Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: Stranded Cosmopolitans: Imagined Belonging in an Out-Of-The-Way Brazilian City

加州大学戴维斯分校的博士生Timothy E. Murphy将在Donald L. Donham博士的指导下，对全球城市之外的省级城市文化的发展以及这种文化如何影响种族、阶级和性别的社会划分进行研究。该项目将提供对世界各地省级城市发生的重大变化的洞察，因为以前孤立的人们在认知上融入了更大的世界，即使这些世界仍然超出了他们的身体范围。这项研究对于增进我们对新思想的传播和权威的理解非常重要。这项研究将在居住在巴西东北部贫困地区中心城市的中产阶级人群中进行。这项研究将把重点放在非精英居民身上，他们被认为是国际化的，对外界的复杂文化很了解，尽管现实是贫困使他们不可能去旅行。数据收集将从参与观察开始，由在整个职业、休闲和消费活动中陪同举举人进行，以1)了解他们在何处以及如何获得文化知识；2)评估他们的日常实践和观念与城市外世界的联系程度；3)分析他们如何理解和实施种族、阶级和性别的主导规范。研究人员还将进行焦点小组和调查，以收集占主导地位（非世界性）的地方文化的比较数据。这项研究很重要，因为它将促进我们对偏远地区的弱势群体如何与遥远的地方和思想联系和认同的理解。这比巴西地方的“被困的世界主义者”更重要，因为新概念——无论是政治的、文化的还是宗教的——可能是通过类似的个性化途径从全球中心扩散到当地生活中的。该项目还有助于社会科学家的教育和培训。

University of California-Davis doctoral student, Timothy E. Murphy, supervised by Dr. Donald L. Donham, will undertake research on the growth of provincial urban culture outside of global cities and how this culture affects social divisions of race, class, and gender. The project will provide insight into significant changes taking place in provincial cities throughout the world, as previously isolated people are cognitively incorporated into larger worlds, even when those worlds remain outside their physical reach. The research is important for increasing our understanding of the diffusion and authority of new ideas.The research will be carried out on a network of middle-class Brazilians who live in a city located at the heart of the impoverished Brazilian Northeast. The study will focus on non-elite residents who are considered cosmopolitan, knowledgeable about sophisticated cultures from outside, despite the reality that poverty makes it impossible for them to travel. Data collection will begin with participant observation by accompanying informants throughout occupational, leisure, and consumer activities to 1) learn where and how they acquire their cultural knowledge; 2) assess the extent to which their daily practices and perceptions are linked to the world outside the city; and 3) analyze how they understand and operationalize dominant norms of race, class, and gender. The researcher will also conduct focus groups and surveys to collect comparative data on the dominant (non-cosmopolitan) local culture. The research is important because it will advance our understanding of how even disadvantaged people in remote locales may connect to and identify with distant places and ideas. This is significant beyond the local case of "stranded cosmopolitans" in provincial Brazil because it may be through similar personalized pathways that new concepts -- be they political, cultural, or religious -- diffuse from global centers into local lives. The project also contributes to the education and training of a social scientist.