Turf Wars
Discourse, Diversity, and the Politics of Place
New Directions in Ethnography
1. Edition December 2006
376 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Turf Wars: Discourse, Diversity, and the Politics of Place is the
fascinating story of an urban neighborhood undergoing rapid
gentrification.
* Explores how members of a multi-ethnic, multi-class Washington,
DC, community deploy language to legitimize themselves as community
members while discrediting others.
* Discusses such issues as public toilets and public urination,
the "morality" of co-ops and condos, and characterizations of
"good" girls and "bad" boys.
* Draws on linguistic anthropology and discourse analysis to
provide insight into the ways that local activity shapes larger
urban social processes.
* Draws also on cultural geography and urban anthropology.
Acknowledgments ix
Part I: The Ethnography 1
1. Sketching the Landscape 3
2. Mt. Pleasant History and Social Geography 34
3. The Moral Geography of Mt. Pleasant 88
4. The Politics of Filth 137
5. La Loca vs. the Cultural Vampires 170
6. Keeping it in the Family 202
7. Home Ties, Winds of Change 247
Part II: The Making of Turf Wars 267
8. Theorizing Discourse 269
9. Geography and Social Locations 296
Addendum: Defining Terms 326
Bibliography 336
Index 351
.Modan aims to bring to a wider audience an understanding of how
language works through the adoption of this more informal style."
(Cultural Geographies, January 2010)
"A highly readable, lively, and unusually accessible work of
ethnography that could be the centerpiece of many different kinds
of classes from introductory courses in cultural, linguistic, or
urban anthropology to graduate seminars in discourse-analytic
method. It makes cleat the potential of discourse analysis as an
ethnographic tool. It is also likely to remain topical for many
years, since it lays out with great clarity the fundamental
conundrums and contradictions that city dwellers must navigate in
the United States today and captures the discursive practices by
which they manage them with great fluency." (Journal of
Anthropological Research, November 2008)
"Modan's ethnographic participant observation in Mount Pleasant,
a diverse community in the Washington DC area, chronicles how this
urban neighborhood made up of African Americans, Salvadorans,
Vietnamese, and Mennonites experienced diversification and
gentrification, leading to contests over the use of public and
private space, gender, kinship, and class. Conflicts came about as
the result of real estate speculation, the "politics of filth"
debate over proposed public toilets, and other related issues.
Modan (English, Ohio State Univ.) argues that the spatial practices
and politics contest and challenge the dominant ideas regarding the
use of space. The author presents two theoretical chapters on
framing, discourse, and performance, and discusses ideas of
Goffman, Castells, Lefevre, and many others. In the process, she
illuminates how local activity can shape social processes. Material
is current and includes a 15-page bibliography ... .Recommended."
(CHOICE)
"Turf Wars is endlessly rich and lively, and will be a
fundamental text on how Americans in the beginning of the
twenty-first century live in cities." -Jane Hill,
University of Arizona
"Turf Wars gives voice to old and new immigrants in a
complicated neighborhood. Modan makes a key contribution to
understanding how language reflects and recreates processes of
including and excluding other people as proper members of the
community. Because so many people live in seemingly multicultural
but deeply contested and changing communities, this book will
engage readers drawn to the complexities of cities and those
interested in more egalitarian urban
policies." -Brett Williams, American University
