Metropolitics

Reconsidering Wasteways from Boston to Seattle

Lisa Jean Moore — 2022-02-01T06:00:00Z

Throughout the Covid‑19 pandemic, with disposable masks and endless testing, garbage proliferates. It is extremely difficult to resist our own participation in creating more single use trash. Fortunately, Lily Baum Pollans' book, Resisting Garbage: The Politics of Waste Management in American Cities, is an excellent analysis of our individual and collective consumptive habits that produce waste. Through her comparison of two different American cities, Pollans offers incisive commentary on the

- Reviews / waste, waste management, United States, Boston, Seattle, recycling

The Ancestors of Pandemic Pets and Vector Animals

Lisa Jean Moore — 2021-05-11T05:00:00Z

How has the place—and role—of animals in the city evolved over the last two centuries, and what bearing have these changes had on the urban fabric, and above all on the way urbanites relate to animals today? Lisa Jean Moore reviews Animal City, by Andrew A. Robichaud, which considers these questions from a US perspective.
Humans have had to reconsider their everyday life with animals during the Covid‑19 pandemic. Specifically, we have had to confront our proximity to animals (humans and

- Reviews / human–animal relations, animals, pandemic, Covid-19, coronavirus, United States, city

Teaching Art and the History of Tattoos at Rikers Island: An Interview with Tamara Santibanez

Lisa Jean Moore — 2019-01-22T06:00:00Z

An interview with Tamara Santibanez, who teaches art and the cultural and social history of tattoos to youth offenders at Rikers Island prison, explains how tattoos can help develop visual literacy and explores tattooing's potential to empower inmates both personally and professionally.
Arts programs in jails and prisons support the therapeutic, developmental, and vocational goals of incarcerated persons. Artists are uniquely positioned to help prisoners express their identities, address

- Interviews / United States, New York, art, artist, arts, prison, education, art worlds, art economies, tattoos, youth offenders, Rikers Island

Nature's Worth: Using Human Markets to Value Ecosystems' Contributions

Anna Krol & Lisa Jean Moore — 2018-02-20T06:00:00Z

Mattijs van Maasakkers' The Creation of Markets for Ecosystem Services in the United States: The Challenge of Trading Places pulls readers into the complex relationship between environment and economy. In this multi-sited ethnography, Van Maasakkers hones in on three large-scale US conservation and restoration projects, exposing gaps in market-based approaches and the ultimate failure of the financialization of nature.
How is the value of an ecological site measured? By the numbers? The 1.35

- Reviews / environment, nature, ethnography, ecosystems, financialization, markets, ecosystem services

Birdwatching in the City: A Case for Multispecies Tourism

Elizabeth Cherry & August Davidson-Onsgard & Lisa Jean Moore — 2018-01-16T06:00:00Z

This essay analyzes the growth of urban avitourism—wildlife tourism focused on birds—as an activity that drives humans and revenue to urban centers. Two sociologists and a birder/wildlife photographer consider the implications of heightened human awareness of nature in cities.
Birds as urban celebrities
In early December of 2015, a painted bunting was sighted in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Birders from all over the New York metropolitan area learned of the bird's arrival through their “rare

- Essays / parks, nature, New York, tourism, wildlife, urban tourism, avitourism, urban wildlife, migratory birds, bird habitats, birds, birding, birdwatching, wildlife tourism, ecotourism, urban parks

“Build a Wall”: The Wrong Solution for Our Coastal Problems. An Interview with Jennifer Mattei

Jennifer H. Mattei & Lisa Jean Moore — 2017-02-07T16:47:00Z

Metropolitics editorial committee member and sociologist Lisa Jean Moore interviewed biologist Jennifer Mattei, an expert on coastal ecology and restoration, on January 25, 2017 about coastal restoration, “reef balls,” and how cities of the future can become a part of the natural world rather than walling it out.
What is a living shoreline?
Living shorelines, a concept that is now being developed and promoted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are nature-based

- Interviews / environment, United States, water, New York, sea-level rise, coastal ecology, coastal restoration, living shorelines, East Coast, Connecticut, coast, sea, ecosystems, ocean, conservation

Where Did the Bees Go? New York City Beekeeping Amid Ecological Crises

Mary Kosut & Lisa Jean Moore — 2016-04-05T05:00:00Z

The decline and extinction of bees and other pollinators threatens the global food supply. Residents in cities like New York have engaged in the practice of beekeeping to harvest honey and care for this essential species. Ethnographers Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut explore the connections to urban sustainability that this new practice entails.
Bees have always lived in metropolitan spaces without the aid of humans. Yet, until very recently, most people never thought of them as a species that

- From the Field / environment, urban ecology, urban agriculture, New York, wildlife, Brooklyn, bees, urban beekeeping, colony collapse disorder, DIY, honeybees, pollination

The Horseshoe Crab, our Environment and our Health

Lisa Jean Moore — 2014-12-15T05:50:00Z

Will we erase all animal diversity in the name of modernity, or will we follow the hints given by the study of the horseshoe crab? The entanglements of this ancestral animal with human activity point to the urgent need to accept the collective responsibility that comes with the Anthropocene era.
In North America, the ocean-dwelling horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), a maroon prehistoric creature, crawls along the ocean floor with its helmet-like hard-shelled top and multiple appendages

- From the Field / health, environment, New York, global warming, sea-level rise, human animal, wildlife, Featured