URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY (COURSE CODE: SANB 2032)
FSS, Masaryk Univ. Brno
When: Spring 2024, Tues from 8:00 to 9:40 (CET). Where: U43
Course convenor: Dr Patirck LAVIOLETTE
246133@mail.muni.cz / patrick.laviolette@fss.muni.cz
Office Hours: Wednesdays 14:00 16:00 (Or by Zoom appointment)
Office: Room 3.48, Joštova 218/10. 602 00 Brno
Phone: +420 549 49 49 04
Bronislaw Malinowski [1884-1942] Trobriand Islands
• 1898 Torres Straits Expedition. Standing (from left to right): W.H.R. Rivers, Charles
Gabriel Seligman, Sidney Herbert Ray, Anthony Wilkin. Seated: Alfred Cort Haddon
D. Emile Durkheim
The Chicago School of Urban Sociology
Nels Anderson, Ernest Burgess, Ruth Shonle Cavan, Edward Franklin Frazier, Everett
Hughes, Roderick D. McKenzie, George Herbert Mead, Robert E. Park, Walter C.
Reckless, Edwin Sutherland, W. I. Thomas, Frederic Thrasher, Louis Wirth, and
Florian Znaniecki.
Activist, social scientist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams also maintained
close connections with many members of the school.
Following WW2, a ‘second Chicago School’ arose, whose members combined
symbolic interactionism with methods of field research (today known as ethnographic
fieldwork), to create a new body of work.
Important members from the second Chicago school include, Howard S. Becker,
Richard Cloward, Erving Goffman, David Matza, Robert K. Merton, Lloyd Ohlin,
Frances Fox Piven, William F. Whyte.
Two features of CS:
i) Human Ecology;
ii) focus on the relationship of individual to society.
Boston city: population 1945
Approx. 800,000
Boston city: population 2021
Approx. 665,000
Whyte’s Street Corner Society.
Published in the mid-40s, one issue with studying Italian community was the fear in the
US that this immigrant population might have sympathies with the Fascist regime in
the home country.
Stereotypes about Cornerville are based on info in which actual people rarely feature.
“The younger generation has built up its own society relatively independent of the
influence of its elders” (Whyte 1943: xviii).
Book starts by focusing on little guys. How they organise activities, groups. Situate
them in the social structure. Then, moves up to understand big shots, raketeering,
political organisations. How they control, influence little guys on a daily basis.
Gangs held together by fights (boxing) crap shooting, bowling and local politics.
https://vimeo.com/12661510
The Chicago School of Urban Sociology, [1915-1935]
Whyte’s Street Corner Society.
Why is this study important?
Communities as social problems was the approach before. Instead, Whyte does one of,
(perhaps the) first, study of community as an organised social system.
It was one of the first ethnographic studies of an urban setting. Up until then, studies of
cities were demographic, geographical – based on interviews, surveys, census data
and were largely statistical. Whyte’s project was a full emersion into the cultural setting.
Without being especially auto-ethnographic, Whyte nonetheless situates his own
background into his account.
Lecture 2, Mass Observation / de Certeau
http://www.massobs.org.uk/moo
Petit, Philippe (2002), To Reach the Clouds. New York: North
Point Press.
Signorelli, James dir. (2008) Man On Wire – (1hr 34 mins
Documentary of Philippe Petit's High-Wire Walk). London:
BBC/UK Film Council.
He starts by describing how elevation of observation turns us into
detached ‘voyeurs’. By contrast, he’s interested in the what happens on
the ground. Part of his ambition in uncovering people’s unconscious
reasons for doing things is to avoid abstract generalisations. Instead he’s
interested in how empirical, real life events impact on our behaviour .
Cities are machineries and heroes of modernity.
de Certeau is keen to make several analogies between walking styles and
discourse/language.
This suggests that theoretically, one could align his work with
structuralist / post-structuralist as well as hermeneutic ideas. The
influence of Foucault and Freud are certainly consistent here.
But de Certeau is also aligned with phenomenology since he’s turning
our attention to ‘everyday life’ and our bodily senses.
Walking is a basic form of experiencing the city. In doing so, our bodies
inscribe a type of urban text.
Michel de Certeau starts with the idea of a « birds eye view » of NYC. One could think of
Phillippe Petit’s Man on Wire here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWHZLRmu1ts
“Mass-Observation could be understood […] as an organization pioneering a
particular type of social research which some […] saw as a vital new departure
in scientific research, and others […] wrote off as misguided. But it might be
more appropriate to regard it as recent historians […] have tended to see it, as
a social movement with quasi-political objectives and an active and diverse
following” (Summerfield 1985: 439).
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relat
edvideo?&q=mass+observation+&&mid=F
E6DA1DFA4842AB5E086FE6DA1DFA484
2AB5E086&&FORM=VRDGAR
MO planned to study the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain.
Tom Harisson [1911 –1976]
One of the three main founders of MO, could also be said to have allowed the
idea of ‘Anthro at home’ to develop.
He teamed up with filmmaker Humphrey Jennings and journalist Charles Madge,
who had helped launch a group of artists committed to social documentation.
They labelled their project a ‘Science of ourselves’. They wanted to increase the
social consciousness of the increasingly media brainwashed era of the 1930s.
MO started with the coronation of George the V1 on 12 May 1937. They used
the ‘day survey’ as a method as well as ‘observations’ from professionals. And
regular Diary entries from lower-middle-class volunteers who were mainly clerks
and schoolteachers. Largely self-taught and left leaning politically.
During WW2 a rift between the founders occurred because of the relationship
that MO developed with the government. After the war, MO did increasingly
conduct narrow surveys for commercial companies.
Madge, Charles & TomHarrisson (1939). Britain by Mass-Observation. Penguin: Harmondsworth.
MO behind such projects as:
Firth, Raymond (1956). Two Studies of Kinship in London. London
Routledge.
Fox, Kate (2004). Watching the English. London: Nicholas Brealey.
Bentham / Foucault
Panopticon
Structuralism Claude Levi-Strauss 1960s
Kanoi, Lav
Infrastructure
Douglas, Mary 1986. How Institutions Think. Syracuse Univ Press.
A book about “Rational Choice Theory & Cooperation”.
It shows the extent to which thinking itself is dependent upon institutions.
Different types of institutions allow individuals to think different kinds of
thoughts and to respond to different emotions.
It is just as difficult to explain how individuals come to share the
categories of their thought as to explain how they ever manage to sink
their private interests for a common good.
MD argues that institutions do not think independently, nor do they have
purposes, nor can they build themselves. As we construct our institutions,
we are squeezing each other's ideas into a common shape in order to
prove their legitimacy by a critical mass.
She warns us not to be fooled in the idea that indigenous people may
think through institutions, but 'moderns' decide on important issues
individually. Our legitimated institutions make major decisions which are
invariably part of traditions and ethical principles.
Lecture 3, Infrastructure
Walter Benjamin [1892-1940]
Arcades Project
‘Flâneur’
Infrastructures of capitalism/
consumption… and resistance
to them
Conversation -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_ocb5iKzoU
Miha Mihovec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixiOzXeyKiE
The flaneur inspired by Charles Baudelaire
Flâneur, Flâneuse, & Flânerie | Patricia Hurducaș |
Creating age-friendly cities and
communities (who.int)
https://www.who.int/activities/creating-age-friendly-cities-and-communities
According to WHO, population ageing and urbanisation are two of the biggest social
transformations of the 21st century. Cities and communities have a key role in
enabling people to live longer and healthier lives while fostering fairer and more
sustainable societies.
An age-friendly city or community is health promoting and designed for diversity,
inclusion, and cohesion, including across all ages and capacities. Age-friendly cities or
communities might have, for example: accessible and safe road and transport
infrastructure, barrier-free access to buildings and houses, and public seating and
sanitary facilities, among others. Age-friendly cities and communities also enable
people to stay active; keep connected; and contribute to their community’s economic,
social, and cultural life. An age-friendly city can foster solidarity among generations,
facilitating social relationships between residents of all ages. Age-friendly cities and
communities also have mechanisms to reach out to older people at risk of social
isolation, falls or violence through personalised and tailored efforts.
Lecture 4, Age Friendly Cities.
WHO is working with its Member States at national and local levels to
develop age-friendly cities and communities, within the context of the UN
Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021-2030). WHO also supports a Global
Network for Age-friendly Cities and Communities that works to stimulate
and enable cities and communities around the world to become
increasingly age-friendly by:
inspiring change by showing what can be done and how it can be done;
connecting cities and communities worldwide to facilitate the exchange of
information, knowledge and experience; and supporting cities and
communities to find appropriate innovative and evidence-based solutions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-hCj9hc444
Allan Walker: ‘Lecture I : Active Ageing and Age-Friendly Cities’
Ageing in Place in Cities, project by
Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group (MUARG)
https://youtu.be/p7CUgTgUuLU
A classic text documenting the revived
1970s project Growing Up in Cities (Lynch
1977), this edited book describes the
processes and findings of participatory
research with children in eight countries
across five continents, exploring
experiences and perceptions of their own
environments. Led by an interdisciplinary
team of experts, each project shares open,
exploratory beginnings, moving toward
communication to local and regional
authorities of children’s experiences and
priorities for action.
Chawla, Louise (ed) 2002. Growing Up in An Urbanising World.
London: Earthscan.
Lecture 6, Homelessness, ghettos, squatting
Aiken. S.R. 1981. Squatters and Squatter settlements in Kuala Lumpur.
Geographical Review 71(2): 158-175.
“In Peninsular Malaysia, one of the richest regions in Southeast Asia,
opportunities for productive employment have not kept pace with the
growth of urban population” (Aiken 1981: 161)
“Late in 1979 the government announced that a new master plan for
Kuala Lumpur would be completed in 1980 and that in the plan "special
consideration would be made for squatters living in the capital." The announcement
noted that "squatters had a role to play in the development
and economic progress of the capital." Positive statements such as these
are relatively new and hopefully signal the emergence of new attitudes on
the part of the government toward the squatter population” (ibid: 170).
“Researchers, planners, and officials should remember that in many
instances a squatter settlement is a solution to a problem, an investment
in the future, a center of shared values, and a home” (ibid: 175).
“Furthermore, squatter settle- ments also contribute to the urbanization process,
because they perform important urban functions” (Ibid 172).
“Meanwhile, problem solving should emphasize the eventual integration of existent
squatter settlements in the physical and social fabric of the city” (Ibid 173).
KL Squatter Hut. Photo by Vincent Cheok
City tells squatters to leave BMW Park - City - The Jakarta Post
Hassan, Taha (dir) 2014. Brixton Fairies: Made Possible By Squatting (34mins).
London: Unite The Union.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZxapxG_ew4
Rubetzki, Macek et al. (dirs) 1980. The Squat. A Place To Call Your Own (20mins)
NFSA: Film Australia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNsKq1RwuJ4
Lecture 7, parkour, graffiti etc
Rafael 2019. From pollution to purity: The transformation of graffiti and street art in
London (2005– 17). In Tilley (ed). London’s Urban Landscapes. London: UCL Press
(403-25).
Simmel, G. 1950. ‘The metropolis and mental life’. In The Sociology of Georg Simmel
(Trans. By Kurt Wolff). New York: Free Press. (409-24).
https://condor.depaul.edu/dweinste/theory/M&ML.htm
“With each crossing of the street, with the tempo and multiplicity of economic,
occupational and social life, the city sets up a deep contrast with small town and
rural life with reference to the sensory foundations of psychic life. The metropolis
exacts from man as a discriminating creature a different amount of consciousness
than does rural life” (Simmel 1950: 2).
“appears in turn as the form or the cloak of a more general mental phenomenon of
the metropolis: it grants to the individual a kind and an amount of personal
freedom… (ibid 8)
“Man does not end with the limits of his body or the area comprising his
immediate activity. Rather is the range of the person constituted by the sum of
effects emanating from him temporally and spatially. In the same way, a city
consists of its total effects which extend beyond its immediate confines” (ibid 10)
“Cities are, first of all, seats of the highest economic division of labor” (ibid 11).
Davis, Dana-Ain (2012). ‘Culture of poverty’. Oxford Bibliographies.
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-
9780199766567-0004.xml
The term culture of poverty emerged in 1959 to understand the reasons for why
people are poor.
Gentrification ???:
Arkaraprasertkul, Non 2018. Gentrification and its contentment: An anthropological
perspective on housing, heritage and urban social change in Shanghai.
Urban Studies, 55 (7): 1561-1578.
Gentrification is usually seen a negative:
“deprive existing residents from a lower socioeconomic status of their rights, such as
their right to home, their right to the city, and therefore preventing them from
accessing the developmental process of the place to which they are historically
and emotionally attached” (1562).
Incomers to an area:
“The residents with higher income would then gradually change the neighbourhood
environment, its characteristics, and eventually its reputation attracting other middleclass
residents with the same socioeconomic status to join
them by moving into those places” (ibid).
“classic gentrification, therefore, is about power […] is an inevitable product of
neoliberal capitalism” (ibid).
Some of the main effects of gentrification are:
“change in the average income […] decline in the proportion of working class
residents […] decrease in the average age […] increase in the average education
level […] shrinkage in household size” (1563).
Sassen, Saskia 2013. Building Smart Cities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHuX79hgtCY
James, Ryan (2020). Globalisation: URBAN
ANTHROPOLOGY (55 mins documentary).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ywPL56lat8
Werbner, P. & S. Hall (2017). Stuart Hall on
Cosmopolitanism (38 mins).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcaGhyYvMl0