1st Edition
Urban Environments and Health in the Philippines A Retrospective on Women Street Vendors and their Spaces
Urban Environments and Health in the Philippines offers a retrospective view of women street vendors and their urban environments in Baguio City, designed by American architect and planner Daniel Burnham in the early twentieth century, and established by the American imperial government as a place for healing and well-being.
Based on a transdisciplinary multi-method study of street vendors, the author offers a unique perspective as a researcher of the place, to ultimately ask how marginalized women authenticate and democratize prime urban spaces for their livelihoods. This book provides a portal to another way of seeing and understanding streets and people, covering spatial units at multiple scales, design imperialism and its impact on health, and resilience strategies for challenging realities.
Blending subjects of architecture, planning, and health, this book is an ideal read for those interested in fields of urban planning and design, public health, landscape architecture, geography, and social sciences.
Introduction; Introduction; The Multi-Year Study of Vendors; Chapter 1 Decolonizing the Read ; A Decolonizing Process; The Case for Researcher Authenticity; Reading Asian Streets and Globalized Places in Perspective; Chapter 2 Lodging the Context in Place; Global Realities: Connection to a World System; Everyday Reading of Urban Environments; A Method in Street Reading: Introducing the Place-Node Concept; Historical Roots of the Health and Place Linkage; Chapter 3 Locating Health and Place: Historical and Contemporary Case of Baguio City; Early American Imperialism in the Philippines; Origins of an American Hill Station; Daniel Burnham’s Plan for Baguio City; Factors in the Growth of Baguio City; Chapter 4 Intersecting Spatial-Environmental Perspective with Urban Health; 1. Life-Worlds of Women Vendors: A Global Scan; Transnational Discourse on Gender; Women Street Vendors in the Philippines and the Global South; Women Vendors as Place-Makers; Street Vending in Baguio City; 2. Street Spatial Environments in Downtown Baguio City; Upper Session Road; Middle Session Road; Lower Session Road Area; General Luna Road; Abanao/Harrison Area; 3. Women Vendors in a Spatial-Environmental and Health Context; Urban Place-Nodes in a Health Context; The Personal Accounts and Health Conditions of Eight Women Vendors; Chapter 5 A Retrospective: Reflections on Urban Environments, Women Vendors, and Health; Conclusion
Biography
Dr. Mary Anne Alabanza Akers is the Dean for the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland. She continues to write on the interconnections between urban environments, health, communities, and people.
"Based on transdisciplinary, long-term research and grounded in the author’s personal engagement with decolonial scholarship, this book provides a fascinating look into the lives of women street vendors in Baguio City. I recommend it highly for students and professionals interested in urban space, gender, and microentrepreneurship, in Asia and globally, from a decolonizing perspective."
- Daniel, Goldstein, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University
"Through the lens of a local and the language of a postcolonial scholar, Mary Anne Alabanza Aker’s research retrospective takes us on a journey through the city of Baguio to understand the evolution of the city and the stories of its women vendors as place-makers and an embodiment of resilience and perseverance."
- Jeffrey Hou, Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Washington, Seattle
"Dr. Mary Anne Alabanza Akers writes with clarity and prose that makes this book a compelling read for those interested in understanding the intersectionality and complexity of health and place. From the perspective of an authentic researcher of the place where she was born and raised, shetakes us deep into the urban spaces of Baguio City in the Philippines where women street vendors work and share their lived experiences."
- Francisco S. Sy, MD, DrPH, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), School of Public Health
