Abstract
Despite growing interest in urbanization and its social and ecological impacts on formerly rural areas, empirical research remains limited. Extant studies largely focus either on issues of social exclusion and enclosure or ecological change. This article uses the case of sweetgrass basketmaking in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, to explore the implications of urbanization, including gentrification, for the distribution and accessibility of sweetgrass, an economically important nontimber forest product (NTFP) for historically African American communities, in this rapidly growing area. We explore the usefulness of grounded visualization for research efforts that are examining the existence of "fringe ecologies" associated with NTFP. Our findings highlight the importance of integrated qualitative and quantitative analyses for revealing the complex social and ecological changes that accompany both urbanization and rural gentrification.
Keywords
fringe ecologies,
grounded visualization,
nontimber forest products,
rural gentrification,
urbanization
Citation
Hurley, Patrick T.; Halfacre, Angela C.; Levine, Norm S.; Burke, Marianne K. 2008. Finding a "disappearing" nontimber forest resource: using grounded visualization to explore urbanization impacts on sweetgrass basketmaking in greater Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. The Professional Geographer, Vol. 60(4): 1-23
