Description
Book SynopsisBased on more than a decade of ethnographic research in Genoa, Italy, Creative Urbanity argues for an understanding of contemporary urban life that refuses scholarly condemnation of urban lifestyles and consumption and casts a fresh light on an oft-neglected social group-the middle class.
Trade Review"
Creative Urbanity is an artful rendering of ethnography's versatility and nuance, its multi-sited and multi-vocal possibilities. Guano uncovers dramatic transformations of urban space, class-culture, gender politics and aesthetics as they are refracted through the political-economic history of Genoa. Her subjects-newly fashioned tour-guides, entrepreneurs, and cultural brokers-embody resilience, creativity and precarious insecurity. An evocative narrative and sophisticated analysis,
Creative Urbanity will be a must-read by all students of contemporary neoliberalism." * Carla Freeman, Emory University *
"
Creative Urbanity is an extremely thoughtful and elegant work that connects to important dialogues of both anthropological analysis and urban theory in its identification of creative middle classes as agents in urban change. Moreover, it speaks eloquently to current literatures on European and Mediterranean cities but amplifies them in both scale and location, revealing an important and interesting case study that interrogates received wisdom." * Gary McDonogh, Bryn Mawr College *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter 1. Chronotopes of Hope
Chapter 2. Genoa's Magic Circle
Chapter 3. Gentrification Without Teleologies
Chapter 4. Cultural Bricoleuses
Chapter 5. Touring the Hidden City
Chapter 6. Utopia with No Guarantees
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
