Edward Snajdr - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Edward Snajdr

Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding

This article considers the unique features of what we call Old School storefront signs in Brookly... more This article considers the unique features of what we call Old School storefront signs in Brooklyn, NY. These signs, which were often hand-painted and notably text-rich with large-size fonts, signaled an openness to all in a highly diverse, multi-cultural urban area. At the same time, very laconic, ambiguous and ironic gentrifying (or what we call New School) signage is replacing these Old School storefront signs at a rapid pace. Using sociolinguistic, semiotic and aesthetic analysis, we show how Old School shop signage acts as a “register of place.” The openness of this register allows it to adopt and incorporate elements preferred by Brooklyn’s gentrifying population. Also, we show how New School businesses begin to take on certain semiotic and textual features of Old School shops in order to survive in the face of corporate development. This appropriation of form/format, we argue, further demonstrates the effectiveness of Old School “rules,” which allow these signs to remain desp...

Linguistic Landscape. An international journal

This paper examines how Brooklyn retail signage represents how gentrifying women struggle for cla... more This paper examines how Brooklyn retail signage represents how gentrifying women struggle for claiming space in public and the way in which different intersectional identity formations are used and implicated in transforming urban space. In exploring different ethnographic dimensions to retail storefronts, we show how women, many of whom are college-educated, married, and new mothers, play a significant role in redefining Brooklyn and cultural norms of motherhood more broadly. Yet, as newly arriving women emerge as key players in the gentrification project, they experience backlash against their public roles. We explore how women also employ race, inequality, and patriarchal notions of heteronormative sexuality as a cover for their public challenges to patriarchal power. Drawing on visual ethnography, interviews, and digital archival material we argue that the ambiguity of word play accomplishes both the pushing of normative boundaries as well as the protective cover of public meani...

Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2016

We examine shop signs in Brooklyn, New York, as sociolinguistic technologies of place-making that... more We examine shop signs in Brooklyn, New York, as sociolinguistic technologies of place-making that operate through specific language ideologies which represent class struggles for material wealth. We find two salient types of signs which we call Old School Vernacular and Distinction-making signage. The first indexes multiple inclusions in the neighborhood economy before gentrification and thus suggests a capitalism without distinction. These signs also challenge linguistic and literacy prescriptivism. In contrast, Distinction-making signs signal an exclusivity that for some readers also represents exclusion. We discuss how these data can reveal and disguise rent gap opportunities as both old and new signs co-inhabit the same space in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn.

American Anthropologist, 2016

Czech sociological review

This article examines aspects of contemporary Slovak environmental activist discourse in the digi... more This article examines aspects of contemporary Slovak environmental activist discourse in the digital realm of blogging and cyberspace. It explores this subject by fi rst comparing volunteer brigades and samizdat writing from the late communist period with present digital forms of environmentalism in the new millennium. Current environmental blogs are then analysed according to material, substantive, and discursive aspects as these suggest obstacles and benefi ts to promoting environmentalism in the wake of political transformation. In examining this issue in one Central and East European context, the paper aims to raise broader questions regarding both research on environmental behaviour and policy in post-socialist Europe as well as the relationships between culture, political consciousness and technology in an age of globalisation.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2007

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PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review

Hungarian Studies, 2009

... Hanak's villag-ers were strikingly similar to the elderly residents who lived near t... more ... Hanak's villag-ers were strikingly similar to the elderly residents who lived near the ochranári's conservation projects which, like the people ... The action ended 8 hours later when Juraj Rizman, Za Matku Zem's spokesper-son, approached the press, flanked on either side by ...

Good books often do the eye-opening work of debunking popular stereotypes. The Hidden Life of Gir... more Good books often do the eye-opening work of debunking popular stereotypes. The Hidden Life of Girls is that kind of book, offering welcome relief from widely available yet flawed accounts of gendered speech. It accomplishes other goals set out by Goodwin, but its achievement extends beyond her stated aims. Discussion of the book might be contextualized in any number of ways, but only a few are considered here. I am most impressed by how Goodwin questions gender stereotypes, engages with an appropriate methodology, and looks at how class status is enacted.

Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute - J ROY ANTHROPOL INST, 2007

This article examines how people understand domestic violence through primordialist notions of et... more This article examines how people understand domestic violence through primordialist notions of ethnicity in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Drawing on fieldwork among police, victim advocates, and Muslim activists, I examine how these groups ethnically frame, or ‘ethnicize’, the topic of domestic violence, its victims and perpetrators, as well as its root causes and possible remedies. From explaining away ineffective policing to blaming past imperialism, I show how ethnicizing violence has political significance for these different stakeholders, whose assertions about gender behaviour and the function of the law compete with one another in a multi-ethnic state's transition from communism. I also discuss not only how these disparate identity positionings serve as local explanations and/or solutions, but also how they may inevitably contribute to concealing the problem.This article examines how people understand domestic violence through primordialist notions of ethnicity in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Drawing on fieldwork among police, victim advocates, and Muslim activists, I examine how these groups ethnically frame, or ‘ethnicize’, the topic of domestic violence, its victims and perpetrators, as well as its root causes and possible remedies. From explaining away ineffective policing to blaming past imperialism, I show how ethnicizing violence has political significance for these different stakeholders, whose assertions about gender behaviour and the function of the law compete with one another in a multi-ethnic state's transition from communism. I also discuss not only how these disparate identity positionings serve as local explanations and/or solutions, but also how they may inevitably contribute to concealing the problem.RésuméL'auteur étudie la manière dont certains peuples appréhendent la violence familiale à travers des notions primordialistes d'appartenance ethnique dans le Kazakhstan post-soviétique. À partir d'un travail de terrain dans les milieux de la police, des défenseurs des droits des victimes et des activistes musulmans, il étudie la manière dont ces groupes inscrivent dans une argumentation ethnique ou « ethnicisent » la question de la violence familiale, de ses victimes et de ses auteurs, ainsi que de ses causes fondamentales et des remèdes possibles. De la justification de l'inefficacité policière à l'incrimination de l'impérialisme passé, l'auteur montre comment l'ethnicisation de la violence a une signification politique pour ces différents groupes. Leurs affirmations sur les comportements de genre et le fonctionnement de la loi se font concurrence dans le contexte de l'émergence d'un État multi-ethnique sorti du communisme. Par ailleurs, il examine non seulement la manière dont ces positionnements identitaires disparates servent d'explications et ou de solutions locales, mais aussi comment ils peuvent inévitablement contribuer à masquer le problème.L'auteur étudie la manière dont certains peuples appréhendent la violence familiale à travers des notions primordialistes d'appartenance ethnique dans le Kazakhstan post-soviétique. À partir d'un travail de terrain dans les milieux de la police, des défenseurs des droits des victimes et des activistes musulmans, il étudie la manière dont ces groupes inscrivent dans une argumentation ethnique ou « ethnicisent » la question de la violence familiale, de ses victimes et de ses auteurs, ainsi que de ses causes fondamentales et des remèdes possibles. De la justification de l'inefficacité policière à l'incrimination de l'impérialisme passé, l'auteur montre comment l'ethnicisation de la violence a une signification politique pour ces différents groupes. Leurs affirmations sur les comportements de genre et le fonctionnement de la loi se font concurrence dans le contexte de l'émergence d'un État multi-ethnique sorti du communisme. Par ailleurs, il examine non seulement la manière dont ces positionnements identitaires disparates servent d'explications et ou de solutions locales, mais aussi comment ils peuvent inévitablement contribuer à masquer le problème.

Dialectical Anthropology, 2013

This paper explores the disconnections between anti-trafficking discourse and the local experienc... more This paper explores the disconnections between anti-trafficking discourse and the local experience of responding to human trafficking as indicated in ethnographic data from Bosnia and Kazakhstan. Using the concept of ''uptake,'' I examine how anti-trafficking discourse operates as a master narrative, drawing on techniques of emotion and logic, as well as a specific type of victim story. I also consider how, despite an emerging counter discourse that questions the data and challenges current policy, human trafficking discourse continues to be retold in media and reproduced in popular culture, often in ways that actually diverge from the current version of the grand narrative. In contrast to these uncritical representations, ethnographic data from Bosnia suggest that the master narrative is selective in how it represents the history of the problem and that it does not ''take up'' important details about the context that fosters sexual exploitation, despite Bosnia's compliance with US policy. Conversely, Kazakhstan suffers a liminal status regardless of local efforts to prevent the problem from happening within its borders as well as evidence that the crime is not widespread. While perhaps not mythical, I suggest that the master narrative contains the stuff of legend as it occupies the critical spaces of policy, activism and development, leaving open the question of how to address the nuances and needs of responding to victims of gender violence.

Dialectical Anthropology, 2008

American Ethnologist, 2006

... A Mellon New Directions Fellowship pro-vided support for another semester of research and wri... more ... A Mellon New Directions Fellowship pro-vided support for another semester of research and writing as well as for cur-riculum development in human rights. Wellesley College has always created a very supportive and stimulating teaching and research environment. ...