Analyze

Place-making practices refer to the ways in which people create and define physical spaces as meaningful and significant through their everyday activities and social interactions.[1] In Ethnography, the study of these practices is often referred to as ‘ethnography as place-making,’ which involves the exploration of the cultural meanings and practices that shape the physical and social environments in which people live. This can include examining how people create and maintain social boundaries, how they express their identities and values through the built environment,[2] and how they negotiate power and control over the spaces they inhabit.

This place in Gröpelingen is made a place through the interaction of the people tending to the urban gardening project. 

1. Pink 2008, 178ff. 

2. See: urbanization 

3. Pink 2008, 190. 

The presented artifact talks about the pollution management in the Passaic River. The water body has been contaminated from previous manufacaturing companies that would dump toxic material into the river. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, "two cleanups of the river have been completed." However, the plan on a third cleanup was created in March of 2016. The state is looking into getting residents back to the river through park creation, education and cultural events which I find great, but a concern of mine is what if the water isn't safe enough? These things have to be taken into consideration because human lives are at stake.