Zachary Blair

Anthropologist, Researcher, and Writer

Developing Winter Park

Developing Winter Park

Research and data collection continues on my project studying urban development in Winter Park. I have made some interesting discoveries while studying Dixie Terrace that connect local development to a few unlikely social mechanisms, as it is simultaneously shaped by some of the usual players (i.e. racial segregation, patterns of global capital, and neighborhood nostalgia). Looking forward to developing this insights as my research continues. In the meantime, I'll be sharing

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2017 Image of Research

2017 Image of Research

I received an honorable mention at the University of Illinois at Chicago's 2017 Image of Research competition for the following photograph I took at the Pulse memorial in Orlando, Florida. After the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub last year, I began a research endeavor to document and contextualize the event itself, as well as understand the variety of ways people interpret and experience tragedy, grief, mourning, and solidarity in Orlando, Florida. This research project

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Research Media Coverage

Research Media Coverage

I was organizing the newspaper articles I clipped during my fieldwork and came across one of my study of Boystown. It was published in the now defunct Chicago Free Press on March 4, 2010. The cover page read, "Weathering the Storm: How GLBT non-profits are coping with new economic realities," a story on the economic recession's effect on local non-profits. It was also ironically next to a story about a hate crime attack on the Red Line, when Daniel Hauff defended "gay youth"

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East Lakeview Arts Festival

East Lakeview Arts Festival

For the next few months, I will be writing short pieces here about key moments documented through my fieldwork in Chicago's Boystown that will not be making it to the final manuscript of my dissertation. This moment was one of my favorites. I've also included some amazing (shaky) camera-work from the field. Walking down Broadway through the East Lakeview Arts Festival in the Fall of 2009, Dev turned to me and said, “This is so much different than Gay Pride or Market Days. Eve

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News Media, Violence, and Global Capital: Contradictions in Knowledge Production

News Media, Violence, and Global Capital: Contradictions in Knowledge Production

While writing a recent article on Pulse, I came across this dilemma when researching the reported protest of thousands of people against gay marriage in Puerto Rico in 2013. While I only briefly referenced the protest in an effort to contextualize experiences of homophobia and heteronormativity in Puerto Rico, I wanted to make sure I had correct facts about the religious protest–mainly that the large protest actually happened the way that informants had recollected. I vaguely

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Love is Blinding: Emphasizing Love and Ignoring War in Response to the Pulse Shooting

Love is Blinding: Emphasizing Love and Ignoring War in Response to the Pulse Shooting

Last week, the City of Orlando released the 911 calls made by Omar Mateen, the shooter who killed 49 people and injured 68 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. You can read the full transcripts here. Omar's main message, which he repeated over and over, was to end the airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. Here are some excerpts of what Mateen said to police while still inside of the club: "... You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They are killing a lot of i

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No Tea, No Shade

No Tea, No Shade

On October 28th, No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies will be published. This is a volume of scholarly works edited by E. Patrick Johnson that serves as a follow-up to his original edited volume, Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. This volume features an essay I wrote based on my fieldwork in Boystown, Chicago entitled, "Boystown: Gay Neighborhoods, Social Media, and the (Re)production of Racism." In it, I explore the role of Facebook in the productio

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On Writing Ethnography (for the first time)

On Writing Ethnography (for the first time)

Writing has never been a problem for me. I have always loved writing. But writing an ethnography has been such a huge challenge. There are no rules to writing an ethnography, so you are never taught "how to write an ethnography" - at least I never was. Journalistic writing - pretty clear. There is a structure, a style, guidelines, and an established norm. Creative writing - fun. Essay writing - beginning, middle, and end. Writing ethnography, unlike anything else I have ever

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Pulse

Pulse

What started out as a personal essay, grew into a journal article and an interactive poster that I will be presenting at at least one conference this Fall. I have received some excellent feedback from my peers, for which I am very grateful. While I am still working on the final draft of the journal piece, I will be presenting the poster at the upcoming Spaces and Flows conference in November. The journal article has been accepted, pending revision to North American Dialogue.

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