BOOK REVIEWS from Boxing, Which Is Perhaps True of Boxing Today, and That, from the Very M

BOOK REVIEWS from boxing, which is perhaps true of boxing today, and that, from the very M. Bell and G. Armstrong, 2021. A Social History of Sheffield Boxing, Vol. 1 – Rings beginning, the safety of boxing was of Steel, 1720-1970. New York: Palgrave questioned. In fact, the introduction of Macmillan. gloves, in response to the dangers of bare-

knuckle fighting, seemed to lead to even This book, published in the Series ‘Palgrave more injuries and inevitably deaths. If the Studies in Urban Anthropology’, sets out to Government had taken more notice of the discover the history of boxing and to inherent dangers in boxing, then one could establish how Sheffield grew into a city that argue that it should have been banned long is now synonymous with boxing world ago. Boxing was also linked with drinking champions and trainers. The authors Bell and betting, which tended to attract a and Armstrong, neither of whom claim to be rowdier clientele. experts on boxing or pugilism, use a wide The first Sheffield boxer was George range of sources of information to track the James Corfield — born in London — who development of boxing in the city. It is the fought for the first time in 1890, but up until depth of research that makes this book so that time, most of the events were held with compelling and informative, using historical fighters from the USA and other parts of the written evidence from newspapers, UK. He quickly established himself as a Government publications, a number of trainer and promoter and built a boxing club important images and even notes from court with some of his earnings to help develop proceedings. the next generation of fighter. This is not just a book about boxing, but The setting up of the Boxing Board of a commentary on the social conditions in Control and the support of the King, in the Sheffield around 150 years ago, when the late 1920s further legitimised boxing, first boxing events took place in the City. although many boxers continued to die as a Sheffield was never considered to be a result of their injuries. Boxing was further pleasant place to live, certainly a ‘tough’ promoted as a ‘morale builder’ and one that Northern working-class industrial city as could address class issues, and its portrayed in Samuel Sydney’s comment in popularity grew. Rides on Railways, ‘Sheffield is very ugly It is for the reader to make up their mind and gloomy: it is scarcely possible to say about the importance of boxing and its that there is a single good street’. This might inherent dangers to boxers, and this volume be one of the reasons why boxing became sets up the reader to discover more about the popular as a way to escape poverty, when in history of boxing in Sheffield. This volume the late 1880s a typical prize was as much a ends in the 1960s, a period of considerable factory worker might earn in a year, and change in the city; but in boxing terms, boxers could earn more than in any other Sheffield was set to become an important sport at that time. What this book also centre for producing future world shows is that it was the promoters and champions. What makes this book stand out investors in boxing who earned the most

is the level of research and attention to Neither is the research the product of detail covering some 80 years of sporting funding. They are, as they state in volume and social history, featuring not only 1, just two nosey locals who were fascinated Sheffield and its boxers, but also boxers by any correlate between place and athletic from other cities and countries. This book is ability. a must for those interested in the history of The outcome is not a book about who sport, the sociology of sport and even the hit whom where and when. It — obviously business of sport. — focuses on many individuals crucial to what one commentator has termed Reference Sydney, S. 1851. Rides on Railways ‘showbusiness with blood’ but equal Leading to the Lake and Mountain consideration is afforded the circumstances Districts of Cumberland, North in which, in a city undergoing enormous Wales, and the Dales of Derbyshire. economic, political and social upheaval, the W. S. Orr and Company. neighbourhood boxing club led by Nick Wilde dedicated and caring innovators inspired University Campus of Football Business, U.K. young people to escape both themselves in [email protected] many ways and the tyranny of the ‘street’. Boxing is described as one of Matthew Bell and Gary Armstrong, Sheffield’s success stories at a time when 2021. A Social History of Sheffield Boxing, Vol. 2 – Scrap Merchants, 1970-2020. New the city, at a low point, bedevilled by the York: Palgrave MacMillan. impact of industrial change and strife,

sought to re-emerge from decay. In For me, a lad born and reared in inner city searching an explanation for this success, Sheffield in the 1950s and 1960s, Bell and the authors’ focus is on lesser-known Armstrong have not only crafted in this practitioners rather than the superstars who volume (as Sean Bean dubs it in his have written their autobiographies to tell inspiring Foreword) a ‘great read’ but they their stories. As the authors say, their work have also expertly evidenced the power of is intended to be a ‘biography of a city and sport (in this case boxing) to transform lives its boxing people’. for generations of young people born into An explanation of the context of the disadvantage. fight game and the complexities of Sheffield born and well known for their exploring its soul and energy emerge in two contributions to the written knowledge of dozen life stories. Collectively these present aspects of a city that had faced a powerful picture and convey a sense of deindustrialisation on a massive scale, the ‘salvation’ (‘redemption’) from waywardness, authors’ comprehensive and detailed criminality, drugs that obeying the strict chapters notes and references illustrate the discipline and rules of the gym demands. depth of their journey into the world of Many individuals are remodelled, changed, boxing. freed from the practices of the street but Interestingly, neither of them is from remain (as they record) ‘one of us’. the sport or make a living reporting on it.

Crucially, the authors account for those who addict to community champion. As co- lapsed in their pursuit of the straight road; founder of the ‘De Hood’ social enterprise boxing does not work for everybody. at the Manor Top, one of Sheffield’s most For this reader, the role played by difficult areas, Denton presides over a Brendan Ingle, his family and others who premise that provides a safe place from have followed in their path most relates to austerity, community breakdown and offers my own experience. Taken off the streets to meanwhile all who enter a chance in his play table tennis, tennis and football by words to ‘learn from my mistakes’. dedicated grassroots coaches changed my Chapters 1 and 5 provide fascinating whole view of what life could be about and insights into the beliefs, characteristics and what I could achieve through hard graft. modus operandi of the mentors, trainers, None of those teaching me reached the organisers who played a huge part in heights of the Ingles whose innovatory creating what has been the enduring success practices challenged the boxing orthodoxy of the City’s boxing achievements. That of the time, imposed a rigid and unbending journeys from gyms in the backstreets of discipline on their boxers, and acted as the Sheffield were not smooth is hardly standard for others who left their teachings surprising. Harnessing the ‘hard man’ to open boxing clubs in other disadvantaged identity that had arisen to replace the areas. They like the Ingles cared deeply masculine identity associated with gruelling about their protegés not necessarily as work in tough industries (mining/steel) not potential champions like Herol Graham, only required a personal philosophy that Johnny Nelson, Junior Witter, Kell Brook was applied equally to all to be they and others, but as young people who could potential champions, journeymen or just make a better and healthier life for young men seeking sanctuary from the themselves through participation in their streets but also a single-minded dedication sport. to the goals of the enterprise. The Ingle gym was not about making Challenging the orthodoxy of the time, champions — champions were almost a by- dealing with spectacular break ups (as product of more modest ambitions. In between Ingle and Prince Nasim), and Ingle’s words, progress was ‘[…] someone handling events that ranged through going to College rather than being a working men’s clubs to spectacular world labourer’ and someone else ‘[…] holding championship fights held in football stadia down a job’. Examples include ‘Towering’ and on TV with huge audiences evidence Towers who was transformed from drugs the authors’ description of Brendan Ingle as and violence to being a trainer and who ‘innovator, technician, entrepreneur, recounted that ‘[Ingle] saw qualities in me philanthropist, disciplinarian’. Chapters 2-4 that I weren’t experienced or educated exemplify the relationships between boxers, enough to see’; and Reagan Denton who mentors, and the art of boxing; the final was once a boxing champion who lapsed chapter, in summarising the characteristics into drugs, then transformed from heroin of the young men who came forward to

subject themselves to the discipline of the engagement in sport brings, this study, gym and the ring, ably demonstrates that published in the Series ‘Palgrave Studies in they came from a range of backgrounds, Urban Anthropology’, makes an important talents, motivations and ethnicities and contribution to the literature in that field. mainly from the city’s council housing Sheffield is indeed a ‘City of Champions’ estates. To the question as to why so many but its amateur boxing clubs also make their able fighters emerged in the city over some special contribution to well-being and 30 years the authors concluded that if there community cohesion in some of the most were any indications of a would-be challenging urban areas. champion, then it was a mix of ‘innate Steve Hodkinson ability’ and ‘learned dedication’ that Brunel University, U.K. separated them from the others together [email protected] with coming willingly into the fight game both motivated and self-aware. Andrew Deener. 2020. The Problem with Those who achieve(d) greatness are but Feeding Cities: The Social Transformation a few of the thousands of young people who of Infrastructure, Abundance, and Inequality in America. Chicago, Illinois: passed through the Ingles’ gyms and the University of Chicago Press. many thousands of others that led media to describe Sheffield in 2016 as in the top three In Feeding Cities, Andrew Deener looks at of ‘boxing cities’ based on urban population how cities have evolved to feed the people and boxing clubs within its boundary, but who live in them. While many take the they prompted the authors’ question ‘What current infrastructure for granted, the makes for a champion?’. The search was industrialized, big box retain chain is the ultimately bound up in the notion of genus result of various demographic shifts and loci. This provoked a most fascinating urban transformations. Using one city in digression into research into a pursuit that particular, Philadelphia, we get a clear many consider as equal to boxing in its picture of the logics and entanglements obsessive and individualistic characteristics between urban infrastructure and food — ballet. If anything, this short discursive distribution. section that raises notions of social capital In short, we have come a long way. (acquired though ballet/boxing education) The customer of the corner grocer of the and competing styles both between ballet early 1900s likely would not recognize the schools and boxing gyms provides a supermarket of today. The produce and fascinating and new train of thought at the other products would likely confound conclusion of the volume. comprehension; out-of-season fruits and For this reader who has devoted much vegetables; foodstuffs from other countries; of his voluntary activity into attempts to and the vast volume of goods stored on site redress the imbalance between the ‘haves’ have dramatically changed in a relatively and the ‘have nots’ in access to the social, short period of time. Even trying to figure physical and health benefits that

out how all of that stuff got here would be problematic, as was getting it out of the city difficult to say the least. to newly developed areas. Deener urges us to think of food as Deener does an excellent job taking similar to other goods, electricity, housing, the reader on this trip — by boat, by etc. that changed dramatically in the United railroad, long haulers, and cars — to see States, and elsewhere, in the twentieth how our food gets from point A to point B century. Of course, food is imbricated in (with a lot of other points in-between). As larger systems, such as public health, he notes throughout the text, these changes urbanism, capitalism, and the environment. were complex. They did not occur because The food system operates under a profit- of simple changes in movements of goods, driven logic that cities had to reconcile with but from adjusting numerous and adapt to. Many did not; many could not. organizational, technological and relational The result was many inner-cities and inner- components. In one chapter, for instance, he ring suburbs were left behind as grocers discusses how the introduction of the bar became corporations and shifted outside of code system represented a ‘new urban confines. Wholesale systems, think infrastructural regime’. While the large farmers markets where farmers components for this system were developed dropped off truck-loads of produce for independently, they, along with the humans small grocers to pick up, where food was who became entangled in them, were forced not refrigerated and left to rot or for other, into an interdependent assemblage. The end more furry consumers, rise and fell. With result was new efficiencies which the wholesale system, urban middlemen, materialized both into larger profits (for who delivered to stores or helped facilitate those grocers who could take the most distribution elsewhere, perished. By the advantage of the technology — think Wal- 1950s the wharfs and multi-story Mart) and new logistics between distribution centres had fallen into disrepair geographies of production and (and are only now being rehabilitated as consumption. To give the reader an idea of living spaces in some cities) and key the scope of this change — it was originally distribution spots emerged trying to connect estimated that approximately 6,000 grocers urban areas with a migratory population that would use the universal product codes — was moving into outer-suburban regions. In today in the United States alone there are many places, like Philadelphia, this over five billion bar codes scanned every required new urban forms — both spatial, day. like decentring the urban food market — One of the after-thoughts of the and relational, like the necessitation of change in food distribution systems is food planning committees. Getting food into the apartheid, especially in urban city was not the issue anymore, getting it neighbourhoods. The elimination of the around increasingly dense but corner grocers and the cost-efficiencies of simultaneously sprawled cities was the big box stores, has created large swaths of urban areas where there are few if any

opportunities to purchase fresh produce. some places exacerbated food inequalities This has resulted in high rates of urban food that still reverberate today. And yet, we poverty and the emergence in the mid- rarely see or think about these relationships, twentieth century of a charity-based preferring, at least in the US, to focus on emergency food system. Likewise, as we other key systems and institutions. Deener’s have shifted from local farms supplying book helps think about the interdependent corner grocers to large, industrial, regional relationship between cities and food which farms supplying the nation, we have made it will be needed to solve The Problem with difficult for small producers to plug into the Feeding Cities. distribution system. Farming and packing Daina Cheyenne Harvey techniques have to be completely adjusted College of the Holy Cross, U.S.A. into retailers’ sociotechnical systems (p. [email protected] 204). As such local producers are often left out of local markets. Thus, while alternative Pepper Glass. 2020. Misplacing Ogden systems, such as the slow food and locavore Utah: Race, Class, Immigration and the movements, have risen as outlets for local Construction of Urban Reputations. The University of Utah Press. goods, many urban residents are left out of these movements because of cost (and rural Generally, when we think of places as good residents are left out because of location). or bad, we believe we are making objective As Deener notes, this is an ‘unfinished distinctions. We like to think that places that infrastructure’ that cities and regions are have high crime rates or lots of abandoned managing, but most urban grocers left cities houses probably veer towards one side of because of changes in land use and transit the continuum and places with lots of and it is not clear how these patterns will amenities, like good schools, trendy change anytime soon. restaurants, or parks veer towards the other Deener’s analysis of urban food end. Glass shows us that these kinds of relationships took a lot of work. His qualifiers are more complicated and that findings come from nearly analysing a they often rest on urban reputations. hundred years-worth of archival materials, This seems to be the case with Ogden, policy and planning reports, material from Utah. Ogden is depicted as both good and newspapers, feasibility studies and tours of bad; as understood and misunderstood; as a dozens of facilities, and close to two ghetto and as a home. Ogden is in some hundred interviews from a wide range of ways a paradigmatic place to study urban people. To his credit he does an amazing job reputations. After it became a central point telling an incredibly complicated story. for rail travel and shipping, it diverged from Changes in food distribution in the Salt Lake City. Residents of Salt Lake, twentieth century led to much of the having hoped it would get the rail station, infrastructural decay we see in US cities in were quick to stigmatize Ogden. Glass calls the twenty-first century. Likewise, changes phenomena like this, ‘historical echoes’. in urban distribution patterns solidified and These echoes reverberate, creating

conditions that continue to shape a place residents who want to see themselves or long after the historical antecedent is long position themselves as the moral equivalent forgotten. As such, Ogden is much less of outsiders and thus further away from the Mormon and much more secular; it is less immigrants who inhabit the ‘bad’ Ogden. white and more diverse; and it has more Ogden is a racial and cultural outlier. In a immigrants than the surrounding region. state that celebrates homogeneity and As Glass notes, in Utah these are often conformity, Ogden is different; different is the categories of the dominant and bad; so, Ogden is bad (p. 42). dominated. Residents of the inner city, Glass notes that these demarcations particularly members of the Latinx often do not prevent those who disassociate population and some native residents, see with the people on the other side of the Ogden as a special place. The further one moral/spatial boundary from nonetheless travels from downtown Ogden, the more consuming their culture or foodways. likely the positive view of the town recedes. Similar to other places, notably parts of By the time one is outside of Ogden, the New Orleans or Memphis, where outsiders typically higher-class, white, and Mormon come to consume cultural goods while residents are quick to point out Ogden’s bad disparaging the people who live there, or reputation. Glass writes that rather than natives who depend on the newcomers for focus on culture of poverty arguments for service jobs or domestic work and downtrodden urban areas, we should focus simultaneously complain about immigration on the ‘culture of abundance’ of outsiders policy, Ogden both attracts and repels. The who work to maintain urban divisions cognitive dissonance of some residents who through reputations. experience Ogden as a good place, but have Urban reputations hinge on what Glass bought into the reputation of ‘bad Ogden’, calls ‘moral frontiers’. Creating these comes across in interviews with Glass frontiers involves boundary making and where they seek reassurance that they have boundary policing, and thus the meaning(s) experienced bad things or note stabbings of the reputations are always oscillating, they have heard about or possible gang reflecting the beliefs of different groups. Of members they think they have seen in the course, much of this work is identity area, only to laugh it off. construction/maintenance; using social Many residents engage in what Glass demarcations to create ingroups and calls ‘micro-differentiation’ to minimize the outgroups. Thus, while everyone in Ogden bad reputation of Ogden, but allow for the can point to the bad part of town, for some existence of ‘others’ that may be justifying it is a narrowly defined space involving a that constructed reputation. The city few blocks. For others it is west of a likewise does this, minimizing the particular street. Individuals seeking status difference between outsiders and insiders, or attempting to protect the status they between Ogden and other towns in the already have engage in demarcating region, and between its diverse past and projects. This occurs at times with native present. City leaders go to great lengths to

distance themselves from the bad reputation ‘good’ neighbourhoods? Who gains by of Ogden and the people they believe are constructing and reproducing these bad responsible for that bad reputation— reputations? Hopefully, Glass’s book will immigrants. In this way they not only help start us down the road of studying whitewash portions of Ogden, but fail to urban reputations. address legitimate issues in marginalized Daina Cheyenne Harvey communities. College of the Holy Cross These moral reputations are obviously [email protected] symbolic but eventually reproduce structural inequalities. People move away Jerome Krase and Judith N. DeSena from certain parts of the city; businesses (eds). 2020. Gentrification around the relocate or opt to build elsewhere; rents World, Volume I: Gentrifiers and the Displaced. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. decrease; and both people and places and become abandoned. As such, Glass explains Jerome Krase and Judith N. DeSena that understanding the genesis and (eds). 2020. Gentrification around the maintenance of these reputations are World, Volume II: Innovative Approaches. important for unifying communities and for New York: Palgrave Macmillan. urban regeneration. In understanding Between the 1970s and 1980s some reputations as boundaries rather than anthropologists were deeply influenced by through disorder or disorganization, we can the perspective of political economy, get rid of the partitions that keep aiming to understand everyday city life as it downtowns down. is influenced by capitalist structures and Ultimately, Glass suggests rather than relations of production. Since the late undoing boundary making activities, which 1980s, an important development in urban would be difficult, residents and studies has been the so-called spatial shift, regionalists should engage in ‘blurring which in general and, indicatively, draws on boundaries’, which may be more difficult the work of Michel Foucault on the than focusing on micro-differentiation relationship between space, power and strategies. Glass advocates for getting knowledge, of Henri Lefebvre for the social outsiders and insiders, those with a production of space, of Michel de Certeau pejorative view and those with a positive on the way in which agents negotiate space, view of Ogden together, be it through and David Harvey’s marxist approach to festivals, sports activities, or live music. It capitalist urbanization, the geographical might be naïve, but it is certainly better than transfer of value and the spatial class the status quo. structure. The encounter of anthropologists Misplacing Ogden is a quick, but with the concept of space renewed both insightful read that will make the reader their approach and their views about issues think about the ‘bad’ neighbourhoods in related with social reproduction and their own cities. What historical echoes perceptions of it, as they are shaped and cause those places to separate from the expressed through architecture and the

dominant logic of urban planning. In this social action. This presupposes a context, the concept of space and its comprehensive reassessment of the field as integration into the anthropological agenda containing social life in a given situation as raises the question of defining the field, well as an epistemological reframing of which can no longer concern ‘entrenched’ both the field of research and the field of entities but may ‘include’ broader networks anthropological endeavor. Therefore, the and links, which are carried out within and ethnographic field is a space through which through the space. As has been argued, the social action exists, it is a means of field, as a place of research and institutional highlighting the variety of practices and not recognition, is an integral and irreplaceable their teleological end. This is because this territory of data-tapping and of action is also determined by processes that ethnographic practice. It, however, is not a are not located directly in the field, but often self-evident reality, always ready to beyond that, in other spaces. From this point ‘welcome’ in situ social and cultural action. of view, urban anthropologists and In the current context, spaces are sociologists perceive the city and its space recognized as functioning more like as a set of processes rather than as a palimpsests within which the stakes of the consolidated territory in the context of game of identity, multiplicity and global connections and flows. consequent relationships are in an endless It is in this theoretical context, in my process of re-registration. We are well view, that these two important volumes aware that the ‘Other’ is closer than ever, as published in the Series ‘Palgrave Studies in social groups and actors are not so strictly Urban Anthropology’ are embedded. The encapsulated in spatially demarcated or first volume, Gentrification around the culturally homogeneous places. The World, Volume I: Gentrifiers and the anthropological inquiry now challenges the Displaced, introduced by the editors, spatial identity of local social groups that Jerome Krase and Judith N. DeSena, is studies and accepts the fluidity and divided in three parts concerning America, relativity of their cultural differentiation in Europe, Middle East and Far East. The an increasingly interdependent and chapters look in depth at urban issues, based interconnected world. This fact has on detailed and thorough ethnography. The considerable effects on the methodological topics include but are not limited to: social view of the field, from where the class, development, im/migration, housing, anthropologist, after a long stay, retrieves race relations, political economy, power the material of his study. For dynamics, inequality, displacement, social anthropologists, and many ethnographers segregation, homogenization, urban policy, from cognate disciplines, the main issue is planning, and design. They are: ‘Brooklyn to look for a way to explore the de- Revisited: An Illustrated View from the territorialized trajectories of peoples, spaces Street 1970 to the Present’ by Judith N. and places by means of a conception of the DeSena and Jerome Krase; ‘Gentrification field as a not given and non-stable space of and Aging in Montreal, Quebec: Housing

Insecurity and Displacement Among Older Logic of Corporate Sovereignty’ by Tenants’ by Julien Simard; ‘Forced Stephanie Polsky; ‘New Business in the Old Removals in Gentrifying Rio de Janeiro and Neighborhood: Young Polish Shopkeepers’ San Francisco: Experiencing Displacement’ Responses to Commercial Gentrification in by Sukari Ivester; ‘Gentrification Greenpoint, Brooklyn’ by Aneta Kostrzewa; Vernacular in Malasaña, Madrid, by ‘Social Transformation and Urban Fernando Monge; ‘Visualizing the Contrary Regeneration: Three Interpretations on the Logics of “Regeneration” Through Arts Phenomenon of Gentrification in the Practice-Based Research’ by Fiona Woods; Historic Center of A Coruña (Spain)’ by ‘Visualizing Gentrification in Ancoats, Alberto Rodríguez-Barcón, Estefanía Calo Manchester: A Multi-Method Approach to and Raimundo Otero-Enríquez; ‘Shimmering Mapping Change’ by Gary Bratchford; Surfaces, Toxic Atmospheres, Incendiary Miracles: Public Housing and the Aesthetics ‘“We’re Not Moving”: Solidarity and of Re-Valorization in Salford UK’ by John Collective Housing Struggle in a Changing van Aitken and Jane Brake; ‘Anti- Sweden’ by Catharina Thörn; ‘Pacifying La Displacement Social Movements in Lisbon: Goutte d’Or, Getting Paris More French: A Perspective from the Trenches in the Grounding Gentrification in a Cosmopolitan Fight Against Transnational Gentrification’ Neighborhood’ by Maria Anita Palumbo; by Luís Filipe Goncalves Mendes; ‘The ‘Residential Transformation Leading to Politics of Visibility: Gentrification and Gentrification: Cases from Istanbul’ by Nil Immigration in East London’ by Timothy Uzun; ‘Tourism Gentrification of the Old Shortell; ‘MyyrYork: Rejuvenating a City of Damascus’ by Faedah M. Totah; Housing Estate Neighborhood for the Next ‘When Ideology Replaces the Market: Generation of Residents’ by Johanna Lilius; Gentrification in East Jerusalem’ by Ori ‘Revanchist Kigali: Retro-Victorian Swed; and ‘Gentrification, Machizukuri, Urbanism and the Gentrification of a and Ontological Insecurity: Bottom-Up Twenty-First-Century Metropolis’ by Redevelopment and the Cries of Residents Samuel Shearer; ‘Tools for Citizen in Kamagasaki, Osaka’ by Matthew D. Participation in Segmented Societies: The Marr. Case of Barranco’ by Waltraud Müllauer- The second volume, Gentrification Seichter; ‘Gentrification Processes in the City around the World, Volume II: Innovative of Buenos Aires: New Features and Old Approaches, introduced once more by Tendencies’ by María Mercedes Di Jerome Krase and Judith N. DeSena, takes Virgilio; ‘Gentrification and Post-industrial a more global perspective. It includes four Spatial Restructuring in Calcutta, India’ by parts, addressing respectively North Tathagata Chatterji and Souvanic Roy; and America, Europe, Africa, and South Asia. ‘The Systemic Gentrification of Education Special emphasis is given to gentrification in India: A Media Case Study’ by Eddie outside Western Europe and the United Boucher. States of America, as well as to Both volumes show that urban research methodology. Chapters are about: ‘Life on is an indispensable source of ethnographic the Algorithmic Estate: The Neo-Feudal data precisely because it takes place in

settings that are transformed, sometimes placemaking activities. The author, invisibly and sometimes clearly, and that Germaine R. Halegoua, is a Film and Media these places act as mediators of social Studies scholar at the University of Kansas practice, a fact that in turn counteract and advocates for a reimagining of our daily through space and shape it. This involves interactions with digital technologies, the conditions and the possibility of media and infrastructure. Based on several conceiving the field as an open system of case studies conducted across the United social activity. Through this perspective, States and various analysis techniques both volumes highlight what is not obvious including participant observation, and when research is a-spatial. In this context, content, discourse and textual analysis, The both volumes show that research gives the possibility to understand that the formation Digital City builds a strong investigation of of space is closely linked to the production urban digital placemaking. The book is of difference and multiplicity. Krase and organized into five chapters over 226 pages; DeSena work timely and sensitively in this Chapters 1 and 2 address re-placing the city line, seeking to show that it is important to in terms of formal, strategic urban explore how space is created, as the result development, Chapters 3 and 4 examine of interrelated movements, material how the individual, habitual uses of digital practices and hierarchical actions. These media re-place urban environments by need space to be carried out. Just as there creating and expressing emotional are no autonomous spatial processes, so connections to place and emplaced there are no non-spatial social processes. identities. Chapter 5 analyses both formal And it is in this sense that, as the paradigm and habitual uses of digital media in of gentrification shows, these imply creative placemaking practices, dissecting plurality. But precisely because of this how digital media is paradoxically situated multiplicity space is always incomplete, in in creative placemaking for its recognition a constant becoming; and this is why it is as both a beneficial tool and an enemy of produced anew. Krase and DeSena offer an excellent work, a springboard for knowledge place-engaged human interaction. and future research. In Chapter 1, Halegoua identifies and thoughtfully critiques the various ways in Manos Spyridakis which urban planners, technology University of the Peloponnese, Greece developers and city officials often struggle [email protected] to incorporate the people into their smart city designs. Halegoua analyses the Germaine R. Halegoua. 2020. The Digital City: Media and the Social Production of outcomes and potential outcomes of three Place. New York: New York University smart-from-the-star cities mainly through Press. their discursive constructions in: (1)

The Digital City is an engaging and original Songdo, South Korea; (2) Masdar City, Abu book that offers a new theoretical Dhab; and (3) PlanIT Valley, Portugal. Due framework for reconceptualizing digital to smart city developer goals of economic media and digitally mediated interactions as development and data production, the

designs are centred around creating a local observation, survey and interview data business environment that supports a global collected in Lawrence, Kansas in 2015, and business community (p. 48). In order to various blog posts representing populations generate excitement and build successful, in mid to large scale cities, Halegoua inclusive smart cities, Halegoua urges smart explores people’s personal experiences with city designers to reconceptualize the city as digital navigation technologies. She a ‘field of care’ instead of spaces for challenges the negative preconceived domination (p. 63). notions about reliance on technology for In Chapter 2, the reader learns how wayfinding as distracting and damaging to different models of digital infrastructure a person’s sense of place within urban deployment can be designed and marketed environments. The various sources of data as solutions to digital divides and promise and types of analysis combined with a 5- to create a newfound connection within year difference in data collection help cities, but they often generate boundaries of emphasize how the re-placing effects of inclusion and exclusion and intensify digital navigation transcend city boundaries already existing place-based inequalities. and are constantly evolving with time. The Using the case example of Google Fiber for author convincingly demonstrates how Communities project in Kansas City, these technologies are integrated into Missouri, Halegoua explores how this placemaking behaviours by producing new project re-placed the city without opportunities for people to acquire spatial recognizing community member’s diverse knowledge and thereby encouraging them relationships to the city or the pre-existing to explore and develop an enriched sense of disparities that would influence its place instead of diminishing one (p. 113). technology adoption. This chapter does a Similar to the effects of digital wonderful job of accounting for various wayfinding strategies, Chapter 4 discusses forms of place attachment and digital how people develop a sense of comfort and literacy within cities and begins to fill the familiarity with unknown urban gap in present literature concerning how environments, however this time through technology non-use, media refusal or locative social media use. The author ‘opting-out’ impact an individual's analysed uses of locative media through experience in, and relationship to place participatory observation and discourse during the modern era. analysis to demonstrate the ways people Chapter 3 serves as an empirical envision and communicate their sense of analysis of the ways in which digital place by using locative social media. navigation technologies are used to Instead of destabilizing or diminishing a encourage people in transit to replace the collective sense of place, Halegoua argues unfamiliar city as a recognizable and that the frequently used ‘check-in’ or accessible place. Drawing from her survey location tagging practices on social media and interview data collected in Madison, produce a layered and diverse collection of Wisconsin in 2010, along with participant place attachments, place identities, and

place narratives (p. 157). The author uses attention, but also recognized as working in poignant examples of Instagram accounts to support of vibrant, socially engaged illustrate the different ways people engage physical urban space. in re-placing the city through locative social This book highlights the ways that media. The examples in this chapter clearly urban environments are constructed by not demonstrate how we often see these social only digital media, digital infrastructure, or media practices as unrelated to the broadband networks, but by digitally production of place when they pave the way connected people who make place through for new opportunities of reclaiming and both strategic initiatives and habitual reproducing a sense of place within rapidly behaviours using technology. Additionally, changing media and urban environments. this book provides a sound theoretical Halegoua explores why digital media framework for future research on how use and placemaking practices that digital media use is not only ingrained in the engender creative production are not development of one’s sense of place but can discordant with one another in Chapter 5. also contribute to the unmaking of place. Through content analysis of funded projects All in all, The Digital City is an insightful and discourse analysis of published analysis of our relatively new abilities to interviews, the author analyses the negotiate our social and physical familiarity paradoxical position of digital media within or strangeness within modern urban professional creative placemaking. Creative environments. It is a timely and placemaking has the goal of improving the increasingly relevant contribution to our quality of places, and the lives of those who understanding of placemaking in the live in and visit them by implementing technological age. measurable projects that cultivate artistic The author writes with an accessible and cultural experiences (p. 182). Halegoua use of terms and covers a wide range of discusses how creative place-makers can cutting-edge trends and topics within the and should utilize digital media within their fields of both urban and media studies. By practices in order to achieve their goals and providing summaries and clarifying main foster a sense of community connection. points throughout the book, Halegoua Through the use of digital media, sufficiently guides the reader through each community participation can be welcomed subject at hand. The author connects diverse to help counter the perception of creative topics, case studies, and methodologies, placemaking as a purely rhetorical device each one expanding our understanding of (p. 193). The author demonstrates the the role that digital media plays in re- conflicting perceptions of digital media use placing the city. I especially appreciated the in creative placemaking by providing inclusion of photographs in the last two several cases of projects across the United chapters, which strategically highlight the States where digital media is often significance of context when it comes to portrayed in competition with physical digital placemaking. The uses of photo and urban space for social interaction and textual examples were a welcomed addition

to this book, orienting the reader and Giuliana Prato in their chapter, ‘Querying enhancing the overall understanding of its Urban Inequalities’ which introduces and contents. Due to the significant impact of outlines the intellectual ground that this technology on everyday urban life, The volume builds from and moves beyond. As Digital City is an essential reading for they indicate, the conceptual areas covered anyone working on space and place and in the chapters include an array of makes an excellent resource for all urban inequalities, erosions of senses of and/or media scholars at the upper citizenship, the experience of inclusion and undergraduate student level and higher. exclusion, shifting legitimacies and compromised moralities. While there are Sara Rocks University of South Florida, U.S.A. such themes, trends and commonalities, the [email protected] editors have decided not to organize the volume around particular sets of themes,

Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato eds. 2021. allowing each chapter to focus on different Urban Inequalities: Ethnographically aspects of the wide-ranging experiences of Informed Reflections. New York: Palgrave social inequalities. As a result, this review MacMillan. will also take a more individualistic This volume addresses a perennial social approach, bringing out the central theme in challenge, that of societal inequalities in each chapter, rather than grouping the urban spaces and communities. The chapters around broader conceptual areas. chapters cover significant topics one would Picking up some central thematics, Italo expect in such a volume: socio-economic, Pardo in his chapter ‘Making Second-Class political, class and gendered inequalities, Italians: A Progressive Fabrication and experienced in settings one might Entrenchment of Inequality’ draws from his anticipate, such as social housing and decades-long relationship with research marginal urban locations. In addition, there participants in Naples, and reflects on the are welcome extensions in settings in this hopelessness some feel in the face of the volume, for example, those set in urban disconnection between the rulers and sports arenas of boxing and football. citizens. His focus on power, governance Another indication from the title, or subtitle and legitimacy, articulated as only someone in this case, is the focus on ethnography with deep and comprehensive knowledge with most authors explicitly referring to can, highlights the experiences of, and their ethnographic approach and reflecting options for, citizens living with corruption on its value in gaining more complex and and discrimination trying to live a fulfilling nuanced insights. A strength of this work life. Pardo paints a bleak but not hopeless lies in the diversity of global locations and picture. identities of both the sites of social Giuliana B. Prato examines the interactions, and the researchers. entrenched economic and social inequalities The breadth and scope of this work is between northern and southern Italy. In her set up comprehensively by Italo Pardo and chapter, ‘On Human Stupidity and

Economic Policies. How Cities Inequality year of ethnographic research in Athens, Generates Losses for All’, she draws on post Global Financial Crisis, with extensive ethnographic fieldwork, mainly participants who have always struggled in the city of Brindisi, and Cipolla’s essay financially to some extent, for all they have ‘The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity’ to skills and know-how, who are moving into illustrate effectively that there are no even more precarious situations. They winners in the case she describes. For all comprise something of a ‘reserve’ work recent economic policies and interventions force called on for flexible and part-time aimed at stimulating economic growth in employment with no security or associated the South, territorial inequalities persist. benefits. They are not a homogenous group The decisions made by local administrators and do not form collectives; rather, as the and other elites are leading to more authors note, they work as individuals inequality and a sense of ‘limited resorting to pre-crisis individualistic citizenship’ amongst growing numbers of strategies. southern Italians. In his chapter on ‘The Destiny of Urban Hend Aly’s chapter, ‘Unequal Citizens: Peripheries: Downtown Tel Aviv’s Between the Gated and the Informal in Contested Realities’, Moshe Shokeid Cairo’, addresses issues of differential discusses urban gentrification and citizenship, looking at how residents in two associated impediments in Tel Aviv. neighbouring locations engage with the Engagingly, he relays his own family’s local government, particularly in terms of experience of living in one of the researched differential access to amenities and areas. This is compared with two others, in services. Based on empirical research she Tel Aviv, and in Chelsea, New York City. clearly and skilfully presents the situation in The different origins, trajectories, histories both urban spaces and elaborates on the of internal migration and architectural significant difference this makes to day-to- developments are described as impacting on day living in each location. The state-citizen the ‘feel’ of the three areas. While this relationship is not Gellner-esque in either chapter may be theorised less than others, situation, rather, as she concludes, ‘This the ethnographic writing conveys the stories translates into a systemic process of successfully, both descriptively and transforming citizens into either comparatively. underprivileged people or consumers’ (p. Falia Varelaki traces inequalities in 89). breast cancer care in Greece, describing the The chapter on ‘Precarious Employment inequities determined by one’s financial and Social Exclusion in Times of Crisis: position, of access to new breast cancer The Case of Athens’, by Manos Spyridakis vulnerability, genome-based diagnoses and and Andreas Feronas, focuses on a growing treatment. While drawing attention to this precariat through two conceptual lenses, particular situation, she also outlines precarious employment and social historical inequalities in accessing public exclusion. Their discussion is based on a health services in Greece. Whilst healthcare

is now generally more accessible than it was is based on fieldwork in an ethnically prior to 2016, the diagnostic test she writes diverse London inner city housing estate of, costing over five times the average and focuses on the restructuring of the income, is out of reach for the majority. labour market. As well as revealing local, This chapter movingly demonstrates, and global and shadow economies, the study challenges, the ethics of differential access draws attention to relationships of to medical care in a neoliberal system. acquaintanceship, interdependency, and the ‘Crisis, Disorder and Management: flexible moralities in operation. By tracing Smart Cities and Contemporary Urban the experience of tenants who move from Inequality’, by David Nugent and Adeem secure employment to gig economy-type Suhail, can be read as part one of a pair of employment, their precarity is exposed. chapters on Smart Cities. Theirs is a Along with that are pragmatic strategies, for disturbingly thought-provoking piece example, of service exchanges, and turning introducing the idea, and potential pitfalls, a blind eye to neighbour’s low level drug of smart cities. The concept is posited as dealing. future-oriented and reliant on algorithms Two chapters on Turkey address and computations in seeking the best different aspects of women’s experiences of outcomes for the most people in flattening inequality in this country. Nurdan Atalay out inequalities. Not surprisingly, the examines Turkey’s credit crisis as a result application of this utopian ideal does not of the country’s earlier financialization deliver, as exemplified through examples processes. Her ethnographic examples from a South Korean and an Indian city. explain the effect of easy access to credit The second of this pair of chapters on and debit cards and address the strategies Smart Cities is Janaki Abrahams’ ‘Urban women employ in the face of mounting Transformation for Whom? Notes from the debt. Sidar Çınar’s chapter brings out how Margins of a Town in North India’. Her patriarchy and under-development radically findings further support the conclusions reduce women’s employment opportunities, indicated in the previous chapter, that for all often on top of already reduced education its theoretical promise, Smart Cities do not and marriage options. The women focussed deliver. The inequalities continue, with the on here are either denied or forced into poor still on the edges of society. This outside employment, with men traditionally model is about business, not social justice, maintaining influence in the family even so it should not be surprising that it fails to when they are unemployed. More deliver. These points are made well through positively, these two authors see changes her fine-grained ethnographic focus on one beginning as women become conscious of poor low caste Hindu woman. the inequalities and start to leverage some Chapter 10, ‘Mixed Occupancy: Mixed power within the family as a result of their Occupations? Inequality and Employment earnings through workforce engagement. on an Inner-City Housing Estate’, by James The next two chapters draw on Rosbrook-Thompson and Gary Armstrong, ethnography in the field of sport: first

boxing then football. Chapter 13, fractures and schisms, and socio-ethnic ‘Inequalities and Redemption: A Boxing tensions in certain pockets of Russian cities. Story’ by Gary Armstrong and Matthew This book is in the series, Palgrave Bell is an exploration of socio-economic Studies in Urban Anthropology, which calls and access inequalities in Sheffield and for volumes to ‘address theoretical and looks at the potential advantages of methodological issues, showing the belonging to one particular boxing club. relevance of ethnographic research in This club was founded by a local, Ingles, understanding the socio-cultural, demographic, who gained a reputation for taking in economic and geo-political changes of disadvantaged youth and producing good contemporary society’. There is no question citizens. As well as working on their boxing that this brief is effectively met. Bringing technique, he promoted education and self- together such a diverse set of ethnographic improvement in club members, viewing this accounts offers insights into a multiplicity as the way towards their redemption. The of experiences of inequalities in urban biblical vocabulary and metaphors are a social settings. The ethnographic micro- playful addition to a fascinating study analysis and theoretical explorations make written with vitality and drama. this a must-read for scholars interested and In the second sports-focused chapter, engaged in understanding more about the and last chapter of the book, Massimiliano contemporary mechanisms of a wide range Maidano concentrates on the football fan of social inequalities. club, the Zenit Ultras. It is based in St Robyn Andrews Petersburg, modelled on other European fan Massey University, New Zealand clubs, with male physicality and aggression [email protected] sometimes formalised with ‘Russian boxing’ sessions, but other times displayed Jack Santino (ed.). 2017. Public in less formal thuggery. The researcher, Performances: Studies in the Carnivalesque recognising the value of participant- and Ritualesque. Utah: Utah State University Press. observation, entered into the spirit, as he says, ‘Relations with informants were fair, I recall my first years as a PhD student, although on some occasions I was contested when Jack Santino’s All around the year and had to punch some Zenit ultras in (1994), New Old Fashioned Ways (1996) legitimate self-defence.’ (p. 291). Distinctly and Holidays, Ritual, Festival and Russian aspects are evident in this chapter, Everyday life (2004) were milestones in the such as the fan club needing to operate study of festivals. The fourth volume in the underground initially but with Kremlin series, Public Performances: Studies in the backing in later years. The inequalities and Carnivalesque and Ritualesque, edited by discriminations in operation are many: Santino, derives from research presented at gendered, classist, racist, culturalist/nationalist. a well-known series of conferences on As such, it provides a lens through which to ‘Holidays, ritual, festival, celebration and understand more of the political tensions, public display’ held annually from 1997 to

2011. The purpose of this volume is to stress and offer us methodological tools for future similarities among various event types and elaboration. unify the field of public performances. In the third chapter, Roger Abrahams In the first chapter, Santino sketches the turns to the past to explore European- approach of performance events as American and African-American clubs in carnivalesque and ritualesque to deconstruct important ports, such as New Orleans, their shifting nature. He summarizes his earlier Havana and Rio. His chapter, along with the theoretical and methodological considerations fourth one by Stoeltje, discusses elements on interpreting public displays by emphasizing of social conflict embedded in public the mistaken association of their expressive performances. Stoeltje’s contribution on nature with the symbolic one, clarifying the – ritual and politics is realized through her (e)sque terms for carnival and ritual and thorough description of all sorts of groups abolishing the mistaken dichotomy between — small and large, hegemonic or resistant festivals and rituals. This chapter testifies to — that use ritual as a social process (p. 67). the editor’s intention to move from It reveals how ritual could not be more traditional carnival through ritual to political and vice versa. Focusing on ritualesque events — both political and ritual/political events with a vast number of theatrical in nature — and closes with the participants and global communications, consideration of performative environments Stoeltje examines the status of ritual as a (p. ix). It segues into Chapter 2 where performance genre, emphasizing its power Kinser approaches the early modern to transform, affect and unify. Inspired by Nuremberg Carnival and compares it to the Cohen’s conception that ritual and politics Carnival of the Port of Spain. He analyses occur together in social life and that carnivals’ nature, focusing on the power of symbolic activities have political local experience, which feeds carnival’s consequences, she discusses why politics performative fantasies by means of social and ritual were separated for a long period. dynamics that are displayed in one-to-one Thus, she unravels an extended analysis on or small group encounters (p. 21). Kinser performance, ritual, communication, symbols focuses on three traits: porosity, and authority to demonstrate conflict through spectacularization, and politico-social the examples of Northern Ireland, London, conciliation and offers three working Liberia and Istanbul. hypotheses. The longest chapter in this John Borgonovo’s chapter examines a volume, it describes these two carnivals set of case studies on parades and processes. based on rich background information that He explores the politics of bass brand test and discuss the abovementioned traits. culture in Cork in the 20th century. The way Kinser weaves his historical Participation of brass bands in all historical approach through the three traits and the and political phases of Ireland, we learn, transformed the bands into a tool for hypotheses he grounds on local knowledge national, governmental, political and is valuable, since we are usually missing syndicalist ideological demonstrations. historical interpretations that are productive Borgonovo portrays political movements

and revolutions, adding an account of the the area, past and present cultural practices bands’ presence in funerals. Likewise, and the ways all these factors blend, thus Elena Martinez’s Que Bonita Bandera! is achieving a thick description with devoted to the Puerto Rican parade in New reflexivity. York. Along with Borgonovo and the The final chapters focus on activist and following chapters of Harnish and Moro, protest performances. Pamela Moro writes these contributions constitute the ‘parade about ‘activist spectacles’ that foment section’ of the book. Drawing on extended bonding and communitas, even where fieldwork, Martinez deconstructs the audiences are fluid and unpredictable. Zinn presence, history and use of the Puerto focuses on how protest performances can be Rican flag. Harnish takes us to Indonesia for understood through the hybridization of the processions in Bali and Lombok, concepts from diverse literatures. looking at these public displays as a Magelssen explores the ritualesque use of multisited performance incorporating theatrical performances surrounding motion, movement, sound and theatre. ecological issues. Graham examines the Harnish’s discussion of festival processions role that space and place play in the is so articulate and flowing that you feel consciousness and memory of the present at them. individuals and families in Northern Laurent Sebastién Fournier states her Ireland, especially as it regards the aim for a meta-theoretical approach to transformation of private to public grief in ritualesque and carnivalesque. She begins the performative nature of memorials. from the history and status of French social Finally, Wocjik focuses on the use of research on festivals and examines the ‘outsider art’ as a form of social protest. association of festivals and culture. Then, This collection of essays reflects she mainly focuses on the folklorists’ current fieldwork and the tendency for approach to festivals and the folkloristic theories to evolve from that fieldwork. approach of the festival organizers, The deep exploration of these public synonymous to exoticism, nostalgia and displays in this volume is a crucial authenticity. She returns to Van Gennep’s contribution to the multidisciplinary Rites de passage considering the different approach of public performance genres uses of the term. Lisa Gilman, partially and has the power and importance of a influenced by Stoeltje, presents the festival seminal reference publication. of Umthetho in Mzimba, Malawi as an example of a festival negotiating power Vasiliki Sirakouli between traditional and national leadership Democritus University of Thrace, Greece systems (p.181). She lays out the [email protected] dimensions where power manifests, and focuses on the evolution of its form, organization and production, along with the discourses surrounding it. She provides a detailed history of the festival, ethnic groups, subgroups and traditional leaders in

https://www.anthrojournal-urbanities.com/vol-11-no-1-may-2021/ 119