Jeffrey Kidder
Email Address: jkidder@ucsd.edu
Anticipated PhD date: January 2009
Dissertation title: Emotions, Space, and Cultural Analysis: The Case of Bike Messengers
Disseration Summary:
My dissertation addresses a broad range of theoretical issues important to both cultural and urban sociology. Specifically, I explore the relevance of incorporating emotions and space into cultural analysis. Bike messengers deliver time-sensitive materials in the downtown core of major cities. For many messengers, however, the occupation is more than a paycheck; it is an all-encompassing lifestyle. What my dissertation uncovers is why a low-paying and dangerous job generates such subcultural attachments. What I found is that in making their deliveries, messengers engage in emotionally charged, creative uses of urban space—a process I call the affective appropriation of space. It is through emplaced cultural action that messengers develop emotional ties to their job and, thus, incorporate aspects of their occupation into their leisure time.
Several portions of my dissertation research have already been published in The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Sociological Forum, and Symbolic Interaction. I also have a forthcoming article in Theory and Society.
M.A.: Sociology, Univ. of Georgia-Athens
B.A.: Sociology, Univ. of N. Carolina-Greensboro
Entered grad program in: 2004
Areas of Specialization: Sociology of Culture, Urban Sociology, Sociological Theory, Qualitative Methods
Mailing Address:
University of California, San Diego
Department of Sociology
9500 Gilman Dr. - 0533
La Jolla, CA 92093-0533
Official Web site of the University of California, San Diego
Copyright ©2012 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.