Place, Imaginary, Identity: Place Ethnography in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico Tita Berger
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository American Studies ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 7-1-2016 Place, Imaginary, Identity: Place Ethnography in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico Tita Berger Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/amst_etds Recommended Citation Berger, Tita. "Place, Imaginary, Identity: Place Ethnography in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico." (2016). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/amst_etds/45 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in American Studies ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Tita Berger Candidate Department of American Studies Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Dr. Gabriel Meléndez, Chairperson Christopher Montgomery Wilson Miguel Gandert Dr. Michael Trujillo ii PLACE, IMAGINARY, IDENTITY: PLACE ETHNOGRAPHY IN TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, NEW MEXICO by TITA BERGER B.A., Government, New Mexico State University, 1994 M.A., Government, New Mexico State University, 2001 DISSERTATION Doctor of Philosophy American Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July, 2016 iii DEDICATION For Sherry Fletcher and Annette Rodriguez iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project was made possible by many people. My heartfelt thanks go to my brilliant committee: A. Gabriel Meléndez, for guiding me, standing by me and seeing my dissertation to completion; Michael Trujillo, for his enthusiasm, convictions and keen ethnographic eye; Chris Wilson, for his impeccable scholarship and for changing the trajectory of my academic and professional life; and Miguel Gandert, for his infallible good spirits, visionary aesthetic and commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship. I would like to thank Sandy Rodrigue, who stays with us in American Studies despite her own advanced degree. Sandy cares for graduate students in remarkable ways. I owe thanks to many others. To the people in my dissertation town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, who gave me time, energy, insights, and more time, I thank you. My commitment to the future of your town is for life. At UNM, the Center for Regional Studies, the Office of Graduate Studies, the Graduate and Professional Student Association, and the Department of American Studies all provided funding. To Sherry Fletcher and Baxter Brown, thank you for everything—I could not have done this without your support. To Annette Rodriguez, you kept me believing. My family is my center. To my father, Dr. Wayne Shrubsall, thank you for your support, fine mind, and for listening to me with love and care. You set me on this intellectual path. To my mother, Barbara Berger, thank you for showing me the beauty in the world, for your unfailing sense of adventure and artistic soul. To my sister, Miriah Mirimanian, thank you for standing up for me. And finally, to my daughter, Emagen Schultz, thank you for being my bonny companion. You are a dazzling, beautiful, funny, smart and wonderful. You are the most extraordinary person I have ever known. v PLACE, IMAGINARY, IDENTITY: PLACE ETHNOGRAPHY IN TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, NEW MEXICO by TITA BERGER B.A., Government, New Mexico State University, 1994 M.A., Government, New Mexico State University, 2001 Ph.D., American Studies, University of New Mexico, 2016 ABSTRACT “Place for me is the locus of desire,” writes Lucy Lippard in the opening to Lure of the Local (1997). This research project is about place. Two distinct sets of scholarship on place emerged in the 1970s and the 1990s. A third wave of place scholarship is evident today. Coming initially from geography and anthropology, the study of place is now ubiquitous across fields—in history, cultural studies, architecture, planning, health sciences, art and other disciplines. Despite the sustained interest in the study of place, one of the hallmarks of place is the ranging and contested contours of what place means. Place is defined, for the purposes of this study, as a describable location characterized by a shifting confluence of historical, material, political, cultural, economic, built, sensed and imagined qualities. There are three distinct goals in this research project. First, this research project seeks to explore how place has been theorized, imagined, and understood. Second, this research project is an inquiry into how place can be studied. To these ends, I name, define, and refine a method I call place ethnography. Place ethnography is a methodological framework that blends ethnographic and historic research with a range of disciplinary techniques in order to study place. I develop several concepts in this project. These include the idea of a place imaginary, defined as a dominant place perception, the vi concept of an historical vacancy, the perception of an emptiness in the historical fabric and settlement of a place or region—a particular kind of place imaginary—and topofabulas, a concept that describes a historically untenable place narratives that are accepted as historical truth and are place defining. The third goal of this research project is to apply place ethnographic methods to a specific place. To these ends, this research project recounts a place ethnographic study of a small town named Truth or Consequences, New Mexico undertaken from July 2012- August 2014. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: A Study of Place in Place .......................................................................... 1 Research Goals ............................................................................................................................ 3 Choosing a Research Site ............................................................................................................. 5 Chapter Summary ...................................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 1: Place Ethnography: Theoretical Considerations...................................... 14 Considering Place ...................................................................................................................... 15 1.1 Defining Place .................................................................................................................. 16 1.2 Place and Phenomenology ............................................................................................... 23 1.3 Place Identity and Place Attachment ............................................................................... 28 1.4 Place and Commemoration/Place and Preservation ......................................................... 33 1.5 Place, Tourism, the Creative Class and the Popular Press ............................................... 38 1.6 Place Imaginary ............................................................................................................... 45 1.7 Place and Naming ............................................................................................................ 49 History and Narrative ................................................................................................................. 51 1.8 Haden White and the Narrative Form .............................................................................. 51 1.9 Tuan: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach to The Study of Place .................................... 53 1.10 Dialogue and Voice in Place History ............................................................................. 55 1.11 The Paradox of the Modern ........................................................................................... 57 On Scholarly Models, Regionalisms and Shared Patterns ......................................................... 60 1.12 On Ethnographic and Historic Models: Basso, Trujillo, Stewart, Low and Wilson ...... 61 1.13 Region, Regionalism and Critical Regionalism ............................................................. 70 1.14 Shared Patterns: The Particular and the Universal Reimagined .................................... 73 Chapter 2: Place Ethnography: Developing an Interdisciplinary Framework to Study Place ...................................................................................................................... 77 Introduction to Place Ethnography: Initial Articulations ........................................................... 79 2.1 Institutional Review Boards ............................................................................................. 81 2.2 The Role of Dialogue ....................................................................................................... 83 2.3 Place Ethnography as Presentation: Wikipedia................................................................ 85 2.4 Place Ethnography as Presentation: Conferences ............................................................ 87 Place Ethnography as History .................................................................................................... 89 viii 2.5 Writing Local History ...................................................................................................... 91 2.6 Architectural Surveys, Master Plans, Institutional Reports, Agency Reports, Etc. ......... 94 2.7 Historical Considerations in Case Studies ....................................................................... 96 2.8 I am Not Writing a Town