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.
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 WASHINGTON D.C. ON NOV. 15, 2018
BY DR. ALEX JONG-SEOK LEE (MEDIA STRATEGIST, CITY & SOCIETY) AT THE AAA ANNUAL MEETING IN WASHINGTON D.C. 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. |