Building in Stories: How Narratives Drive Development in a Small City in Central New York State

Author:

Falkenstein Emma K.1,Annear Christopher M.1

Affiliation:

1. Emma K. Falkenstein is completing an MSc in Urbanization and Development at The London School of Economics and Political Science (expected December 2022) and works as a Planning Analyst for MRB Group. Her master’s thesis explores temporary urbanism and city revitalization in New York State. Falkenstein’s work centers on local governance and urban planning, including urban revitalization, temporary and more permanent urban transformations, and qualitative, narrative, and applied ethnographic methods. She graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology and International Relations from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Christopher M. Annear, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Department Chair at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He researches local modes of development, the anthropology of food, freshwater fisheries, and pedagogy in Zambia, Vietnam, and the United States. He recently coauthored with Falkenstein and Craig Talmage, “On the Ground, But Not in the Field? The (Mis)use and Portrayal of Ethn

Abstract

In this article, we study the creation of two distinct but related developmental processes: a Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) and Police Review Board (PRB) in the small city of Geneva, New York, to understand the sociopolitical and applied processes by which different core narratives shape development initiatives and outcomes. Beginning with the premise that “communities are intrinsically storied” (Maines and Bridger 1992:363), these two examples demonstrate the range of how stories about a community’s past, present, and future compete with each other to empower some community-based conceptions of development to coalesce while blocking others. We find that both act as place-makers—one through tangible construction and the other by the establishment of a law. In focusing on the power of narratives, these examples show how narratives drive contested interests and shape constructed resources through access to political, social, and cultural power in a small city in Central New York State.

Publisher

Society for Applied Anthropology

Subject

General Social Sciences,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous),Anthropology

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