Association of Pacific Coast Geographers Annual Meeting October 24–27, 2018 Reno, Nevada: Abstracts for Oral Presentations and Posters

Oral Presentation Abstracts

Stuart C. Aitken, saitken@mail.sdsu.edu, San Diego State University; and Li an and Shuang Yang, lan@sdsu.edu, San Diego State University. Affective Ecologies, Development, and Marginalized Families in Fanjingshan, China. In March 2013, several thousand delegates at China's National People's Congress voted to approve the environmentally sensitive and authoritarian Xi Jinping as president. This portended dramatic changes in environmental policies, not least of which was an offsetting of top-down development-at-all-costs dogma with a new official orthodoxy focused on a sustainable and circular economy, with inclusive and more rounded growth. This paper is part of a long-term project (2008–2017) in Fanjingshan National Nature Reserve in Guizhou Province that took place as the political scene in Beijing shifted. The larger project is about human-environment dynamics and complexities focusing on the preservation of snub-nose golden monkey habitat, and the implementation of top-down, grain-to-green and national forest conservation programs. This paper is about the contexts of two development projects, one in the reserve and one just outside of it, with very different outcomes. Drawing on the work of Arturo Escobar, Rosi Braidotti, and Xiaobo Su, we argue both for development in a time and place of rapid change as if marginalized farmers and their families mattered, and for the possibility of sustainable ethics with a locatable politics. The paper elaborates the potency of this kind of sustainability through the stories of families living on Fanjingshan Reserve in the midst of (i) authoritarian environmental policy proclamations from Beijing, and (ii) boisterous local development.

Clark Akatiff, cpakatiff@yahoo.com, Palo Alto, California. "You Are Where You're At": The March on the Pentagon Reconsidered. "Location, location, location," say the money men of geography. Place and the actions that lead to one's place are the irreducible essence of being. This will be a review of my 1974 paper in the Annals in light of the conference's theme of Place and the geography of things. More to come.

Jesus A. Alfaro Contreras, jalfaro5@calstatela.edu, California State University, Los Angeles. LA and Olympic Los Angeles: A Look Back at '84. Los Angeles is an Olympic city. This statement will further be confirmed when the Summer Olympics return to the city in 2028. It will join the ranks of London and, tentatively, Paris (in 2024) as a city to host the Summer Olympics three times. Historically, Los Angeles has the reputation for its innovations that have developed the modern Olympic games, such as the first city to create an Athlete's Village in 1932, to becoming the first privately funded games in 1984. This paper will examine the relationship between the residents of Los Angeles and the 1984 Summer Olympics. The methods utilized to historically analyze this relationship will be: define sport, as a social institution; funding, both economic and socially; and the concept of space and place to various actors participating in this mega-event. The end goal is to critically consider each topic when preparing and planning for the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Jeff Auer, jauer@unr.edu, University of Nevada, Reno. Geographic Inclusion/Exclusion in the National Reno Gay Rodeo. From 1976 to 1984, the National Reno Gay Rodeo was the biggest gay tourism event in the United States. Starting from just 150 people attending in 1976, by 1982 20,000 people from all over the world attended the rodeo. The rodeo ended up bringing up issues surrounding inclusion and exclusion at the Washoe County Fairgrounds, where the rodeo was held. The idea that the fairgrounds were an open space for a gay tourist event were challenged by city leaders on homophobic grounds and then by right-wing, AIDS-phobic activists. In this paper, I will illustrate how these challenges weakened and ultimately ended up causing the demise of the Reno National Gay Rodeo.

Engrid Barnett, engridbarnett@yahoo.com, University of Nevada, Reno. Outlandish!: The Resurrection of the Gaelic Language in Scotland. Scottish Gaelic continues to endure despite 350 years of repression. Following the...