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This research is concerned with individuals' symbolic interactions with the Charging Bull statue. We chose this statue because it is an extremely popular tourist attraction and the most visited nonhuman statue in New York City. However, there is no research devoted to understanding how visitors interact with the statue. To fill this gap in the literature, we examine people's interactions as a unique way of communicating with the Charging Bull statue in New York City through a photo analysis approach. Using the general framework of symbolic interactionism, the paper investigates poses, gestures, and more generally interactions of individuals near or with the statue to gain insights into the impact of the Charging Bull beyond a mere visual representation. The findings reveal various forms of interaction, including souvenir photography, active participation, unexpected interactions, and public-made symbolism. This study of these interactions contributes to the literature on collective memory and the study of statues. Additionally, this research highlights the inventiveness of the dynamic relationship between individuals and statues as symbols in the urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geography of sex work has received attention from scholars exploring its ebb and flow based on how police, neighbors, and gentrification influence sex work zones; however, there are few studies about how sex market facilitators move within and feel about working in these zones. Researchers, artists, and activists have used psychogeography maps or maps that elucidate how individuals conceptualize place and their personal, emotional relationship to the city's geography. We, a criminologist and a visual artist, used this psychogeography technique adapted from Debord and Lynch's work. Sixty sex market facilitators working in NYC from the 1970s–2012 drew maps of their everyday operations. This participatory method enabled participants to feel and recall the emotions of this high-risk activity. This paper analyzes participants' maps and corresponding narratives by exploring Lyng's idea of edgework, the synergy of risk-taking activity, and feelings of mastery, authenticity, excitement, control, and a search for respect. This study addresses how participants map urban space from positions of 'advanced marginalization,' showing the impacts of spatial and mental boundaries of possibility. Through this psychogeography method, participants engaged in 'countermapping' as a form of resistance. The sensations and emotions derived from facilitation and its evolution moved us closer to understanding sex market facilitation from the inside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the concept of "green resilience" – the mobilization of gardens and urban green spaces for enhancing the resilience of communities and cities in the face of increasing uncertainty and risk. Drawing inspiration from seminal work in human-plant geographies, it explores the governmental functions and political implications of green resilience, arguing that these spaces serve as key forms of state rule and biopolitical power. The study employs the notion of green resilience as a "composition," emphasizing the assembling of diverse human and nonhuman actors in resilience projects. The developed compositional ontology highlights the importance of aesthetic and visual practices in green resilience projects and reveals how these are continuously decomposed and recomposed by the involved actors. The paper develops its arguments through a "paradigmatic case study" of various green resilience projects in New York City – including survivor trees, memorial groves, and community gardens. The study illuminates the multiplicity of green resilience initiatives and the underlying governmental logic by comparing these projects. Through its analysis, the paper contributes to the literature on resilience as an emerging governance paradigm. It reveals how green resilience projects embody a multiplicity of practices, uncovers the first comprehensive comparative analysis of various forms of green resilience, and offers a critique of resilience from within. The study concludes by identifying three tensions or contradictions of (green) resilience as a form of biopolitical government: visibility and invisibility, knowledge and ignorance, and control and emergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]