Layla Al-Zubaidi: Városantropológia

Urban

LAYLA AL-ZUBAIDI

TOPICS: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES METHODOLOGY SOURCES WEB LINK

1. Basic premises a way of „studying up”, a shift from the periphery to an analysis of the center. Th e distribution of urban anthropologists fa- In the understanding of urban anthropologists, vours clearly sociocultural anthropology, however, it is not only a new „pop” fi eld added to traditional they recognize that has made signifi - anthropology or intends to neglect less complex cant contributions to the study of and , but to the contrary is concerned with re- urban spatial systems. habilitating the so-called „primitive”. It considers Th e term „urban revolution” was introduced by itself as in opposition to colonial anthropology that V. Gordon Childe (1950), a (Marxist) Old World assumes „primitive” people from being essentially historian, to describe the process by which complex, diff erent from „western ” (which has civilized societies emerged. Th is process, although been usually ceded to the fi eld of , gener- in Childe’s view based on a shift in economic pro- ating a division of labor between anthropology and ductivity, seems to have occurred independently sociology). Th us, the emergence of urban anthro- and at diff erent times in several areas of the world. pology was also inaugurated by the consequences Th us, the precise criteria by which this process can of the II. World War and process of decolonization. be recognized, are not always the same, however In the eyes of urban anthropologists, the interest there may be underlying regularities that appear in in cities has reaffi rmed the traditional claim of an- all the separate manifestations or the process. thropology to concern with all and the variety of Th e basic criteria that Childe has isolated are: human and societies. Th ey see the separa- classes of full-time specialists and elites exempt tion of anthropology as the study of „primitives” from subsistence tasks, mechanisms such as taxes or and sociology as the study of industrial societies is tribute by which the „social surplus” could be con- not justifi ed, because the West as industrial and the centrated in the hands of elites, monumental public rest as primitive is no longer valid opposition and buildings, a writing system, extensive foreign trade, no in the world has not been profoundly and the emergence of a political organization. Al- touched by industrialization. Th eoretically, urban though archaeology with its genuine interest in anthropology involves the study of the cultural „civilizations” has pioneered in the study of the rise systems of cities as well as the linkages of cities to and collapse of complex societies, however, it is less larger and smaller places and populations as part of interested in urban phenomena per se. the world-wide urban system (Kemper 1996). Only in the second half of this century, es- pecially in the 1960’s, urban societies and cities came into the attention of , 2. Methodology although anthropologists were already conducting research on cities before the term „urban anthro- Th e move to large-scale societies forces to a re- pology” began to be used in the 1960’s. With this consideration of traditional anthropological meth- shift in focus, „urban anthropology” counters an- odology, the so-called „”. thropology’s traditional emphasis on „primitive” Ethnographic work for a long time was understood and people to the exclusion of urban, com- as the close rapport with a small number of inform- plex and industrial societies (Basham 1978). Th is ants, which however is impossible in an urban con- shift accompanied the deconstruction of primitiv- text. Urban anthropologists therefore are required ist anthropology and the acknowledgement that all to extend their scope, to develop other skills and cultures are part of the modern world and do not to take into account written materials, surveys, his- form isolated, self-contained entities. A further mo- torical studies, novels and other sources. Th is does tivation was the observation that cities in the 20th not necessarily imply a sacrifi ce to participant ob- century cities are more rapidly growing as ever be- servation or holism. Th e challenge for urban an- fore. Th is new emphasis can be also understood as thropologists is to order all these diff erent sources

12 8 Kultúra és Közösség Szemle and to grasp the realities of larger groups without already being defi ned as a distinctive fi eld within sacrifi zing the vivid description that characterizes cultural anthropology, with the result of a sig- and anthropology in general. Often nifi cant growth in textbooks, readers, and reviews traditional anthropological topics, such as kin- (Chrisman and Friedl 1974, Gulick 1973, Southall ship, social stratifi cation etc., are transplanted to 1973). Additionally, the fi rst integrated textbooks the city. On this basis urban anthropology did not appeared: Fox (1977) identifi es fi ve diff erent types only move anthropologists to diff erent theoretical of cities, and discusses the relationship between and methodological frameworks, but also reworked cities and the wider society they are embedded in. those, which already existed and still exist (see for Basham (1978) off ers a discussion of the study of the distinctive problems of doing fi eldwork in ur- urban societies and various related topics. During ban settings: Foster and Kemper 1974). the 1980’s, a second generation of textbooks and A problem of a too strong emphasis on the par- studies emerged (Collins 1980, Gmelch and Zen- ticipant observer approach in the urban context is ner 1980, Hannerz 1981, Press and Smith 1980) a lost of the holistic perspective. A focus lying on the family (like in traditional anthropology on the 3.1 Early tribe or other social units) leads to a fragmentary picture of urban reality, and thus to an „urban mo- Ferdinand Tönnies (1887) made his distinction saic” (Fox 1977: 2-9). Concerning methodology, between Gemeinschaft () and Gesellschaft an analysis of the journal Urban Anthropology re- (society) on the basis of the concept that imper- vealed that on the large scale end following stud- sonal, contractual bonds characterize the capitalist ies dominate: comparative studies within a single society in contrast to the intimate relationships and community, multi-, regional collective activities of the feudal community. Emile surveys, national-level analyses, comparative multi- Durkheim who introduced the term „anomie” fol- national studies, and general theoretical and meth- lowed this school of thought. In his study „Suicide” odological studies. On the small scale end, studies (1897) he suggested anomic suicide as being char- are mainly focused on individuals in the form of life acteristic of those who live in isolated, impersonal histories, specifi c social contexts, (such as market- worlds. Both concepts rooted in the theoretical as- places, gangs, shopping centers), residential units, sumptions about what constitutes the essence of and workplaces (Kemper 1991b). urban and non-urban life. More important to the later development of urban anthropology however was the sociologist 3. History of the discipline ’s essay „ as a way of life” (1938). He developed a theory of the characteris- Urban anthropology „crept up” gradually and tic infl uences of urban life on social organization was almost unnoticed until the late 1960s and early and attitudes, arguing that urban life is marked by 1970s. Its roots lie rather in sociology as the study impersonal, instrumental contacts which tend to of industrial societies. Th erefore early sociologists free individuals from the strong controls of such were the fi rst to turn their attention towards ur- primary groups as the extended family, but, at the ban life. From the 1930’s to the 1950’s, there was other hand this freedom of individual action is ac- a grow of cultural anthropologists’ interests in companied by the loss of collective security. the study of and the impact of cities on Robert Redfi eld (1947) adapted Wirth’s formu- their lives (Redfi eld 1947). By the 1950’s already lation of these characteristics to his folk-urban con- a number of anthropologists and sociologists were tinuum concept, by characterizing the urban pole conducting research on urban phenomena (Childe in Wirth’s terms, and the folk pole as its opposite 1950, Bott 1957, Sjoberg 1960). Th e expansion (small, homogeneous, isolated, traditional com- of urban anthropology in the 1960’s refl ects the munities which were economically self-suffi cient recognition that traditional target groups, such as and has only a rudimentary division of labor). He tribal and peasants people became increasingly in- went a step further by elaborating the role of cit- tegrated in an urbanized world. Particular attention ies as „Great Tradition” as opposed to the „Little was given to rural-urban migration, urban adapta- Tradition” of local villages. Both scholars’ infl uence tion, ethnicity, and (Lewis 1968, Hannerz on the development of the anthropology of com- 1969). By the 1970’s, urban anthropology was plex society was signifi cant. Critiques, however,

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addressed that the cocept of „urbanity” as typically 3.4 Interactionism western and „the rural” as non-western are euro- centric ideal-types. Th is movement is also a response to the lifeless empiricism of the later Chicago School. Th e most 3.2 Th e Chicago School of important work (not only for urban anthropology) was Erving Goff man’s microstudy of human inter- A major contribution to urban sociology came action „Th e presentation of self in everyday life” from Robert E. Park and his „school” at the Univer- (1959). He defi ned human interaction in terms sity of Chicago. Th e focus was on demographic and of dramaturgical metaphor, by analyzing human census information, interviews and historical data, behavior as a series of performances of parts. Th e with an emphasis on cities’ social problems rather value of this research for urban anthropology lies than on abstract theorizing about urban life. In this in its emphasis upon the subtle role playing in school of thought, cities were viewed as ecosystems human interaction. Especially urbanites are con- requiring energy to maintain their structure and stantly required to present fragmentary aspects of which are segmented into „natural areas” subject to themselves to others, strangers or people who know laws of residential succession (natural areas are for them only as inhabitants of discrete occupational example slums neighborhoods, and vice areas). A or ethnic categories. Th ey are confronted everyday major premise was the „concept of succession”. With with numbers of diff erent people and settings. It this model, scholars analyzed changing residential therefore off ers a workable tool for the understand- patterns, for example the development of ghettos ing of urban . for the African Americans who moved to Chicago in search for jobs (Duncan and Duncan 1957). Lat- er, however, the school turned to rather empiricist, 4. Research traditions and criticisms quantitative and statistical reworking of census data, evoking following theoretical reactions. 4.1 Anthropology of urban poverty

3.3 Th e Community Study Approach According to Fox (1977) there are diff erent re- search traditions within urban anthropology that Th is approach in early urban anthropology was maintain continuity with traditional anthropology the most „anthropological” in the traditional sense. and its methods by not focusing on urbanism itself, It developed partly in reaction to the abstract em- but on smaller units within the cities. One example piricism of the later Chicago School. One of the is the anthropology of urban poverty. Oscar Lewis key fi gures is Carolyn Ware who in „Greenwich introduced the term „ of poverty”, which he Village, 1920-1930” examined the incorporation understood as a form of life that exists independ- of Greenwich Village into New York through the ently of economical and political deprivation, thus expansion of the metropolis, and the process by evoking a series of critiques (see Valentine 1968, which it maintained its distinctive character. Al- Goode and Eames 1996). Equally does ghetto re- though this represents one of the earliest Commu- search and the exclusive study of migrant popula- nity Study research, in the contemporary debates tions refl ect the quest for the exotic, for minorities, around the global integration it still very current poverty, ethnic enclaves, and for small-scale units today. W. Lloyd Warner’s „Yankee City” attempted on the cost of a holistic approach. to merge an ethnographic perspective gained in fi eldwork among Australian aborigines with infor- 4.2 Network research mation gathered from formal interviews for his so- cial study of a New England city, Yankee City. Wil- Other research objects in this tradition are liam Foote Whyte’s: „Street corner society” is the household and family research and social network ethnography of an Italian slum, which he named research. Network analysis roots in the study of ru- „Cornerville”. His study was in conception most ral and came to the city with Eliza- familiar to the anthropologists and the method of beth Bott’s „Family and social network” (1957). participant observation: he rented a room with an Th is book was part of an interdisciplinary study of Italian family and participated in their social life for „ordinary” families in London. Th e derived „Bott several years. hypothesis” is based on the assumption that the

13 0 Kultúra és Közösség Szemle degree of segregation in the role-relationship of the fast trend of indicates, more and husband and wife varies directly with the connect- more people will be urbanized in the future. Th us edness of the family’s networks. She outlined three the major fi elds of anthropology will be eventually kinds of organization: complementary organiza- converged into urban anthropology (Ansari and tion, independent organization, and joint organiza- Nas 1983: 6). tion, and thus established the idea of a relationship Urban anthropologists themselves rarely ad- between the internal structure of the family and the dress one point of critique: Although the goal of pattern of its external contacts (see for a discussion urban anthropology was initially to counter the di- Hannerz 1980). chotomy between „primitive” and „complex” socie- ties within the disciplines of anthropology and so- 4.3 Anthropology of urbanization ciology, the validity of this oppositional concept in the real world has never been seriously questioned. Th e anthropology of urbanization (rural-urban Th e major accomplishment of urban anthropology migration) stands at the intersection between the is the shift of focus; however, the terminology of urban and the rural. Th is fi eld is especially strong „urban” and „rural” has not been transcended yet. developed in African research, mainly by British anthropologists, and in Latin American studies, mainly by American researchers. Th e emphasis here 5. Urban anthropology today and urban lies in large-scale physical movements of rural peo- anthropologists as a social group ple to cities and the adaptations of these immigrant populations to the new environment with a focus Today, urban anthropology distinguishes itself on the alteration of social structure, interpersonal from urban sociology mainly in terms of a diff er- ties and collective identities within the city (see ent perspective: while sociological studies are more Abu-Lughod 1962). focused on fragmented issues, urban anthropology is theoretically rather directed toward a holistic ap- 4.4 Anthropology in cities and anthropology proach (Ansari and Nas 1983: 2). Whereas urban of cities anthropology in the 1960’s and 70’s was focused on particular issues, for example migration, , However, the „traditional” context of these poverty and so forth, derived from or contrasted studies should not be exaggerated. Although con- to traditional-based fi eldwork, by the 1980’s, they centrated on certain target groups, these issues had expanded their interests to any aspect of urban cannot be divorced from the urban context and life. As a result, urban anthropology became more urbanism itself. In order to avoid confusion, it is integrated into the discourse of the other social sci- therefore useful to follow the distinction that was ences. drawn by Kemper between the anthropology in cit- Practically, urban anthropology has merged to ies, and the anthropology of cities, although both a major part with geography, ecology and other are intertwined: there is a distinction between „an- disciplines. Along with a theoretical interest in and thropologists who do research in a particular city, conceptualization of urban space and urbanism, but without much, if any concern for the urban contemporary issues of urban anthropology are: context; those concerned with the structure of city Urban problems, rural-urban migration, adapta- life and its impact on human behavior locally or tion and adjustment of humans in densely popu- cross-culturally; and those concerned with the de- lated environments, the eff ects of urban settings velopment of international urban systems through upon cultural pluralism and social stratifi cation, time and space as distinctive social-cultural and social networks, the function of kinship, growth of political-economic domains” (1991b: 374). Large- cities, crime (and other urban dilemmas), housing, scale social processes and transformations may be architecture, transport, use of space, employment, more pronounced in cities, but cannot be explained infrastructure, demography and others. within these contexts alone. Equally, many studies 1979 the Society for Urban Anthropology that are categorized as urban anthropology make (SUA) was founded as a subdivision of the Ameri- important contributions to anthropological topics can Anthropological Association. A survey, under- in urban milieus, but do not concern the character- taken by Kemper (1991) by analyzing information istics of cities themselves (1998: 120). However, as in the American Anthropological Association guides

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from 1989 to 1992, revealed that the great major- America with 14 percent, Europe with 12 percent, ity, 70 percent, of urban anthropologists belong to and North and South America with each 10 per- the subfi eld of sociocultural anthropology. Com- cent. Th is result proves a trend that more urban an- pared to the results of a survey carried out in 1975 thropologists are involved in research in the United (Kemper 1975), this number however has declined States, Canada and Mexico than before. A further from 86 percent, while the number of applied an- factor is the availability of increased funding for thropologists has jumped dramatically from 0 per- applied projects in American cities that attracted a cent, and that of archaeologists from 6 percent to number of anthropologists who initially did fi eld- 15 percent. Th is shows that applied work gained in work abroad. Th is is especially the case where urban signifi cance, and that the interest of archaeologists anthropologists can use their international exper- in the anthropology of urbanism has grown. tise to study immigrant ethnic populations in the United States or Canada. Topical interests, accord- ing to the survey, grew in diversity, with a growing 1975 1991 trend in change and developmental issues, medical (450 (900 anthropology, political anthropology, the study of subfi elds individuals) individuals) minorities and race, poverty, , gen- der, popular culture, and communication. With Socio-cultural 86 % 70 % 26 percent, the fi eld of social organization, kinship Anthropology and family, however, is still the strongest. Th is over- Archaeology 6 % 15 % view shows that „peasants” have strongly declined Applied as a target group. 0 % 12 % Anthropology According to Kemper, the trends revealed by the comparative analysis of the 1991 survey of Linguistic and 8 % 3 % nearly 900 individuals and the 1975 survey of Bianthropology fewer than 450 individuals are generally in accord with the broader transformations in North Ameri- Not all of the individuals who were covered by the can anthropology. Th ere are more female urban survey called themselves „urban anthropologists”. anthropologists, the Ph.D. is still the overwhelm- 55 percent identify their work using some variant ing choice to practice urban anthropology, there is of „urban”, while the rest uses other terms to label a growth in the diversity of topical interests, there is their work. a spread of the fi eld among the subdisciplines, and there is still no agreement on the basic terms for the specialization of the fi eld, but rather a variety 1991 of emphasis. Th e analysis of the journal Urban Anthropolo- (900 individuals) gy (UA), founded in 1972, shows that contributors belong to 39 U.S. American states and 18 foreign "urban" 55 % nations (Kemper 1991). Professional affi liations contain 150 institutions in the United States and „complex societies” 36% 42 abroad. Th e leading U.S. American states are New York, California, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, „contemporary 26% Massachusetts, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Leading societies” foreign nations are Canada, Great Britain, Poland, „modern societies” 17% France, Australia, Bangladesh, Israel, and Mexico. Nearly all authors have academic affi liations, less „civilizations” 11% than 15 percent are belong to non-academic in- stitutions, such as the Hispanic Health council in Connecticut, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the A number of persons also would prefer to de- U.S Department of Agriculture, and the World fi ne their primary specialization with regional or Bank. When the Society for Urban Anthropology topical interests. Regionally, the Unites States leads (SUA) decided to publish its own journal (City and with 45 percent followed by Mexico and Central Society), Urban Anthropology (UA) was renamed

13 2 Kultúra és Közösség Szemle into Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Similarly, the Society for Urban Anthropology Systems & World Economic Development (UAS) is going soon to be renamed into the Society for in order to avoid competition and address a broader Urban, National, and Transnational Anthropology audience. (SUNTA).

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