Date of Award
2017
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Social Sciences
First Advisor
Vesperi, Maria
Area of Concentration
Anthropology
Abstract
Pittsburgh is facing demographic shifts from an influx of refugees and highly paid workers from larger cities, ethnic and economic segregation due to historical factors, and revitalization efforts across the city. Place-making, community building and activist art have been seen as viable options for people to learn about each other's differences and mitigate tensions that occur within diverse neighborhoods. Through ethnographic participant observation and a focus on space and place I analyzed a literary and arts non-profit's practices and their effects on attendees and the neighborhood. The organization's efforts are emergent, but it seems that place-making initiatives and intellectual presentations falter when subject to a professionalized events space and larger tensions and inequalities. At the same time this does not negate the slower and less visible effects in citizens that having such a space provides.
Recommended Citation
Reilly, Oriana, "CITY OF ASYLUM: AN ARTS NONPROFIT IN A DIVERSE BUT DIVIDED NEIGHBORHOOD" (2017). Theses & ETDs. 5410.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/5410