Marginalized Places And Populations: A Structurationist Agenda [Hardcover]

This book is about the forces and processes that continue to sustain pervasive inequalities in modern capitalist societies. It centers around the rise of structuration theory in geography and how this approach may be applied in order to comprehend the deepening chasms between classes, races, ethnic groups, and individuals in North America today. Inner city urban neighborhood decay, growing poverty, widening wealth gaps, and sustained racial and gender discrimination in the workplace all have spatial components. Structuration theory, originally expounded by Anthony Giddens, seeks to confront the relation between agency and structure in the social sciences. The centerpiece of structuration theory is duality of structure, the force that produces and reproduces the fabric of everyday life. The chapters in this volume successfully apply Giddens's theory to a number of specific institutions and locales where unequal access to basic resources is notably pronounced.

DAVID WILSON is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Illinois. He has published widely in the field of urban ecology.

JAMES O. HUFF is Professor of Geography at the Univerity of Colorado. His specialties include residential mobility, minority segregation, travel behavior, and regional development.

Illustrations
Preface
Introduction: Contemporary Human Geography--The Emergence of Structuration in Inequality Research by David Wilson and James O. Huff
Issues in Structuration Theory and Application
Structuration Theory in Urban Analysis by Michael J. Dear and Adam I. Moos
The Limits to Human Constructiveness: Giddens and Structuration Theory in Geography by David Wilson
Structuration Theory and Electronic Communications by Barney Warf
Empirical Applications
Small Towns as Historical Places: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Structuration Theory through the Study of Landscapes by John A. Jakle
Context Is Everywhere: Structuration, CommunitlC'