Beyond "Lawn People": The Role of Emotions in Suburban Yard Management Practices

Professional Geographer

Volumn 65, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 345-361

  Harris, Edmund M ^a   Martin, Deborah G ^a   Polsky, Colin ^a   Denhardt, Lillian ^a   Nehring, Abigail ^b  

^a CLARK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b Bard College at Simon's Rock   (United States)

Author keywords

emotion; lawn; Massachusetts; suburbs; yard

Indexed keywords

HEURISTICS; HOMEOWNER; NEIGHBORHOOD; PSYCHOLOGY; SUBURBAN AREA; URBAN SOCIETY;

BOSTON; MASSACHUSETTS; UNITED STATES;

POACEAE;

EID: 84875345867     PISSN: 00330124     EISSN: 14679272     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2012.681586     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. Ahmed, S. 2004a. Affective economies. Social Text, 22(279): 117-39.
2. Ahmed, S. 2004b. The cultural politics of emotion, Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
3. Althusser, L. 1971. Lenin and philosophy, and other essays, New York: Monthly Review Press.
4. Anderson, K. and Smith, S. J. 2001. Editorial: Emotional geographies. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, N.S., 26(1): 7-10.
5. Bondi, L. and Davidson, J. 2011. Lost in translation. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, N.S., 36(4): 595-98.
6. Bondi, L., Davidson, J. and Smith, M. 2005. "Introduction: Geography's emotional turn.". In Emotional geographies, Edited by: Davidson, J., Bondi, L. and Smith, M. 1-16. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
7. Bormann, F. H., Balmori, D. and Geballe, G. T. 2001. Redesigning the American lawn: A search for environmental harmony, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
8. Casey, E. S. 2001. Between geography and philosophy: What does it mean to be in the place-world?. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 91(4): 683-93.
9. Charkes, J. S. 2008. Healthy lawns vs. clean water. New York Times, 19 October. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/nyregion/westchester/19lawnwe.html (last accessed 20 April 2011)
10. Cheng, Z., Richmond, D. S., Salminen, S. O. and Grewal, P. S. 2008. Ecology of urban lawns under three common management programs. Urban Ecosystems, 11(2): 177-95.
11. City of Toronto. 2009. Good for your lawn, good for you: Go pesticide free. http://www.toronto.ca/health/pesticides/index.htm (last accessed 20 April 2011)
12. Curti, G. H., Aitken, S. C., Bosco, F. J. and Goerisch, D. D. 2011. For not limiting emotional and affectual geographies: A collective critique of Steve Pile's "Emotions and affect in recent human geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers N.S., 36(4): 590-94.
13. Dawney, L. 2011. The motor of being: A response to Steve Pile's "Emotions and affect in recent human geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers N.S., 36(4): 599-602.
14. Dietz, J. B., Clausen, J. C. and Filchak, K. K. 2004. Education changes in residential nonpoint source pollution. Environmental Management, 34(5): 684-90.
15. Duff, C. 2010. The role of affect and practice in the production of place. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28(5): 881-95.
16. Evans, J. and Jones, P. 2011. The walking interview: Methodology, mobility and place. Applied Geography, 31(2): 849-58.
17. Fishman, R. 1987. Bourgeois utopias: The rise and fall of suburbia, New York: Basic Books.
18. Glennon, R. 2002. Water follies: Groundwater pumping and the fate of America's fresh waters, Washington, DC: Island Press.
19. Glennon, R. 2009. Unquenchable: America's water crisis and what to do about it, Washington, DC: Island Press.
20. Guha, A. 2009. Reducing suburban drought possibilities in Eastern Massachusetts: Identifying opportunities and constraints for integrated land-use and water resource management, MA thesis: Clark University.
21. Haydu, J. J., Hodges, A. W. and Hall, C. R. 2006. Economic impacts of the turfgrass and lawn-care industry in the United States, Gainesville: University of Florida. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu (last accessed 20 April 2011)
22. Hill, T. and Polsky, C. 2006. Suburbanization and adaptation to the effects of suburban drought in rainy central Massachusetts. The Geographical Bulletin, 47(2): 85-100.
23. Hill, T. and Polsky, C. 2007. Suburbanization and drought: A mixed methods vulnerability assessment in rainy Massachusetts. Environmental Hazards, 7(4): 291-301.
24. Hirsch, R. and Baxter, J. 2009. The look of the lawn: Pesticide policy preference and health-risk perception in context. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 27(3): 468-90.
25. Hobbs, F. and Stoops, N. 2002. Demographic trends in the 20th century. U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Special Reports, Series CENSR-4. U.S., Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
26. Inwood, J. and Martin, D. G. 2010. Exploring spatial (dis)locations through the use of roving focus groups. Qualitative Researcher, 12: 5-7.
27. Jackson, K. T. 1985. Crabgrass frontier: The suburbanziation of the United States, New York: Oxford University Press.
28. Jenkins, V. S. 1994. The lawn: A history of an American obsession, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
29. Jones, P., Bunce, G., Evans, J., Gibbs, H. and Ricketts Hein., J. 2008. Exploring space and place with walking interviews. Journal of Research Practice, 4(2): 1-9.
30. King, N. and Horrucks, C. 2010. Interviews in qualitative research, London: Sage.
31. Latour, B. 1987. Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
32. Lehman, J. T., Bell, D. W. and McDonald, K. E. 2009. Reduced river phosphorus following implementation of a lawn fertilizer ordinance. Lake and Reservoir Management, 25(3): 307-12.
33. Levin, E. 2006. Water wise communities: A handbook for municipal managers in the Ipswich River Watershed, Ipswich, MA: Ipswich River Watershed Association. http://ipswichriver.org/resources/water-wise-communities-handbook/ (last accessed 20 April 2011)
34. Lipman, C. 2006. The emotional self. Cultural Geographies, 13(4): 617-24.
35. Lorimer, H. 2005. Cultural geography: The busyness of being "more-than-representational.". Progress in Human Geography, 29(1): 83-94.
36. Lorimer, H. 2008. Cultural geography: Non-representational conditions and concerns. Progress in Human Geography, 32(4): 551-59.
37. Mayer, P. W., DeOreo, W., Opitz, E., Kiefer, J., Davis, W., Dziegielewski, B. and Nelson, J. O. 1999. Residential end uses of water, Denver, CO: AWWA Research Foundation and American Water Works Association.
38. McCormack, D. 2006. For the love of pipes and cables: A response to Deborah Thien. Area, 38(3): 330-32.
39. Metropolitan Area Planning Council. 2008. MetroFuture: Making a greater Boston region: Regional plan: Goals and objectives, Boston: Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
40. Milesi, C., Running, S. W., Elvidge, C. D., Dietz, J. B., Tuttle, B. T. and Nemani, R. R. 2005. Mapping and modeling the biogeochemical cycling of turf grasses in the United States. Environmental Management, 36(3): 426-38.
41. Morris, J. and Bagby, J. 2008. Measuring environmental value for natural lawn and garden care practices. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 13(3): 226-34.
42. Murdoch, J. 1997. Inhuman/nonhuman/human: Actor-network theory and the prospects for a nondualistic and symmetrical perspective on nature and society. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 15: 731-56.
43. Mustafa, D., Smucker, T. A., Ginn, F., Johns, R. and Connely, S. 2010. Xeriscape people and the cultural politics of turfgrass transformation. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28(4): 600-17.
44. Plum Island Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research.2010. http://ecosystems.mbl.edu/pie/ (last accessed 20 April 2011)
45. Pile, S. 2010. Emotions and affect in recent human geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers N.S., 35(1): 5-20.
46. Pile, S. 2011. For a geographical understanding of affect and emotions. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers N.S., 36(4): 603-06.
47. Pollan, M. 1989, 28 May. Why mow? The case against lawns. New York Times Magazine, 44: 23-26. 41-42.
48. Polsky, C., Pontius, R. G., Decatur, A., Giner, N. and Runfola, D. 2011. Mapping lawns using an object-oriented methodology with high-resolution four-band aerial photography: The twenty-six towns of the Ipswich and Parker River watersheds, Massachusetts. George Perkins Marsh Working Paper, Worcester, MA: Clark University.
49. Robbins, P. 2007. Lawn people: How grasses, weeds and chemicals make us who we are, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
50. Robbins, P. and Birkenholtz, T. 2003. Turfgrass revolution: Measuring the expansion of the American lawn. Land Use Policy, 20(2): 181-94.
51. Robbins, P., Polderman, A. and Birkenholtz, T. 2001. Lawns and toxins: An ecology of the city. Cities, 18(6): 369-80.
52. Robbins, P. and Sharp, J. T. 2003a. The lawn-chemical economy and its discontents. Antipode, 35(5): 955-79.
53. Robbins, P. and Sharp, J. T. 2003b. Producing and consuming chemicals: The moral economy of the American lawn. Economic Geography, 79(4): 425-51.
54. Robbins, P. and Sharp, J. T. 2006. "Turfgrass subjects: The political economy of urban monoculture". In In the nature of cities: Urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism, Edited by: Heynen, N., Kaika, M. and Swyngedouw, E. 110-28. London and New York: Routledge.
55. Rome, A. 2001. The bulldozer in the countryside: Suburban sprawl and the rise of American environmentalism, New York: Cambridge University Press.
56. SafeLawns.org. 2010a. Canada to ban all weed 'n feed nationwide. SafeLawns Blog. http://www.safelawns.org/blog/index.php/2010/02/canada-to-ban-all-weed-n-feed-nationwide/ (last accessed 20 April 2011)
57. SafeLawns.org. 2010b. New York school pesticide bill becomes law! SafeLawns Blog. http://www.safelawns.org/blog/index.php/2010/05/new-york-school-pesticide-bill-becomes-law/ (last accessed 20 April 2011)
58. Sears, M., Walker, C. R., van der Jagt, R. H. C. and Claman, P. 2006. Pesticide assessment: Protecting public health on the home turf. Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, 11(4): 229-34.
59. Seigworth, G. J. and Gregg, M. 2010. "An inventory of shimmers". In The affect theory reader, Edited by: Gregg, M. and Seigworth, G. J. 1-25. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
60. Shouse, E. 2005. Feeling, emotion, affect. M/C Journal, 8(6) http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php (last accessed 5 September 2011)
61. Steinberg, T. 2006. American green: The obsessive quest for the perfect lawn, New York: Norton.
62. Terada, R. 2003. Feeling in theory: Emotion after the "Death of the Subject.", Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
63. Thien, D. 2005. After or beyond feeling? A consideration of affect and emotion in geography. Area, 37(4): 450-56.
64. Thrift, N. 2007. Non-representational theory: Space {pipe} politics {pipe} affect, London and New York: Routledge.
65. Tolia-Kelly, D. P. 2006. Affect-An ethnocentric encounter? Exploring the "universalist" imperative of emotional/affectual geographies. Area, 38(2): 213-17.
66. Tu, J., Xia, Z., Clark, K. C. and Frei, A. 2007. Impact of urban sprawl on water quality in Eastern Massachusetts, USA. Environmental Management, 40(2): 183-200.
67. Zarriello, P. J., Ries, K. G. and Northborough, M A:. 2000. A precipitation-runoff model for analysis of the effects of water withdrawals on streamflow, Ipswich River Basin, Massachusetts, U.S. Geological Survey. http://pubs.usgs.gov/wri/wri004029/ (last accessed 20 April 2011)