The Written Suburb: An American Site, An Ethnographic Dilemma

Contemporary Ethnography

by John Darwin Dorst

Chadds Ford, an upscale suburb in southeastern Pennsylvania, devotes a lot of energy to creating a historical identity. Numerous institutions participate in this task, including museums, a land conservancy dedicated to the preservation of its historical landscape, and the Historical Society, which is responsible for an annual community celebration. Larger institutions related to regional tourism and suburban development generate a steady flow of texts about Chadds Ford in the form of glossy travel magazines, pamphlets, brochures, and gallery displays.

Genres: Folklore

232 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1989

Reviews

[Kristi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dorst examines Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania as an location which is a constructed idea. Dorst argues that Chadds Ford is a "postmodern" site that functions of various levels as a meta-construct involving a consumerist overlap between tourism and residential suburbia, based in representations of historic-place and artistic significance. Dorst contents that a location such as Chadds Ford challenged and deconstructs traditional ethnographic methodology, because of role consumerist cultural conceptions have in its formation and identity