Award Date

5-2009

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology

Department

Sociology

First Committee Member

Andrea Fontana, Chair

Second Committee Member

Anastasia Prokos

Third Committee Member

David Dickens

Graduate Faculty Representative

Anita Revilla

Number of Pages

215

Abstract

For this ethnography, I use my feminist perspective, grounded theory, participant observation, and autoethnographic techniques to explore an urban poetry scene. I suggest that scene studies are a viable alternative to community studies and that we move our articulation of social experience to reflect it as it occurs, on a multitude of continuums. My goal with this project is to develop, use, and discuss the utility of a definition of scene that is intended to be useful to scene studies researchers. To this end, I both evaluate an outdated definition of scene (Irwin 1973 & 1977), and define the three core components of scene as identity, space, and participation.

The Sacramento Poetry Scene emerges here as a site for the contestation of power. I conclude that the definition of scene space is a product of the interactions between participants and find that conflict between participants exposes definitional processes. I confirm that scene participation is not stable, fixed, or necessarily limited. I also find that multiple collective identities can come to be articulated on the same scene. Furthermore, 1 identify that social network theory may be useful for informing future scene studies.

Keywords

Anthropology--Fieldwork; Ethnology; Poets; Sociology; Urban; Street poetry; American

Disciplines

American Literature | Modern Literature | Poetry | Sociology | Sociology of Culture

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Comments

Signatures have been redacted for privacy and security measures.

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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