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Benedetti_Dissertation_2018.pdf (287.12 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

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Dreams of Democracy, Logistics of Crowds: Public Gatherings on the National Mall

Benedetti, Cristina A
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8624-8442
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534509331936512

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Comparative Studies.
The National Mall in Washington, D.C. has become an essential site of national meaning making through complex processes of design, regulation, and human use. Through a combination of ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and theoretical approaches, my dissertation explores the production of public gatherings on the National Mall. The first part of this project is an ethnographic study of a year on the Mall in 2016. It traces the increasingly routinized current uses of the Mall for purposes of leisure, learning, memorialization, and protest. The second part of this project investigates the use of the Mall as a site of popular protest across the twentieth century. With case histories of the 1932 Bonus March, the 1963 March on Washington, and the 1968 Poor People's Campaign, I offer new frameworks and terminology to describe how vulnerable populations have sought out this space to call attention to their causes. In both sections, I focus on the interaction among infrastructures, logistics, and repertoires: the amenities and facilities available for public use, the organizational strategies and customary knowledge of actors appropriating Mall space, and the performance genres through which publics and institutions create and interpret actions on the Mall. For the scholar of social movements and civic participation, attention to these “backstage” worlds can reveal crucial information about the priorities, capabilities, and constraints of all parties involved, from the vulnerable to the powerful. For citizens at large, understanding the material requirements of gathering in this symbolically potent space offers a key to the broader challenge of creating effective infrastructures to support civic participation and wellbeing.
Dorothy Noyes, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Jason Baird Jackson, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Katherine Borland, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Isaac Weiner, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Shilarna Stokes, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
349 p.
Comparative; Folklore
The National Mall; logistics; gathering; Bonus March; March on Washington; Poor Peoples Campaign

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Benedetti, C. A. (2018). Dreams of Democracy, Logistics of Crowds: Public Gatherings on the National Mall [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534509331936512

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Benedetti, Cristina. Dreams of Democracy, Logistics of Crowds: Public Gatherings on the National Mall. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534509331936512.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Benedetti, Cristina. "Dreams of Democracy, Logistics of Crowds: Public Gatherings on the National Mall." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1534509331936512

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1534509331936512
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© 2018, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.