Megan Saltzman studies the relationships between globalizing public space, everyday life and political potential. She is finishing her book Cultural Politics and Everyday Agency in the Public Spaces of Neoliberal Barcelona (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), which combines an ethnographic method with the analysis of fictional texts to expose how small agencies operate in everyday practices (e.g., sitting, wandering, playing in the streets, extracting objects from trash bins, etc.) She shows how these practices carried out in public space not only create nuance within the totalizing image of the city but also allow urbanites to develop their own form of autonomy from below. With a historicizing and transnational attempt, Megan has published on cultural topics related to contemporary public space in Spain, for example, trash and discards, urban furniture, nostalgia, informal economies of undocumented immigrants, and self-governed spaces. Megan has taught Spanish language and culture in a variety of different universities. Since 2012, she teaches at West Chester University.
