Urban anthropology

Urban anthropology is a subset of anthropology concerned with issues of urbanization, poverty, urban space, social relations, and neoliberalism. The field has become consolidated in the 1960s and 1970s. Urban anthropology is a subset of anthropology concerned with issues of urbanization, poverty, urban space, social relations, and neoliberalism. The field has become consolidated in the 1960s and 1970s. Ulf Hannerz quotes a 1960s remark that traditional anthropologists were 'a notoriously agoraphobic lot, anti-urban by definition'. Various social processes in the Western World as well as in the 'Third World' (the latter being the habitual focus of attention of anthropologists) brought the attention of 'specialists in 'other cultures'' closer to their homes. Urban anthropology is heavily influenced by sociology, especially the Chicago School of Urban Sociology. The traditional difference between sociology and anthropology was that the former was traditionally conceived as the study of civilized populations, whilst anthropology was approached as the study of primitive populations. There were, in addition, methodological differences between these two disciplines—sociologists would normally study a large population sample while anthropologists relied on fewer informants with deeper relations. As interest in urban societies increased, methodology between these two fields and subject matters began to blend, leading some to question the differences between urban sociology and urban anthropology. The lines between the two fields have blurred with the interchange of ideas and methodology, to the advantage and advancement of both disciplines. While urban anthropology is a newly acknowledged field (Prato and Pardo 2013), anthropologists have been conducting work in the area for a long time. For instance, numerous early scholars have attempted to define exactly what the city is and pinpoint the ways in which urbanism sets apart modern city lifestyles from what used to be regarded as the 'primitive society'. It is increasingly acknowledged in urban anthropology that, although there are significant differences in the characteristics and forms of organization of urban and non-urban communities, there are also important similarities, insofar as the city can also be conceived in anthropological studies as a form of community. Urban anthropology is an expansive and continuously evolving area of research. With a different playing field, anthropologists have had to modify their methods (Pardo and Prat 2012) and even readdress traditional ethics in order to adjust to different obstacles and expectations. Several for-profit and non-profit organizations now do work in the field of urban anthropology. Perhaps the best known of these is the non-profit organization called Urban Anthropology. Numerous universities now teach urban anthropology. In its early stages during the 19th century, anthropology was principally concerned with the comparative study of foreign (i.e. non-Western) cultures, which were frequently regarded as exotic and primitive. The attitude of ethnographers towards the subject of study was one of supposed scientific detachment, as they undertook the – self-serving and Eurocentric – mission of identifying, classifying and arranging cultural groups worldwide into clearly defined socio-cultural evolutionist stages of human development. During the 20th century, several factors began leading more anthropologists away from the bipolar notions of foreign savagery versus Western civilization and more towards the study of urban cultures in general. A strong influence in this direction was the discovery of vast regions of the world thanks to a significant increase in human mobility, which had been brought about, among other factors, by the fast expansion of the rail network and the popularisation of travel in the late Victorian era. This meant that, by the mid 20th century, it was generally perceived that there were relatively few undiscovered “exotic” cultures left to study through “first contact” encounters. Moreover, after World War I, a number of developing nations began to emerge. Some anthropologists were attracted to the study of these “peasant societies”, which were essentially different from the “folk societies” that ethnographers had traditionally researched. Robert Redfield was a prominent anthropologist who studied both folk and peasant societies. While researching peasant societies of developing nations, such as India, he discovered that these communities were dissimilar to folk societies in that they were not self-contained. For example, peasant societies were economically linked to forces outside of their own community. In other words, they were part of a bigger society — the city.