John Carr, visiting professor, University of New Mexico Communication and Journalism, presents, “Law and Exclusion from the City: Notes from the Trans-Border Southwest,” Wednesday, April 16 at 11 a.m. in Ortega Hall room 335. Carr’s talk is part of the American Studies Lecture Series.
Carr traces the ways that people and the spaces they occupy are tangled within legal systems that are called upon to take seriously diversity of place and identity in society. While the law is to remain neutral to differences, people still expect the state and legal system to address their discomfort and even fear of difference, particularly in cities. Carr brings examples illustrating the power of law to exclude people from particularly important symbolic urban spaces in the trans-border Southwest.
Carr completed his doctoral thesis in geography, “The Political Grind: The Role of Youth Identities in the Municipal Politics of Public Space,” at the University of Washington in 2007.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu