Imagining Miami Ethnic Politics in a Postmodern World
- Binding: Hardcover
- Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr
- Publish date: 05/01/1997
In Imagining Miami, Sheila L. Croucher uses Miami as a laboratory in which to explore the social and political construction of ethnic identities and ethnic group conflict. Incorporating interviews with community leaders, politicians, journalists, and business people, as well as periodical and popular literature on Miami, this book examines how social constructs emerge and become accepted, as well as how these definitions reflect the pull of vested interests locally, nationally, and even internationally. Croucher draws on literature that emphasizes the manipulative power of language and the nature of meaning in a group context, while keeping in mind materialconditions, class inequalities, and the ways in which global forces influence the urban condition.
Croucher's approach has implications for understanding ethnicity that extend well beyond the confines of metropolitan Miami. Given the social, political, and economic problems the nation now faces, Miami may well be the bellwether of urban American issues in the future. Imagining Miami will be essential reading for students and scholars of ethnicity, as well as those interested in urban politics, social conflict, and race relations.