Browsing by Author "Smirnova, Vera"

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    Letter from the Editors: Inaugural Issue
    Keyel, Jake; Smirnova, Vera (VT Publishing, 2017-04-19)
    A letter from the editors for the inaugural issue of the journal Community Change.
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    On the Land, Territory, and Crisis Triad: Enclosure and Capitalist Appropriation of the Russian Land Commune
    Smirnova, Vera (Virginia Tech, 2018-11-13)
    My research provides a historical, geographical reading of land enclosure in the context of economic and agrarian crises in late imperial Russia. Using original records of Russian land deals that I obtained in the federal and provincial archives, I explore how the coalitions of landed nobility, land surveyors, landless serfs, and peasant proprietors used land enclosure as a conduit for coercive governance, accumulation of landed capital, or, in contrary, as a means of resistance. Through critical discourse analysis, I illustrate how the Russian imperial state and territories in the periphery were dialectically co-produced not only through institutional manipulations, resettlement plans, and husbandry manuals, but also through political and public discourses. I argue that land enclosure exploited practices of autonomous land management in the commune and furthered growing agrarian and economic crises in the countryside. The urban periphery became a strategic territory used for the accumulation of new wealth and displacement of two million peasant households, which accommodated capitalist development under the Russian Tsarist and, later, Soviet political regimes. Through this example, my research reexamines predominant assumptions about the land, territory, and crisis triad in Russia by positioning the rural politics of the late imperial period within the global context of land enclosure. At the same time, by focusing on the historical reading of territory from the Russian perspective, this study introduces a more nuanced alternative to the traditional colonial territory discourse often found in Western interpretations.
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    Placemaking Revisited
    Smirnova, Vera; Guerra, Vanessa (VT Publishing, 2017-04-19)
    UN Habitat recently adopted its first public space resolution, which incentivizes international communities to employ placemaking strategies and encourage inclusive and sustainable community change through physical urban design. Scholars argue that healthy, creative, and walkable places, parks, and streets stimulate people's interpersonal interactions and, supposedly, renovate abandoned, disenfranchised communities (Florida 2002; Glaeser 2011; Duany and Plater - Zyberk 1994). However, one needs to recognize the limits of this philosophy.
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    Transforming Your City with Placemaking: An Interview with Ethan Kent
    Guerra M, Vanessa; Lyne, Heather; Smirnova, Vera (VT Publishing, 2017-04-19)
    The placemaking movement has gained traction in the Western world since the sixties, and the Project for Public Spaces has been in its forefront. Senior VP of the PPS, Ethan Kent, spoke in October 2016 at the Institute for Policy and Governance's "Community Voices" with Vanessa Guerra, a doctoral student in Environmental Design and Planning, Vera Smirnova, a doctoral student in Urban Affairs and Planning, and Heather Lyne, a Master's student in the Public and International Affairs program, all from Virginia Tech. This is a shortened version of the full interview transcript; the full audio interview can be found at https://soundcloud.com/andy-morikawa/ethan-kent-twb-interview.