racialized? I wonder. CF: There definitely is also an anti-migrant thing that’s going on in Bangalore. It’s different between the working class and the IT professional class. AL: Even though they’re blaming the pollution on the IT industry? CF: A lot of it is because they’re sort of seen as… So, in India right now there’s a lot of tension around migrant communities, religious conflict, caste conflict, kind of buried within religious conflict. So, that is one element. And so, linguistically that becomes where a lot of that tension is. However, there also is a tension with middle class or upper middle class and elite migrants to Bangalore that also comes through in language because Kannadigas—they're people who speak Kannada. And they live in Bangalore. That’s the language of Bangalore. So, there’s a real sense that people come from north India and they just never take the time to learn Kannada. And that is another sort of expression of, “These are newcomers to our place, and they are changing our place.” So, there is definitely some tension there and I think the reason why I’m saying that the rise in temperatures narrative specifically targets the IT industry is because that’s the industry that’s understood to have radically transformed the landscape of the city. AL: Right. CF: It’s what brought everyone in. AL: I see. CF: It’s even what brings the migrants in because they’re construction workers. They’re sort of lower class. They’re construction workers for IT. They’re security guards. Right, so there’s this sense that, “Why the city has to change like this is because of this particular industry.” AL: So, this wasn’t necessarily a generational critique either? You’re saying that this kind of talk against the weather and it’s supposed causes was from young people to old people, people that may not have even experienced that kind of, so called, glorious time when it was air conditioning… CF: Yeah, but it was still a memory of a city lost because of particular choices made by the city government. Choices made by corporations. This sort of sense that their city wasn’t theirs anymore. So, yeah, even relatively young people. But, if they grew up in Bangalore, they… I mean honestly, the city has changed so much in just two, four decades that they’re, people don’t have to be that old to really be able to narrate that. AL: Great. CF: Yeah. AL: Two more questions. CF: Yes (laughs). AL: Kind of related to City & Society’s thematic interests, when I read your piece, I was thinking about my own research context of South Korea and there’s always this complaint about fine dust and micro dust… CF: Interesting. AL: And oftentimes it’s connected or tied to existing tensions with places like China, and their industrialization. But it also becomes kind of a critique of Korea developing too fast, Seoul. CF: Okay, got it. AL: So, I’m wondering if there is resonance there with your own piece… CF: Definitely. AL: If you were to sell your piece, so to speak, to someone who doesn’t focus on India or even maybe climate or development, how would you want someone to have a takeaway of your piece that may not be related in terms of their research interests to your work? CF: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think that it does speak to the tension between the really sincere and embodied excitement of the Global City, the kind of future being open! AL: Sure. CF: The sort of feeling that things are going in places that are exciting with, accompanying that—within the same person—can also, alongside of that, feel a real sense of anxiety about what all might come alongside that. And, so, I think that it really is like a question of futurity. And it’s one about, “Is the good always accompanied by bad?” “When does one outweigh the other?” Like "When is it no longer a positive future and one that it will be the death of this place?” Right? So, I think that that gets expressed often through environmental concerns. But, really what’s at stake is what do people want their lives to look like? And, honestly, I think that we all here in the U.S., no matter where you are, have a sense of tension between the sort of aesthetic and the excitement built around particular ways of being that we also all kind of know (laughs) might not be sustainable in the long term… AL: Sure. CF: It’s kind of like, “What’s coming up next?!” The edge of the cliff feeling. I think that people have it to different degrees. But I think at this point we all feel it globally in different ways. AL: That’s great. Right. CF: So, I think that’s probably the kind of problematic that’s at the center. AL: Absolutely. My last question is what’s your own future plans and aims. CF: (laughs) Good question. AL: Whether it’s the book project or are there any other project ideas that you’re interested in related to Bangalore? CF: Yeah, well I have a lot of ideas, of course (laughs). But right now, I need to finish the book. AL: Sure. CF: I’m working on another article, too. I’m going to get that article out and then really get this book up and running. So, that’s really like my immediate future. I have ideas for projects in Bangalore that could come up next. But I also have ideas that would turn to a U.S. context. So, a next project—I’m not quite sure where I’ll go—but the underlining issues that I’m exploring in this will be probably the ones that I can probably consider in different kinds of contexts. So, hopefully, I will have a book to announce (laughs). But, for too long, a couple of years. AL: It’s funny though, as I ask that, I’m actually kind of embarrassed. Speaking of temporality, you just won the Best Paper prize. I’d almost say, “Enjoy that, take a break.” CF: (laughs) Don’t do anything! AL: Calm down. Take a vacation. Yeah so, congratulations. CF: Thank you very much. AL: It’s excellent. CF: It’s been very nice talking to you. AL: Thank you very much. CF: Thanks for the award. |
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2019 BEST PAPER PRIZE WINNER INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
BY DR. DEREK PARDUE (CO-EDITOR OF CITY & SOCIETY) AT THE SUNTA BUSINESS MEETING IN VANCOUVER, BC Coincidences are by nature curious things. I just spent a day with folks in Calgary from across the professional spectrum talking about anthropocene narratives. How do different fields tell climate change stories? While many of us have been focused on the facts of planetary ruination and the art of persuasion directed to policy makers and agents of capital, Camille reminds us that the stories we tell reflect the complex positions we as narrators hold in society. More specifically, the discourses around rising temperatures in Bengaluru, India are entangled in class, and not just a choking, sweating working poor versus a relaxing upper caste sipping on their high tea at sunset (it is also that: "While the temperature on the thermometer reads the same for everyone, the effects of hotter climates are unevenly distributed"). Environment meets experience. This article flexes climate ethnography to show the differences within the middle class based on temporality. After all, Béngalurú used to be a place to escape the heat. A garden city not an IT corporate park strip mall. A nativist discourse thus has emerged to claim – yeah, there used to be a real chill in the city and now, look at this place. These newbies with their prefabricated, air-conditioned apartments. Clueless to the way it once was. Newcomer status is devalued and weather chat exposes all. As Camille puts it, "memories become critique." We at City & Society formed an evaluation committee to rank this year’s publications and while there were many excellent articles published, Camille’s piece stood out. Ultimately, for us, what was special in Camille’s piece was the articulation of climate change and urbanization based on a careful analysis of discourse and class. Readers find not only memories of the good old days of cool breezes but also stories of urban mobility and everyday experience of a dynamic environment. Undoubtedly, we can all identify with such relationships and begin to reflect on our experiences at home, in the field and in between. And, if an article can invite extrapolation (far-near/strange–familiar) then it has achieved a central goal of anthropology, one often talked about in classrooms but rarely achieved in academic production. Congratulations Camille!! Please accept this… |
2018 WINNER: DR. ALLISON FORMANACK (UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER)
"THIS LAND IS MY LAND: ABSENCE AND RUINATION IN THE AMERICAN DREAM OF (MOBILE) HOMEOWNERSHIP"
(CITY & SOCIETY, VOL. 30, ISSUE 3, DECEMBER 2018)
"THIS LAND IS MY LAND: ABSENCE AND RUINATION IN THE AMERICAN DREAM OF (MOBILE) HOMEOWNERSHIP"
(CITY & SOCIETY, VOL. 30, ISSUE 3, DECEMBER 2018)
INTERVIEW (AUDIO)
BY DR. ALEX JONG-SEOK LEE (MEDIA STRATEGIST, CITY & SOCIETY) AT THE AAA ANNUAL MEETING IN SAN JOSE ON NOV. 15, 2018
BY DR. ALEX JONG-SEOK LEE (MEDIA STRATEGIST, CITY & SOCIETY) AT THE AAA ANNUAL MEETING IN SAN JOSE ON NOV. 15, 2018
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INTERVIEW (TRANSCRIPT)
Dr. Alex Jong-Seok Lee [AL]: Allison, it’s really nice to meet you. Can you tell me just a little bit about yourself in terms of your background and what not. Just briefly. Dr. Allison Formanack [AF]: Sure, so, I just defended my dissertation at the University of Colorado Boulder. I will be graduating with my doctorate this fall. I am originally from Nebraska about 30 miles from where I did my fieldwork in the area in which the piece is located. I’ve been at Colorado since 2009. And, so, my project broadly does address some of these questions around, what is it to do anthropology in and of homes? And also around questions of mobility. So, that’s kind of me in a nutshell right now. AL: That’s great. Looking at your background a little bit like with your LinkedIn page, if you don’t mind, I notice that you worked at AmeriCorps, I think? And you did some college journalism and I’m assuming some activism. In what ways do you think, does that inform some of your scholarship and experience? AF: Absolutely. So, after I completed my masters degree in 2011 I did a term of service with AmeriCorps VISTA in Lincoln [Nebraska]. That’s actually where the project that became my dissertation with mobile home communities got started. I was tasked with writing a 30 million dollar Department of Education Grant, the Lincoln Promise Neighborhood’s Initiative. We were not successful, unfortunately. But a part of that project required doing a Need’s Assessment. And the areas, the neighborhoods we were targeting for that initiative were nine non-contiguous mobile home communities. So, I was asked to do not just a Needs Assessment but also just some research into the park communities. And what I was very surprised to find was that there was an absolute dearth of scholarship on mobile home parks. The only anthropological piece I could find that had focused on mobile home parks was actually written before I was born in 1985. So, it’s an area that is culturally ubiquitous—I haven’t yet run into anyone who hasn’t heard of trailer parks—however, has not received a lot of anthropological attention. So, that’s what started me actually on what ultimately became my dissertation project. AL: That’s excellent. In relation to your dissertation project how does this article relate to your broader research aims and the dissertation? AF: So, this article focuses on what I believed would be my case study for the entire project when I began working with the mobile home parks in 2011 and 2012. I was part of a pretty wide-ranging, collaborative group, including the city of Lincoln, University of Nebraska, 19 area non-profit organizations [and] Lincoln Public Schools. There were a bunch of us at the table to work with these communities. And, although we were unsuccessful in securing the grant, I left AmeriCorps thinking that these communities would be protected, they would be preserved, and some of the needs that we had, and inequalities and gaps that we had uncovered, would be addressed thereafter. So, it was with a lot of shock that I found out the next year that the city of Lincoln had decided to pursue a redevelopment agenda that would not only close several of the communities that I had been working in within the next five to 10 years but that would also envision the closure of all the mobile home parks in the city by 2040 [date later corrected by interviewee]. And, so, this piece in City & Society focuses on the aftermath of that announcement and also how the corporate offices became involved in trying to manipulate the system to their advantage to get money from the city. How the city was responding to the idea of the mobile home parks finally going away? And, then of course, what that means for the residents who are already very precarious insofar as they own homes but not the land? So, it’s a unique take on the American Dream. AL: And you call it, “American Dream on a budget.” AF: On a budget, yeah. So, a lot of these folks are sold the idea that they can have the American Dream on a budget. However, in reality, it’s not the home, but rather, it’s the land that secures one’s rights. And, so, without land ownership they are basically in a very disadvantageous financial situation and legal situation. And that’s kind of the story that the piece traces is what happened to Isabel in that entire process. AL: That’s great. You were alluding to it a little bit as far as the dearth of literature on mobile home communities, specifically (and I know you mentioned it a little bit in your article) but could you restate maybe what was your initial hunch as to why that might be the case? Is it related to place and land? And, then also emplacement, I think that’s really interesting. This idea that you sort of questioning the meaning of home and the implications of that, that kind of normative meaning—hegemonic understandings of home. AF: So, to address that last point first, home is a very interesting analytic category, particularly in ethnography because it is both a very significant cultural object. It has highly affective dimensions, but, yet, it’s also a legal category. It’s also a tangible thing. It’s a physical, you know (for lack of a better term), box, in Western contexts. So, there has been some amazing work done on homes and housing. And, within the last 10 years or so that’s often… that started shifted more towards the materiality of housing. So, that was definitely a framing for my work. My suspicion regarding the lack of broadly ethnographic research in mobile home communities (up until the last few years)… so, there have been a couple of ethnographies by sociologists that have come out in the last five years that address mobile home parks. So, Matthew Desmond, Esther Sullivan, a few of those people. I’m aware of that work. But within anthropology there’s that lingering expectation to work outside the United States, which—I don’t think it’s as pronounced or as strong as it would have been in the 1980s or 90s. But it’s still there, this sense of studying another culture or another society… And, yet, there [are] a number of ethnographies that have been written on the suburbs. And, so, my suspicion regarding mobile home parks or trailer parks is that the stigma is being, the stigma being as profound as it is—the “trailer trash” stigma is very tangible. And, for those interested in perhaps working in mobile home parks there is a concern either that they will be associated with that stigma, or perhaps the stigma is already present and there’s a sense of perhaps not wanting to enter into that environment. So, in my work, because I’m from the area, because I grew up behind a trailer park and grew up in a very, you know, precarious housing situation myself I experienced doubt or concern that I would be associated with, like, I would become “the trailer park anthropologist”—in a not positive way. So, I think, you know—and I don’t have empirical data to support this hunch—but given the presence of suburban ethnography and the lack of park ethnography (mobile home park ethnography) I think there’s a there there with respect to the “trailer trash” stigma and the threat or concern that it would be associated with the individual doing that work, especially if like myself, their own background is working-class, is of that kind of context. AL: Sure. That’s so interesting. It makes me think a little bit about methodology. I know you mentioned you did 28 months of official fieldwork, although you could definitely argue that part of your life history informs that. I was curious, was it Crown Court? The staff that you were sort of hanging out with, as well as the residents. Could you talk a little bit about that process, as well as did they actually see the piece? I’m kind of curious what the reaction might have been on both sides? If that makes sense. AF: So, it’s still very new. It just came out early access. So, I haven’t received… AL: Were they interested in [it]? AF: The staff and city employees that are mentioned were much more interested in the piece. The residents themselves not as much. But, I don’t really want to presume why that may or may not be [the case]. But, there was certainly a degree of sheer dumb luck that I experienced. So, as I rented from Crown Court and when I went to tour my home the leasing agent who I believe in the piece I’m not sure if she appears in the piece (if she would, her name would be Carol). She—turns out—her father had been a sociologist. So, they knew that I was doing research. They had assumed that it would be at the university and then when I explained, “Oh, actually, this is going to be work in the community.” She was, she understood fairly well what I was looking for because her father had been a sociologist. So, I was very lucky. I was invited to work in the office to volunteer. I was in charge of helping them digitize their files. So, I basically got to see most of their files from the 1970s on. And I was able to meet a lot of the residents through the leasing office. So, that’s how I got into that particular world. I think the piece alludes to the fact that mobile home communities are often private. So, they’re privately, corporately owned. In the case of the community I worked in the corporate owners are actually based in Colorado, which was just happenstance. But, it can be a difficult fieldsite to access simply because of its private organization. But as a resident I was able to bypass some of those roadblocks and barriers. And I forgot the rest of the question, so (laughs)… AL: That’s fine. No, it’s really interesting. In terms of outcomes then, what would be ideal for you in terms of policy and what not. You mention, theoretically, you want to sort of challenge this separation between homeowner and what mobile home communities might represent: they’re sort of in this in-between state. What would you, in concrete and theoretical terms, is there a particular outcome that you’d want? AF: So, the very first and the most, the magic wand solution, would be to grant land ownership because, once again, the idea of home ownership is that the home is the asset. And the home is the status marker. In reality, it’s the land in our current system. So the home is considered (a traditional home) would be considered an affixed asset or a permanent asset. So, if the land appreciates then the home is thought to appreciate, as well. In the case of mobile home parks you take away land ownership and then suddenly the home then becomes the personal property, the chattel, the personal vehicle that depreciates. There is a movement towards what are called resident owned communities, or ROC communities that, essentially, allows the residents to purchase the land on which their homes are situated. So, they either do own the land or they own it cooperatively so that they don’t fall into the same displacement or gentrification pressure that the park in the piece I wrote is facing. So, that’s the instant solution, is just let them own land and things would be fine. As a consequence of privatization—and I believe this is in the piece, as well—municipalities aren’t typically responsible for the infrastructure and utilities of the park community, and there has not been really a strong impetus. AL: They’re always sort of avoiding responsibilities it seemed like in your piece. AF: Right, and I believe that has to do with, again, the stigma of mobile home parks, of “trailer trash.” If it becomes so bad then it justifies the blight. It justifies... and I don’t believe this is a conscious desire. I rather think it’s a preemptive ruination. The expectation is that it should be ruined, therefore, systems allow for that ruination to take place. The corporate office, typically a for-profit entity, they are, you know, tied to either stakeholders or their profit margins. And repairs are expensive, so, if you have to make the decision between fixing aging water mains or reporting to your stakeholders or your shareholders, typically, the latter option wins out. So, it’s private organization is really what contributes to its, the declining state of many of the parks across the United States of which my community is just one of thousands, tens of thousands. So, what the work I’ve been trying to do more recently is to reach out, to municipalities that have taken a more aggressive, protectionist stance towards their park communities. So, there’s a number of examples across the United States. In Boulder where I’ve been for the last decade or so the city has actually stepped in and purchased two mobile home parks, one in 2004 and the last last year to prevent them from being closed. And the reason for this is because it’s insanely expensive to live in Boulder as it is in many places. So, there’s many examples of this in California, as well. Palo Alto had this case recently, as well. So, as a means to preserve affordable housing by the trailer park, maintain that as a park community. However, in a place like Lincoln where there’s not really the same housing cost pressure, there’s the ability to develop more, those sorts of fail safes aren't in place to really push for the preservation of these communities. So, those are the two areas in which I am directing a lot of my efforts. My more activist efforts at the moment is to involve more the municipalities and I would love to involve the corporate offices, as well. And there are some really great ones out there. But again, it’s not exactly in their business model, oftentimes, to maintain a community not-for-profit. AL: Do you think some of the Crown Court staff might be sympathetic to your piece and some of the suggestions you make? AF: Yes and no. I think, once again, there is, everyone, whether Crown Court staff, city officials, fellow academics—again, this “trailer trash” stigma is very profound and… AL: On that note, could you speak to that, I mean, one thing—not to interrupt—but I found really powerful about your piece was, beyond the actual case study, I think you’re kind of making a case for a regional ethnography. You’re talking about rural communities or the Midwest, which I think, oftentimes, gets neglected, too. And so, particularly in so-called Trump America, I think there’s an interesting, there’s something going on in terms of your piece in voicing the complexities of that that group. If we are to kind of categorize them as a group. How do you address—the stereotype is so powerful, as you mentioned, in pop culture, what have you—do you see that changing? What’s the relationship between that stereotype and the work you want to do? Do you think there is something about addressing that, as well? AF: There certainly is, and one of the questions I’ve received more than once since 2016 (since the election was) I’ve been asked, “Why did ‘my people’ vote for Trump?” And that could mean various things. That could mean the folks in the trailer park. That could mean my fellow Nebraskans. I’m not entirely sure and what I often respond with is, “Well, if we’re talking about the park community, the park residents, they didn’t.” Because they didn’t vote. Voting turnout in my community is less than 25%. And this is in a state, Nebraska, which has one of the highest voter turnouts in the United States. I think it was 63%. AL: Wow. AF: In 2016. So, there is a huge discrepancy related to not just disenfranchisement but also antipathy—apathy that is borne out of either feeling overlooked, forgotten about. That certainly fuels part of that populist fire. So, in terms of these dominant stigmas and these dominant expectations, what I’ve seen a lot of, and what I have experienced both as a researcher but also as a Midwesterner, has been people acknowledge that, oftentimes, the stereotypes are just that. But because they are so dominant and they reveal more complexity in our social order and United States society that it’s easier to just go with them in a lot of ways than acknowledge, for instance, that electoral turnout for Donald Trump wasn’t necessarily about rural or working class communities as much as it was white people! So, specifically, suburban white people—with college degrees. And, so, I think there’s a reluctance to, I think again, acknowledge the relationship to privileged identity or privilege. And it’s easier to simply go with the stereotype and the dominant expectation that it’s the other, the “repugnant other.” And this is actually what my talk is about tomorrow, so. AL: Can you speak a little bit about, well, not to give away your talk but, “repugnant other”? AF: So, that’s based on Susan Harding’s work on fundamentalists in the early 90s when she came up with this concept of the “repugnant cultural other.” So, in her case, she was working with fundamentalists. But this has also been applied to groups typically associated with white supremacy or with white nationalism, and I’m making the case also for mobile home park residents who are presumed to be white. The park I was working at, half of the residents identified as “Mexican” or “Hispanic,” and those were the terms that they used. And, yet there is this expectation that “trailer trash” [and] “white trash” are synonymous. And, so, the cultural other, the cultural enemy (also Julie Brugger’s work on injustices) is the people we shouldn’t study or that we should be wary of studying because of the anthropological penchant for identifying with our subjects. So, you certainly want to care for your subjects. And you want to like your subjects or you want to be ethical towards your subjects. But what if your subjects are themselves repugnant, either because of their political beliefs or where they stand on various things, their histories, et cetera, et cetera. So, that’s kind of the way in which I use that term and where I think, again, the stereotypes can become a factor in whether or not mobile home communities are considered even applicable or acceptable research sites because if we have all these expectations about who lives there and the kinds of people and what they believe then fitted into broader American biases against poverty and anti-poverty stands. Then it’s easy in a lot of cases to just assume certain things about mobile home park residents who were very normal (laughs). You know, a lot of people thought that I was having like even more exotic adventures in a trailer park in Lincoln, Nebraska. And I’m like, “It’s just like any other neighborhood”—but just the expectation that it has to be different. So, yeah, the staff, city officials, all the folks that are aware of this research, in their own ways, grapple with this “trailer trash” stereotype and the effect of that being that it delegitimizes not only the residents but also the housing as a valuable or viable option. And, many would begrudgingly agree with me on various points. And, in fact, there is very high employee turnover. Everyone I cite, all the staff that I talk about in this piece are no longer with the company. So, there’s a high degree of burnout. And, part of that is, I think, is coming to terms with that stereotype. And, it’s, the ways in which it can be manifest in reality but also the ways in which it’s absolutely not manifest and rather the conditions in the community and the experiences that the residents face are the result of either corporate malpractice or municipal underregulation. Or I want to say lack of care. There is care but it’s that unconscious desire for the parks to be redeveloped that allows some benign neglect to take place. So, that’s the very longwinded way of saying they often will agree with me but perhaps a little begrudgingly. AL: Sure, sure. That’s great. One of the most touching portions of your ethnographic vignette I felt was the visual of the “no trespassing” [sign]. I think you assumed it might be, had been from a child, although we’re not entirely sure? AF: We can’t know. AL: Right, but this idea of, sort of granting agency to some extent, this idea that regardless of the eviction it also makes us… they’re still there. There’s a residue of homelife and people making, place there. I’m kind of curious, can you just talk a little bit more about that, in terms of what you think that might do theoretically, et cetera? AF: So, the event that opens the piece: going to Isabel’s house after it had been abandoned but before it was demolished was about halfway through, a little over halfway through my primary fieldwork in 2015. So, I had done previous work, but this was my year in the field as it were. And at this point, the reason why there was a lot of turnover in the employees, I was experiencing that same degree of burnout and depression and this sense that this was just completely stacked against the residents. And that there was hopelessness and it was pervasive. And in working through (and in that event was in its own way very visceral to walk into a place that had moldered and rotted and was just)… AL: Bugs… AF: Bugs, and you didn’t feel clean after. So, I had a very visceral response to that. And in thinking through it, months after the fact, what really inspired this piece was the desire to find hope and resistance even after such a horrific, unjust, illegal event had taken place. And I think that’s the interest I have in the notion of haunting but also of presence. And the way in which you have an injustice. An injustice was done to Isabel and her family. And, yet, stubbornly the elements of her home, of her presence, remain and cannot be erased. So, you cannot erase her public documents. So, they are available on the Internet. You cannot erase that her home had, you know, left scraps behind and that the nails could embed in a tire of a car that goes by. AL: One of the final images that I think you mentioned with the revitalized MHC, you can’t see, but if you look closer, I think you’re saying there’s screws and parts of the old home, basically? AF: Right, her old, some of the toys are embedded in the ground. The old pavement is still there. So, there’s a way in which the figure and the reason why the figure was already kind of considered impermanent. The reason being I’m in a mobile home, therefore, mobile and this whole idea that they’re impermanent. But, there’s a way in which that person still remains and to me there’s something. It feels in a way empowering, at least, or somewhat hopeful that despite all of these conscious or unconscious desires to displace mobile home parks and also mobile home owners in various contexts that, that cannot be done just as trailer parks are an undeniable reality of American (and Canadian to a lesser extent) history. So, these people can’t just be gotten rid of simply because their homes are perceived to be less permanent than a conventional house. So, I think it was a desire to give some of that agency back and the question then became how to do that without actually ever meeting the individual. AL: That’s fascinating, yeah. AF: And I hope that the manner in which I went about it works for others, as well. And, I think that it is an interesting intervention into the question of eviction because what do you do when someone is evicted? And you find out months later, how do you recreate that story? It’s partial, it’s not complete. But it’s still (given the profound eviction crisis)—and this is Matthew Desmond’s work [that] really points to this—but the fact that eviction is a very profound crisis not just in the United States but globally can be very daunting for social scientists, particularly ethnographers to kind of tackle. So, I think this piece was really an attempt to, again, find that hope that came from the depths of despair during fieldwork and realizing just how stacked the odds are against these residents. But then also to think through how can this help us address mobility and questions around absence as ethnographers without simply saying, “Oh, we can never know.” We can’t know the whole picture but, I’d like to think that there’s a way in which here, that this injustice doesn’t just go away or get hidden. Like it can still be material and tangible and a problem. And problems then can be dealt with. AL: That’s great. Almost done. Can you tell us a little bit about why you decided to publish in City & Society? AF: Sure, so I’ve long turned to City & Society. It’s one of my preeminent journals that I look through. And the reasons for that have always been, I think the journal does a phenomenal job of balancing theoretical rigor and also ethnographic case studies. And, particularly, in focusing in the United States. I know that the journal has a global focus. However, something I’ve always really admired about City & Society is that while you still have the urban focus and there are still your classic New York, LA, you know, your hub areas where so much ethnographic research is taking place. There’s also been pieces on Kalamazoo and there’s been pieces in lesser—mid-size, I think would be the correct term—so, mid-sized American cities, of which Lincoln fits in. So, in terms of finding a place (once again, this is the first piece I’ve published) peer-reviewed… AL: Congratulations. AF: Thank you. So, the first journal I went to I was just very… the theoretical aspects of it were very much in line with my work, particularly trying to understand the politics of belonging and placemaking in urban environments. But then also thinking through this, not the traditional megacities. This can also, urban is also mid-size cities and it’s also areas like the Midwest more generally that tend to get overlooked when we’re thinking through theorizing the city. And, so, I just… I don’t even remember questioning it (laughs). AL: That’s fine. That’s so great. Last question then, especially now that you’re finished with your dissertation, do you have an idea for your next project? The next research steps? AF: So, I want to expand this work. And, the next major project that I’m interested in exploring is to look more broadly at informal housing or improvisational house-making in the United States. So, you may be familiar with the tiny home movement? AL: I’ve seen TV shows. AF: It’s very, yes, like tiny home living. And tiny homes. The Learning Channel and HGTV are your go-to destinations for all things tiny living. AL: (laughs) AF: It [has] become very trendy in the last few years as has #vanlife. AL: Yeah, I’ve seen New York Times pieces on this sort of thing. AF: And, more broadly, minimalism started to become much more mainstream in the last few years. So, building on my experience working with homeowners who aren’t land owners, who complicate our idea of what it means to own a home in the United States—and all of this of course, being couched in the post-recession period and, cynically, we might also think the pre-next recession period, the pre-recession, as housing starts to climb back again. I’m interested in thinking through how individuals who are either left out of the conventional housing market or choose to turn away from that conventional housing market in the United States are remaking not only the idea of the American Dream as it’s linked to home ownership but also learning or changing what housing means. So, the term I’m working with right now is “flexible housing.” But, so, what does it mean that people are increasingly turning to tiny homes or increasingly turning to van living? Or at least that these things are becoming mainstream and are increasingly becoming associated with the middle-upper classes in a way that when poor people have been living in small areas and have been living in cars and have been living. And these are their strategies that have been used for decades, if not longer. And, yet, the class politics around the trendiness of living in a van or of living in a bus I think are, in a lot of ways, reflections of changing ideals of Americanness and the ideal of the American Dream of home ownership... because an increasing number of young people (ethnic/racial minorities, poor folks) are just locked out of that system entirely and not in the traditional areas, your megacities where practically no one owns a home. This is also now happening in areas in which you would expect, traditionally, people to own homes and also this is changing attitudes. A lot of—everyone gives millennials a hard time—but as a millennial I want to defend my group and there’s just a turn away from this idea that you have to own a home to be happy. So, I’m broadly interested in how changing perceptions of what a house is or could be are reshaping some of these American ideals about the American Dream of home ownership. So, that’s kind of the direction I’m wanting to move into. AL: That’s very exciting. Yeah, thank you so much. AF: Thank you. AL: And congratulations, especially on your first publication. That's amazing. Yeah, thank you. AF: Thank you. |
2017 WINNER: DR. PASCAL MENORET (BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY)
"THE SUBURBANIZATION OF ISLAMIC ACTIVISM IN SAUDI ARABIA" (CITY & SOCIETY, VOL. 29, ISSUE 1, APRIL 2017)
"THE SUBURBANIZATION OF ISLAMIC ACTIVISM IN SAUDI ARABIA" (CITY & SOCIETY, VOL. 29, ISSUE 1, APRIL 2017)
INTERVIEW (AUDIO)
BY DR. DEREK PARDUE (ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CITY & SOCIETY) AT THE AAA ANNUAL MEETING IN WASHINGTON D.C. ON
NOV. 30, 2017
BY DR. DEREK PARDUE (ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CITY & SOCIETY) AT THE AAA ANNUAL MEETING IN WASHINGTON D.C. ON
NOV. 30, 2017
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INTERVIEW (TRANSCRIPT)
Dr. Derek Pardue [DP]: Hi Pascal. Please, go ahead. Dr. Pascal Menoret [DM]: So, my name is Pascal Menoret. I teach anthropology at Brandeis University, near Boston. I have been working on Saudi Arabia since 2001. I first went there to teach French as a second language. I was a Philosophy student, doing my Masters on Hegel. And, in the midst of all that, I started conducting fieldwork and I really loved it. I started reading about Riyadh and I was trying to understand the environment of Riyadh. So, my interest in the urban environment dates back to this time, 2001. I have been interested in the question of how people engage in political activism in a country that practices political repression on a very large scale…a place in which there are no authorized ways to participate in the public sphere. No political parties, no independent associations. There are very few elections; they are local, with no real clout. There are no trade unions, so I was really interested in how you engage in political activity in such an environment. It was almost a political science question that I was posing. I have been working in a very interdisciplinary way, looking at archives…and also conducting years of fieldwork in Riyadh…Does this make sense? DP: Yes, of course. Perfect sense. What do people do where there are no political venues? I get it. PM: Right, another line of thought was to look at the broader historical question, which is about the Saudi Left, which existed in the 50s and 60s…it was composed of unionists, socialist activists, communists, Baathists, Arab nationalists…That Left totally disappeared during the period of the 70s and 80s, and so the question is: how did the political landscape change to cause this vanishing? That brings us to the current moment, in which the only opposition is a very strong Islamist movement that shares some characteristics with the Left. It is very much an anti-imperialist movement. But, at the same time, it comes to the political question from a very different angle. So, that’s the second line of thought. The third line is looking at the space itself. Again, it started with a historical puzzle. I mean, the space of Riyadh looks very North American. You don’t need to close your eyes to imagine that you are in Phoenix, Arizona. It looks very similar, but it’s been designed by Europeans, Greeks and French…I was very intrigued by this. How did this transformation happen, from a self-contained, dense city into this very vast, American-looking suburb? So the article published in City and Society is like a blueprint for my next book, which is called Graveyard of Clerics. It’s an ethnography of Islamist movements in Saudi Arabia, and Islamist activists in high schools and colleges, in particular. In that book, I study them from the vantage point of the environments in which they operate. One of the big ideas I am pursuing in the book is to stop looking at Islamist movements from a theological and ideological perspective and look at them from an environmental and urbanistic perspective. It’s about understanding the shift from the Saudi Left to Islamism as not only a political but also a spatial shift. It’s a shift from the urban to the fully suburban. Islamists try to turn these arid landscapes, made of roads, parking lots and shopping malls, suburban high schools and meager parks into a political landscape, a landscape of contestation…and that’s the conundrum Saudi activists are facing… DP: That makes a lot of sense. I am reminded of the images in your article of the narrow, alleyways harking back to the old Saudi Left, a particular combination of urban space and political mobilization and this is then contrasted with images of blueprints detailing mega, urban planning and urban sprawl. So, yes, it makes a lot of sense. I want to ask you about your choice to publish in City and Society. PM: I have been doing quite interdisciplinary work since I started studying Saudi Arabia, working mainly as a historian and an anthropologist but also as an urban studies specialist…I wouldn’t say an urban theorist, because I am more interested in urban history than in urban theory…and in geography more than theory per se…and when I say ‘geography,’ it’s in the very empirical sense of the word. And, so, in that piece I was really looking for a venue that was anthropological but also interested in question of space, urban geography…and so City and Society had the perfect balance… DP: Well, that’s good to hear. Excellent! Could you speak to how this article fits within the scope of your upcoming book? PM: Yes, of course. So, the book is very empirically based. I am trying to feature as much as possible the voices of my interlocutors, who are young Islamic activists, either in their last year of high school or their undergrad years of college and their mentors, the people who were running these religious groups and summer camps. The mentors are roughly my age and our tone was quite conversational…The book is centered on a set of very long interviews and I provide copious context to address the question of what it means to be politically engaged in this sort of environment. The CS article was strategic. When I write a book, I try to put all of my ideas down in a short format, to articulate them together and to see how they fit with each other...to try the succession of bits… So, the CS article was an experiment in this sort of combination. That’s why in the article the text goes in certain directions of work, which are fully developed in the book…and that’s why you have a scene about the suburbanization of Aramco in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, the oil province, you have a bit about the suburbanization of Riyadh, you have a bit about the suburbanization of the Western province of Mecca, you have a bit about Islamist activists winning elections, you have a bit about Islamist activists creating Salafi networks in the suburbs of Mecca and Medina and you have a last bit about summer camps, these very suburban structures of activism. So, it was very important for me to try these ideas and to see if the narrative line would hold together. DP: So, this is a good sign then. Your assemblage is working quite well. PM: Well, I will keep my fingers crossed. DP: Thanks so much for your time and congratulations on a wonderful article! I will see you soon to receive your prize at the SUNTA meetings later today. PM: Thanks, Derek. |