Setha Low

{{short description|American anthropologist}} {{use American English|date=September 2019}} {{use mdy dates|date=September 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = Setha Low | image = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1948}} | birth_place = Los Angeles, California | death_date = | death_place = | education = Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (1971) | occupation = Anthropologist | employer = City University of New York }} '''Setha M. Low''' (born 1948) is a professor of environmental psychology and the director of the Public Space Research Group at the City University of New York. Low served as president of the American Anthropological Association and was a Conservation Guest Scholar at the Getty Conservation Institute.

Low received a bachelor of arts in psychology from Pitzer College in Claremont, California, in 1969, and her master of arts and doctorate in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971 and 1976, respectively.

Her research includes an ethnography of residents in gated communities in San Antonio, Texas, and on Long Island in New York, and a study of urban parks including New York City's Prospect Park, Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park, and Jacob Riis Park in the Gateway National Recreation Area. More broadly, Low's research includes work on the anthropology of space and place, medical anthropology, urban anthropology, historic preservation, landscapes of fear, security/insecurity, and gating in Latin America, the United States, and the cities of Western Europe.<ref name=IvryJSTOR />

Low grew up in Los Angeles<ref name=IvryJSTOR>{{cite podcast|last1=Low |first1=Setha |date=2025-11-11 |title=On the Meaning and Value of Public Spaces |author-link1= |last2= |first2= |author-link2= |display-authors= |author-mask1= |author-mask2= |collaboration= |df= |editor-last1= |editor-first1= |editor-link1= |editor-last2= |editor-first2= |editor-link2= |display-editors= |editor-mask1= |editor-mask2= |url-access= |trans-title= |format= |department= |work=JSTOR Daily |script-work= |trans-work= |type= |series=Perspectives on Public Space |language=English |issue= |interviewer-last1=Ivry |interviewer-first1=Sara |publisher=JSTOR |publication-date= |minutes= |time-caption= |time= |page= |pages= |at= |no-pp= |arxiv= |asin= |asin-tld= |bibcode= |bibcode-access= |biorxiv= |citeseerx= |doi= |doi-access= |doi-broken-date= |eissn= |hdl= |hdl-access= |isbn= |ismn= |issn= |jfm= |jstor= |jstor-access= |archive-url= |archive-format= |archive-date= |access-date= |via= |quote-page= |quote-pages= |quote= |script-quote= |trans-quote= |mode= |ref= |postscript=|url=https://daily.jstor.org/on-the-meaning-and-value-of-public-spaces/}}</ref> and currently resides in Brooklyn.

== Publications == * 2022 ''Why Public Space Matters''. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197543733. * 2016 ''Spatializing Culture: The Ethnography of Space and Place''. New York and London: Routledge. * 2006 ''The Politics of Public Space'' [with co-editor Neil Smith]. New York and London: Routledge. * 2005 ''Rethinking Urban Parks: Public Space and Cultural Diversity''. University of Texas Press. * 2003 ''Behind the Gates: The New American Dream''. New York and London: Routledge. * 2003 ''The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture'' [with co-author Denise Lawrence-Zuñiga]. Oxford: Blackwell. * 2000 ''On the Plaza: The Politics of Public Space and Culture''. Austin: University of Texas Press. * 1999 ''Theorizing the City: The New Urban Anthropology Reader''. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. * 1996 "Spatializing Culture: The Social Production and Social Construction of Public Space," ''American Ethnologist'' 23(4): 861–879. * 1995 ''Children of the Urban Poor: The Sociocultural Environment of Growth, Development and Malnutrition in Guatemala City'' [with co-author F. Johnston]. Boulder: Westview. * 1995 "Indigenous Architectural Representations: Mesoamerican and Caribbean Foundations of the Spanish American Plaza," ''American Anthropologist'' 97(4): 748–762.

== References == * {{Cite news | volume = 17 | issue = 2 | last = Getty Conservation Institute | title = Conservation Guest Scholars | work = GCI Newsletter | accessdate = 2009-01-16 | year = 2002 | url = http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications/newsletters/17_2/gcinews7.html }} * {{Cite news | last = Marquardt | first = Katy | title = Recipe for a City Park's Success: The cultural diversity of its users can make or break an urban space | work = U.S. News & World Report | accessdate = 2009-01-16 | date = 2008-04-25 | url = https://www.usnews.com/articles/business/retirement/2008/04/25/recipe-for-a-city-parks-success.html }} * {{Cite news | issn = 0740-5421 | last = Robinson | first = Eugene | title = Eugene Robinson - We the Paranoid | newspaper = The Washington Post | accessdate = 2009-01-16 | url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/03/AR2007120301619.html | date=2007-12-04 }}

== External links == * [http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Anthropology/Faculty-Listing/Setha-M-Low Setha M. Low, Professor of Anthropology, The Graduate Center, CUNY] * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD7xCo_zfAs Setha Low speaks about public space at House of Speakeasy's Seriously Entertaining]

{{American Anthropological Association presidents|state=uncollapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Low, Setha}} Category:1948 births Category:Living people Category:American women anthropologists Category:American anthropologists Category:21st-century American psychologists Category:American women psychologists Category:Environmental psychologists Category:21st-century American women Category:20th-century American psychologists