Changing Expectations

Author(s):  
Margaret M. Chin

This chapter examines the evolving Chinese ethnic economy and the changing job market in New York City, as well as the strategies employed by Chinese immigrant women to find and keep jobs after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It begins with a discussion of New York's Chinatown community to illustrate how ethnic enclaves and ethnic labor markets become mobility traps, where workers are exploited on a daily basis. It then presents data from two sets of interviews with thirty women and ten men residing in Chinatown during periods of economic downturn. The first phase of interviewing was conducted during the summer of 2002, while the second phase took place during the winter of 2008–2009. All of the women and three of the men had previously worked in the garment industry. The findings show that, unlike many New York City neighborhoods and economic sectors, the Chinatown enclave never recovered from the post–9/11 economic recession. The chapter also considers the ongoing role of community-based organizations in providing programs that support new workers.

Author(s):  
Doran George

This chapter looks at the relationship between Somatics training and the concert stage where its influence on dancers was increasingly evident. Focusing on New York City specifically, the chapter identifies three phases where Somatics impacted performance differently: first, as signaling the dancer’s real-time efforts to construct the dance in performance; second, as providing novel sources of movement; and third, as displaying a new standard of virtuosity. The chapter shows how in each of these phases the relationship of the choreographer to the performer shifted. In the first phase the choreographer and dancer were one and the same, processing the dance in real time, and this was seen as a radical alternative to midcentury modernist approaches in which the dancers showcased the choreographer’s vision. In the second phase, dancers deployed Somatics to demonstrate new vocabularies of movement and new ways of moving, not so much as a way to focus on dance making as to establish their unique artistic voices. In the third phase, the role of the choreographer was restored as the author of the dance, separate from the dancers, who then displayed the choreographer’s vision.


Author(s):  
Rachel Straus

In 2000, English-born Christopher Wheeldon became the first artist-in-residence at New York City Ballet (NYCB). The press compared his choreography to George Balanchine’s. This chapter discusses Wheeldon’s critically acclaimed NYCB ballet Polyphonia (2001) in relation to the “thick narrative” of the company’s history. It argues that Wheeldon’s collaborations with NYCB dancers Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto, in Polyphonia and other works, produced a unique aesthetic, one that transcended Balanchine’s neoclassical legacy. The chapter ends by considering how Wheeldon’s controversial decision to direct the Broadway musical about Michael Jackson is not out of character, but emblematic of his propensity to embrace the role of an outsider, who works to understand the unfamiliar and who surpasses what is expected of him.


Author(s):  
Beatriz Kalichman ◽  
Beatriz Rufino

This chapter examines the use of aesthetic and discursive elements in the production of a narrative about República, a district in the central area of São Paulo (Brazil) that has been transformed through a real estate boom in the past ten years. We focus on newly built studio apartments, and on the efforts to differentiate them from the quitinetes, apartments with similar features built in the 1950s and 1960s that have been heavily stigmatized. We situate our analysis of this purposeful urban transformation within a context intertwined with urban marketing, publicity, and image making. Our research shows the strong presence of an industrial aesthetic in the area, which we understand as being a deliberate echo of the gentrification process that took place in SoHo in New York City in the 1970s.


2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (04) ◽  
pp. 753-759
Author(s):  
Brian F. Schaffner

AbstractIn 2010, a debate erupted about plans to construct a mosque (as part of a larger multicultural center) approximately two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City. The main justification given by those who opposed the mosque was that building it so close to Ground Zero would appear to be insensitive. Public opinion appeared to support this notion, as large majorities of Americans registered their opposition to the mosque in surveys conducted at the time. In this article, I examine whether distance was, in fact, an important factor influencing citizens' opposition to the mosque. Using a survey experiment, I asked for opinions on the building of a mosque while randomizing how far the mosque was located from Ground Zero. Results from the experiment indicate that opposition to the mosque was unaffected by how far the mosque would be located from Ground Zero, but strongly influenced by factors such as partisanship, ideology, and tolerance for out groups.


1990 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 370 ◽  
Author(s):  
James O. Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Kirabo Jackson ◽  
Henry S Schneider

This study investigates the role of social networks in aligning the incentives of agents in settings with incomplete contracts. Specifically, the study examines the New York City taxi industry where taxis are often leased and lessee-drivers have worse driving outcomes than owner-drivers due to moral hazard. Using within-driver variation and instrumental variable strategies to remove selection, we find that drivers leasing from members of their country-of-birth community exhibit significantly reduced effects of moral hazard, representing an improvement of almost one-half of a standard deviation of the outcome measures. Screening is ruled out as an explanation, and other mechanisms are investigated. (JEL D82, D86, L92, Z13)


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