Urban Place Reconnecting with the Natural World

by Barlett, Peggy F.; Nash, Roderick Frazier

• ISBN13: 9780262524438
• ISBN10: 0262524430
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-26
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Amidst city concrete and suburban sprawl, urban dwellers across the country are discovering new ways to reconnect with the natural world. From community gardens in New York's Lower East Side to homeless shelters in California, the search for a more sustainable future has led grassroots groups to a profound reconnection to place.

Author Biography

Peggy F. Barlett is Professor of Anthropology at Emory University. She received a BA in anthropology from Grinnell College (1969) and the PhD in anthropology at Columbia University (1975). A cultural anthropologist specializing in agricultural systems and sustainable development, she carried out fieldwork in economic anthropology in Ecuador, Costa Rica, and rural Georgia (USA). Earlier work focused on farmer decision making, rural social change, and industrial agriculture. She has published Agricultural Choice and Change: Decision Making in a Costa Rican Community (1982, Rutgers University Press), American Dreams, Rural Realities: Family Farms in Crisis (1993, University of North Carolina Press) and is editor of Agricultural Decision Making: Anthropological Contributions to Rural Development (1980, Academic Press). Recently, interests in the challenge of sustainability in urban Atlanta have given her an opportunity to return to early training in applied anthropology and to combine it with interests in political economy, group dynamics, and personal development. Part of a growing movement toward sustainability at Emory, she has focused on expanding awareness of environmental issues through curriculum development (the Piedmont Project), campus policies, and connections to place. She also has interests in local food systems and a local Watershed Alliance. She is the coeditor (with Geoffrey Chase) of Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Change (MIT Press, 2004).

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Roderick Frazier Nash
1 Introduction	1	(34)
Peggy F. Barlett
I Arenas of Reconnection	35	(200)
Discovering Relationships with the Natural World	37	(52)
2 Reconnecting with Place: Faculty and the Piedmont Project at Emory University	39	(22)
Peggy F. Barlett
3 Lifting Spirits: Creating Gardens in California Domestic Violence Shelters	61	(28)
Susan M. Stuart
Elaborating New Forms of Connection	89	(100)
4 Community Gardens in New York City: Place, Community, and Individuality	91	(26)
Malve von Hassell
5 Urban Connections to Locally Grown Produce	117	(24)
Susan L. Andreatta
6 The Missouri Regional Cuisines Project: Connecting to Place in the Restaurant	141	(32)
Elizabeth Barham, David Lind, and Lewis Jett
7 Urban Volunteers and the Environment: Forest and Prairie Restoration	173	(16)
Robert L. Ryan and Robert E. Grese
Reclaiming Meanings	189	(46)
8 Nature, Memory, and Nation: New York's Latino Gardens and Casitas	191	(22)
Barbara Deutsch Lynch and Rima Brusi
9 On the Sublime in Nature in Cities	213	(22)
Robert Rotenberg
II Consequences of Reconnection for Human Health and Functioning	235	(86)
10 Forest, Savanna, City: Evolutionary Landscapes and Human Functioning	237	(16)
William C. Sullivan
11 The Health of Places, the Wealth of Evidence	253	(18)
Howard Frumkin
12 Preference, Restoration, and Meaningful Action in the Context of Nearby Nature	271	(28)
Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan
13 Concluding Remarks: Nature and Health in the Urban Environment	299	(22)
Jules Pretty and Peggy F. Barlett
About the Authors	321	(4)
Index	325