EVENT CANCELLED—Managed Retreat: Place Attachment and Material Culture in Community Relocation

In this research seminar, join UVA Associate Professor of Sociology Fiona Greenland who will present preliminary findings from a comprehensive scan of recent community relocations, or managed retreats, in the US. With a focus on two relocations, one in Alaska and the other in Louisiana, Greenland and her research collaborators are studying the role of material culture and landscape in shaping decisions about where to live and how. The three-person team of sociologists and are interested in gaining perspectives from planning, architecture, and landscape studies.

This presentation is part of the Environmental Institute’s ‘Walking’ Seminar Series, bringing awareness of interdisciplinary research and student engagement at UVA. Visit environment.virginia.edu to learn more about upcoming events, news, and opportunities to engage.

About the Speaker

Fiona Greenland is Associate Professor of Sociology and Assistant Professor of Anthropology (by courtesy) at the University of Virginia. She works at the intersection of cultural sociology, comparative and historical sociology, and archaeology. The core issue she investigates is the role of artifactual culture in modern social life. To do this, she uses mixed qualitative methods that attend to individual and group interpretive practices, the nexus of art, money, and meaning, and the historical contingencies of institutional authority over cultural materials. Prof. Greenland has conducted fieldwork in archaeological sites, museums, and antiquities shops in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation.