Memo+1+-+GHartman

Project Hopping ||
 * figuring out methods
 * Topical Area? || Data Sets || Social Theoretical Questions || Why Now? || How Prepared? || Bias? || Fields of Work? || Funders? ||
 * Significance of homeownership in the U.S. and Mexico || Interviews with homeowners – with different kinds of homeowners and perhaps renters || How might the personal and cultural significance of homeownership shape urban space and housing markets? || In both Mexico and the US homeownership is being aggressively pushed through policy. Also, in US post- housing crisis and Mexico possibly on the precipice of its own crisis || My diss research has focused on understanding how the mortgage market and informal land markets in Mexico work. I have a strong background in the policy and the intention that has gotten us to this point || Ethnicity, social class, gender are all important because of homeownership’s tie to masculine responsibility in Mexico, because of the deliberate class orientation of mortgage finance policy in Mexico, long history of housing discrimination in the US, etc. || Urban planning, mortgage lenders, policymakers, sociologists, anthropologists || NSF, HUD?, Infonavit (MX)?, UC Mexus ||
 * Global flower market || Interviews with flower vendors at the LA flower market, with the people that buy from them (businesses), importers, workers at airport, visit farms in countries they come from, environmentalists || I really don’t have a question here. I just want to understand the logistics of how it works. This is always my problem with projects. Um, how does the cultural desire for particular types of flowers in the US impact the environment and labor of far away regions? || Because sustainability and climate change is a major issue (for obvious reasons) and the flower market contributes to environmental degradation, probably unhealthy practices in the communities where they are grown. But interestingly, it is also a source of income for low-income informal laborers who sell flowers on the roadside. || Completed major research projects before, have some familiarity with where to start the project || Race, gender, class, all of it – from who and how the flowers are grown to our cultural desire for them || Sociologists, logistics people?, economic anthropologists, environmental anthropologists || NSF, Wenner-Gren, … ||
 * Global investment in property and the dynamic of urban change, gentrification, etc. || Interviews with lawyers setting up LLCs, interviews with urban planners, activists, owners of properties (if possible) || How is global capital investment reshaping city space? Something here about how physical property is the chosen investment by people from countries without reliable banking systems …? || Because global capital investment in property in cities like NYC, Miami, San Gabriel Valley (LA), London, are having major repercussions for the housing markets in those cities making them unaffordable for people who actually want to live there, not merely invest there || Significant experience with diss research on how housing markets work || Race, class, gender, all that comes into play again in the housing market stuff – but especially $$$ || Urban planning, policymakers, sociologists, anthropologists || NSF, HUD … ||