Overview
- Grounds urban ethnography in a physical space, the Goodman Building
- Provides the first example of a “building biography” in Urban Anthropology, a model for future study
- Examines the greatly changing urban environment from the point of view of a single community
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology (PSUA)
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About this book
“An Ethnography of the Goodman Building vividly incorporates a wide variety of methods to tell the story of class struggle in a building, neighborhood, and city that is replicated globally. I read it as a number of boxes inside each other opened in the course of reading. Caldararo recounts the building’s personal “biography” to convey not only the “facts about,” but the “feelings about” the flesh and blood of the building and its surrounding neighborhood.” —Jerome Krase, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York, USA
“This unique contribution to the field of urban and regional studies counteracts current trends in the ethnographies of urban movements by offering, with great hindsight, an analysis from a physical space, and from first-hand experience. The focal point is one building, and the author is a former tenant. This perspective is appealing, especially in an era of global connections where macro social movements are on the front line of urban life and research.” —Nathalie Boucher, Director and Researcher, Respire, and Affiliated Professor Assistant, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, Canada.
Through in-depth analysis and narrative investigation of an actual building occupation, Niccolo Caldararo seeks to not only offer an historical account of the Goodman Building in San Francisco, but also focus on the active resistance tactics of its residents from the 1960s to the 1980s. Taking as its focal point the building itself, the volume weaves in and out of every life involved and the struggles that surround it—San Francisco’s urban renewal, ethnic clearing, gentrification, and municipal governance at a time of booming urban growth. Caldararo, a tenant at the center of its strikes and activities, provides a unique perspective that counteracts current trends in ethnographies of urban movements by grounding its analysis in physical and tangible space.
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Table of contents (16 chapters)
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The National Context for the Goodman Building
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Setting the Scene of the Goodman Building
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The Goodman Building in Transition: From Single Room Occupancy for Temporary Workers to Artist Hotel to Community Action
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Communities of Change and Occupation
Reviews
“The book is a biography of the Goodman Building of Downtown SF, alongside the created community within and its ever-evolving environment. ... The book reflects an extended anthropological field study produced through participant observation, the copious field notes of which were given to some research respondents for verification. ... The book is also implicitly about city (San Francisco) governance. … Essentially it is a study of economic survival tactics, transitory platforms and the negotiated identities that built environments can offer.” (Gary Armstrong, Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography, Vol. 14 (1), May, 2024)
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About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: An Ethnography of the Goodman Building
Book Subtitle: The Longest Rent Strike
Authors: Niccolo Caldararo
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12285-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-12284-3Published: 08 May 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-12287-4Published: 14 August 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-12285-0Published: 25 April 2019
Series ISSN: 2946-2436
Series E-ISSN: 2946-2444
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 374
Number of Illustrations: 30 b/w illustrations, 29 illustrations in colour
Topics: Ethnography, Social Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Urban Studies/Sociology, Social Structure, Social Inequality