A Brief Introduction

Hello There! I am starting this blog as a part of my dissertation work. My dissertation, tentatively titled Welcome to Truth or Consequences: Place and Identity in Modern New Mexico, explores contemporary ideas about places from the turn of the 19th century to the present through a place ethnography of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. My purpose here is to create a on-line place where I can share some writing and research on the town in the next year as I do my field work. My ultimate goal is to be compelling, useful and lively enough to generate readers and feedback. 

My idea to write a dissertation on Truth or Consequences was the result of my interest in  ideas about places and region at the turn of the 19th century. How did we think about places? What did we say about places? How did we make places? By mid-century the advent of suburbia and the rise of automobile landscapes had transformed our cultural landscapes. In other respects, however, a lot remained the same. Old patterns of place and place making persisted. This is a fascinating history with a lot of tension in how places were imagined and enacted. I was  keen on doing my research in New Mexico's southern region, which compared to the north in New Mexico get very little scholarly attention. My dissertation will end with an exploration of how places across the region are trying to transform themselves at the turn of the current century. Historic preservation, tourism and other efforts are being promoted as traditional base industry struggles in a changing global economy. I am curious about the same kinds of questions about place narratives and identity, boosterism, politics, art, people and community. Truth or Consequences is, I believe, a perfect case study. 

I plan on writing five chapters that span the town's history set against larger regional and national trends. I am going to be spend a lot of time in Truth or Consequences in the next year to research Chapter 4, which is a place ethnography. Thus I will be in the "field," or the town itself, observing and talking to people. This is why I have created this blog. I will explain what a place ethnography is in my second post and talk a little more about my methods. This is a small excerpt from my Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol, (jargon which will also be explain in my second post):: The purpose of my study is to explore what people think about places and why they think about places in certain ways. My primary research focus is finding out what people think about Truth or Consequences as a place, identifying why they think about this particular place in these ways, and asking what people think about places in general. My secondary research focus considers how people engage in place making in public and shared places. My study goal is to identify shared elements and characteristics of what, how and why people consider place and engage in place making, and to unearth individual and shared narratives of place experience and memory. But more on that later. 

A little about me. I am a Ph.D candidate in the Department of American Studies at UNM. My research and teaching fields are Southwest Studies and Environment, Science and Technology (EST) Studies. I am also pursuing a graduate certificate in Historic Preservation and Regionalism through the School of Architecture and Planning. In general I study place and place making, place memory and place narratives, historic preservation, cultural landscapes, and tourism. I also focus on issues of sustainability, especially in the built environment, planning and design, technology, water and reclamation. I teach an introduction EST courses every semester, and a Southwest Critical Landscapes upper division course occasionally. I have a BA and MA in Government, both from NMSU. I taught at the College of SanaFe in Albuquerque for many years. Most recently I have worked with with Elmo Baca and the New Mexico MainStreet Program to create historic preservation and compliance resources. 

On a personal note, I was born and raised in New Mexico. My mom Barbara is an artist, and my dad Wayne Shrubsall is a semi-retired professor and banjo genus. My great grandparents on my mom's side, Ruth and Emmitt Isaacks, homesteaded in southern New Mexico in the late 1880s, and I have a deep love for the south of New Mexico. I lived in Las Cruces as a young child, returned for college, and worked there for a few years as an Americorps teacher and adjunct faculty at NMSU before moving back to Albuquerque. I grew up mostly in Albuquerque, although lived briefly in a few other places in northern New Mexico, including Algodones and Ojo Sarco, but my temperament is more suited to the sprawling beautiful south. I spent my formative 5th and 8th school years with my grandparents, Jean and Bob Berger, in Monticello, a village about 20 miles from Truth or Consequences, and went to elementary and middle school in T or C during this time. I have a lively 2 year old girl, Emagen, and live in Albuquerque's Old Town neighborhood with my partner Jeanmica Schultz, an irrigation contractor, and his 6 year old girl Bella. I am exuberant and excessively friendly, and although not the same kind of rowdy I was a few years ago, I am still pretty boisterous. My phone number is 505.917.9111, my school email is tberger@unm.edu, and you can find me on facebook under tita berger. Please contact me anytime.

I will end this first post with a few of my favorite lines on place, taken from a great poem by T.S. Eliot. I believe that poems have a way of making us sharply aware of ourselves and our places. I often use pieces of poems in my writing, to inspire me, and to make my own writing seem better than it is as I seek to inspire my small audiences.  

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our journeying

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time."

T. S. Eliot, 'Little Gidding V', from 'Four Quartets' 1942