Description: Based on more than a decade of ethnographic research in Genoa, Italy, Creative Urbanity argues for an understanding of contemporary urban life that refuses scholarly condemnation of urban lifestyles and consumption and casts a fresh light on an oft-neglected social group--the middle class.
Review Quotes: "Creative Urbanity is an artful rendering of ethnography's versatility and nuance, its multi-sited and multi-vocal possibilities. Guano uncovers dramatic transformations of urban space, class-culture, gender politics and aesthetics as they are refracted through the political-economic history of Genoa. Her subjects-newly fashioned tour-guides, entrepreneurs, and cultural brokers-embody resilience, creativity and precarious insecurity. An evocative narrative and sophisticated analysis, Creative Urbanity will be a must-read by all students of contemporary neoliberalism."-- "Carla Freeman, Emory University"