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Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power, and Public Life in America
Activism is alive and well in the United States, according to Melissa Checker and Maggie Fishman. It exists on large and small scales and thrives in unexpected places. Finding activism in backyards, art classes, and urban areas branded as "ghettos," these anthropologists explore the many routes people take to work toward social change.
Ten absorbing studies present activist groups across the country―from transgender activists in New York City, to South Asian teenagers in Silicon Valley, to evangelical Christians and Palestinian Americans. Each one examines a social change effort as it unfolds on the ground. Through their anthropological approach these portraits of American society suggest the inherent possibilities in identity-based organizing and offer crucial in-depth perspectives on such hotly debated topics as multiculturalism and the culture wars, the environment, racism, public education, Native American rights, and the Christian right.
Moving far beyond the walls of academia, the contributors address the complex issues that arise when researchers have stakes in the subjects they study. Scholars can play multiple roles in the activist struggles they recount, and these essays illustrate how ethnographic research itself can become a tool for activism.
Ten absorbing studies present activist groups across the country―from transgender activists in New York City, to South Asian teenagers in Silicon Valley, to evangelical Christians and Palestinian Americans. Each one examines a social change effort as it unfolds on the ground. Through their anthropological approach these portraits of American society suggest the inherent possibilities in identity-based organizing and offer crucial in-depth perspectives on such hotly debated topics as multiculturalism and the culture wars, the environment, racism, public education, Native American rights, and the Christian right.
Moving far beyond the walls of academia, the contributors address the complex issues that arise when researchers have stakes in the subjects they study. Scholars can play multiple roles in the activist struggles they recount, and these essays illustrate how ethnographic research itself can become a tool for activism.
280 pages, Paperback
First published February 4, 2004
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About the author
Melissa Checker
7 books4 followers
For fiction works, please see Melissa Checker.
Dr. Melissa Checker (PhD NYU, 2002) is a member of the Urban Studies Department at Queens College. Her research focuses on grassroots environmental justice activism, the politics of urban sustainability, and post-disaster recovery on Staten Island. She is the author of Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town (NYU Press, 2005) which won the 2007 Association for Humanistic Sociology Book Award and was a finalist for the Julian Steward Award and the Delmos Jones and Jagna Sharff Memorial Book Prize. She also co-edited the upcoming volume, Sustainability in the Global City: Myth and Practice (with Cynthia Isenhour and Gary McDonogh, Cambridge 2014) and she co-edited (with Maggie Fishman) Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power and Public Life (Columbia U Press, 2004), In addition, she has authored a number of academic articles and book chapters, as well as articles for popular magazines and newspapers. She was one of the original co-editors of the “Public Anthropology Reviews” section of the American Anthropologist.
Checker serves as the Advisor for the Environmental Studies Major/Minor Program. She teaches the Department’s introductory course, Urban Poverty and Affluence, as well as courses on Urban Environments and Environmentalism, Contemporary Urban Theory, and Service Learning Practicum. She is the Faculty Advisor to the Urban Studies Club.
Dr. Melissa Checker (PhD NYU, 2002) is a member of the Urban Studies Department at Queens College. Her research focuses on grassroots environmental justice activism, the politics of urban sustainability, and post-disaster recovery on Staten Island. She is the author of Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town (NYU Press, 2005) which won the 2007 Association for Humanistic Sociology Book Award and was a finalist for the Julian Steward Award and the Delmos Jones and Jagna Sharff Memorial Book Prize. She also co-edited the upcoming volume, Sustainability in the Global City: Myth and Practice (with Cynthia Isenhour and Gary McDonogh, Cambridge 2014) and she co-edited (with Maggie Fishman) Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power and Public Life (Columbia U Press, 2004), In addition, she has authored a number of academic articles and book chapters, as well as articles for popular magazines and newspapers. She was one of the original co-editors of the “Public Anthropology Reviews” section of the American Anthropologist.
Checker serves as the Advisor for the Environmental Studies Major/Minor Program. She teaches the Department’s introductory course, Urban Poverty and Affluence, as well as courses on Urban Environments and Environmentalism, Contemporary Urban Theory, and Service Learning Practicum. She is the Faculty Advisor to the Urban Studies Club.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 5, 2012
I gave up. It wasn't that much fun and I'm no longer researching activist politics.
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