The walking tour guide: Cultural workers in the Disneyfied city.

Title: The walking tour guide: Cultural workers in the Disneyfied city.
Identifier: AAI3213234
identifier: 3213234
Creator: Wynn, Jonathan R.
Contributor: Adviser: Patricia Ticineto Clough
Date: 2006
Language: English
Publisher: City University of New York.
Subject: Sociology, General
Abstract: The Walking Tour Guide is a theoretically informed urban ethnography that focuses on the social networks and practices of a particular character that labors in the post-industrial city. As these individuals use walking and storytelling to weave together an array of stories to re-produce the variegated urban cultures and local histories of New York City, they serve as a counterpoint to what has been called 'Disneyfication:' the process of increasing homogenization, commodification, and banalization at the intersection of urban culture and the booming tourism industry. As they teach forgotten histories and new perspectives in the streets of the city, walking guides offer participants an alternative experience to these larger trends in the urban world. For scholars, guides give a chance to see how cultural workers raise issues of what it means to be a visitor and a local, entertainment and education in learning, and the ways that experiences and spaces play a role in cultural production.
Type: dissertation
Source: PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
degree: Ph.D.