Urban Anthropology

Hip-Hop Hybridity for a Glocalized World: African and Muslim Diasporic Discourses in French Rap Music

by David Drissel

Urban Schism, Social Strains: Exploring the Collective Identities of Youth in Contemporary Belfast

by David Drissel

Ethnicity and machine politics

by Jerome Krase

This is a book I co-wrote with Charles La Cerra: Ethnicity and Machine Politics: The Madison Club of Brooklyn. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1992.

Street social capital in the liquid city

by Jonathan Ilan

Published in 'Ethnography'

This article reflects on the lives of a group of young men on Ireland’s socio-economic periphery, focusing on how... more This article reflects on the lives of a group of young men on Ireland’s socio-economic periphery, focusing on how exclusion shapes their cultural orientation and orders their spatial practices. Whilst populist imaginaries and certain academic understandings of young, disadvantaged, urban males tend to cast them in the role of claiming and violently defending territories, their relationships to space may be considerably more transient and fluid. Within the late-modern ‘liquid city’ exclusion has cast the young men researched here into migratory practices, where they must negotiate relationships with potentially hostile peers in various parts of the urban environment. Adopting street cultural norms of rugged masculinity, crimino-entrepreneurialism and the recourse to violence can result in the accumulation of ‘street social capital’. This can allow disadvantaged young people to secure a sense of existential security, pleasurable experiences, disposable income and a culturally mediated notion of dignity, despite their spatial and socio-economic exclusion.

The Dirty Legacy of Europe’s New Cultural Metropolis: The Ruhr Area’s Old Industrial and New Cultural Energies

by Jonas Leonhard Tinius

What is at stake when one of Europe's most densely populated urban conglomerates changes the frame of reference for its identity from industry to postindustrial culture? How are we to understand campaigns that seek to redefine an entire area into Europe's new cultural metropolis and what are some of the limitations as well as potentials of this more than conceptual imagination for the study of industrial landscapes, theatre, and space?

Repensar Bonpastor: una intervención multidisciplinaria independiente en un barrio afectado por la transformación urbanística

by Stefano Portelli

Published in Periferia, revista de recerca i formació en antropologia, n.12, june 2010

“Repensar Bonpastor – a Competition of ideas for a participative and zero-eviction urban renewal of a popular... more “Repensar Bonpastor – a Competition of ideas for a participative and zero-eviction urban renewal of a popular neighbourhood in Barcelona”, promoted by the International Alliance of Inhabitants and organized by an independent group of technicians from Barcelona, received 45 proposals from all over the world. The
article explains how the local struggles of the neighbours of the “casas baratas de Bon Pastor” succeeded in gathering applied anthropology, international solidarity, oral history, social architecture, political activism, into a shared attempt to find a new way of “making the city”: where inhabitants are the leading actors of the transformations, and technicians (especially anthropologists) guarantee respect towards the meanings and value that the city represents to its inhabitants.

Keywords: urban renewal, public anthropology, social architecture, community
activism.

The Access to Housing of Romanian Roma in Andalusia. Public Practices and Family Strategies in the area of Granada

by Stefano Piemontese

2011 - Master's Thesis. Internationale Migration und Interkulturelle Beziehungen [International Migration and Intercultural Relations], Universität Osnabrück

The study intends to offer an evaluation of the implementation of the social housing and social services schemes in... more The study intends to offer an evaluation of the implementation of the social housing and social services schemes in the case of the Romanian Roma community settled in the suburbs of Granada. Both the family housing strategies (like residential mobility and overcrowding) and the public initiatives aimed at ensuring the access to a decent and adequate housing (based essentially on unsustainable social services' benefits-based housing practices) are analysed. Methodologically, the study is based on a qualitative field investigation and is supported by an exhaustive legislative and newspaper-based bibliographic research. It pretends to be a useful instrument for the comparison, at a EU and local level, of diverse policy approaches to housing with respect to the Eastern EU Roma communities settled in Western EU countries.

Lo Stato attacca. Pianura risponde. Scenari, strategie, tattiche ed azioni della rivolta anti-discarica nella periferia occidentale napoletana

by Marco De Biase

published in "Biopolitica di un rifiuto. Le rivolte antidiscarica a Napoli e in Campania", Petrillo A. (edited by), Ombre Corte, Verona 2009.

Creative spaces: movement, communication, play / Kūrybinės erdvės: jūdėjimas, komunikacija, žaidimas

by Jekaterina Lavrinec

Jekaterina Lavrinec
"Creative spaces: movement, communication, play", published in:
The History of the Museum. Part I". Vilnius: Modern Art Center, 2012, p.42-47 /
"Kūrybinės erdvės: judėjimas, komunikacija, žaidimai", paskelbta:
Vieno muziejaus istorija. I dalis.Vilnius: Modernaus meno centras, 2012, p. 42-47

Every object designed by an architect becomes covered by citizens' interpretations. By using city space, citizens... more Every object designed by an architect becomes covered by citizens' interpretations. By using city space, citizens broaden the functions foreseen by architects and designers for spaces and urban elements, and develop alternative scenarios for using them giving new meanings to localities and new, unofficial, names to various sites around the city. [..] In their turn, city objects and the organization of city spaces shape the choreography of city users: they influence movement trajectories, rhythm, the dynamics of glances and gestures [..] Seeking to appropriate new public spaces and to revitalize forgotten places, it is sufficient to develop urban ritual - i.e. a periodically recurring and collectively supported that is usually "embedded" in a certain place.

Dynamic Soi:Neighborhoods and Urban Life

by Non Arkaraprasertkul

published in RIAN THAI International Journal of Thai Studies, Institute for Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Vol.3/2010, p.155-184.

A system of land division known as “soi” has constituted the structure of Bangkok’s urban neighborhoods since the... more A system of land division known as “soi” has constituted the structure of Bangkok’s urban neighborhoods since the founding of the city. The long and narrow lanes – the soi – divide farmland into strips with a single corridor for servicing and circulation, sandwiched by resident areas The intimate social quality of this lane-like structure is the cornerstone of Bangkok urban residents’ private life in relation to their occupational and social domains. Recent studies, however, have identified the critical urban growth projections for 2030. Urban populations are expected to double, and area expansion is expected to triple. Bangkok is expected to follow this pattern and to grow rapidly. There is no agreement on overall planning strategy, which opens an opportunity to explore and define tradeoffs with their implications on city form and growth. The soi system is both a hindrance and an opportunity for guiding development. A good understanding of this development process is lacking, which could assist planners in developing growth strategy. Because Bangkok’s soi urbanism is too big a phenomenon to be understood from the perspectives of any single discipline, in this paper, I present a research project that is trans-disciplinary, cross-cultural, and historical in design. This research draws from the data and methods of history, geography, and political science to analyze key urban issues. This project seeks to understand in what ways the soi neighborhoods are the resilient element of Bangkok’s urban culture that many claim them to be. Only firsthand experience in the soi communities can answer such questions and shed light on this unlikely phenomenon, with ramifications for developing urban spaces and aging metropolises alike.

Amazonian Native Youths and Notions of Indigeneity in Urban Areas

by pirjo kristiina virtanen

2010. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 17(2/3): 154-175.

The indigenous presence in urban areas of Amazonia has become more visible as Indian populations have negotiated their... more The indigenous presence in urban areas of Amazonia has become more visible as Indian populations have negotiated their own spaces and acted in new contexts previously reserved for the dominant society. This article looks at ways in which today’s young Indians in an urban area define and interpret their new cultural and social situations, drawing from research conducted with Apurinã, Cashinahua and Manchineri youths in Rio Branco, a city in Acre state, Western Brazil. These young people occupy a variety of “native” and “non-native” habituses and
develop their notions of indigeneity within complex social networks as part of their strategy for rupturing the otherness associated with indigeneity. The text contributes
to the discussion on the theory of practice and identity politics, as well as embodiment. Young Indians in urban Amazonia constitute their agencies in multiple ways and use various embodiments based in the practices and knowledge of
their native groups and those of urban national and global society. The young natives break with the image of Lowland South American Indians as peoples uncontaminated by urban influences and help promote new interactions between
native populations in the reserve and the city.

After December: Spatial Legacies of the 2008 Athens Uprising. In Upping the Anti vol 10.

by Dimitris Dalakoglou

See: http://uppingtheanti.org/journal/article/10-after-december-spatial-legacies-of-the-2008-athens-uprising/

The cold-blooded police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the Athens neighbourhood of Exarcheia on... more The cold-blooded police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the Athens neighbourhood of Exarcheia on December 6, 2008 sparked an unprecedented wave of protests and rioting. These protests quickly spread not only throughout Athens and the majority of Greek cities but also beyond the country’s borders. Around the world, more than 200 solidarity actions took place in December alone. During the riots and clashes that followed Grigoropoulos’ death, police departments, banks, government ministries, and other public buildings in Athens came under near-daily attack, while universities, high schools, town halls, and other buildings were occupied by demonstrators across the country. This episode ­– a major insurrection sparked by a single incident of police brutality – has attracted considerable attention from global social justice movements. The question of the uprising’s aftermath remains on many people’s minds. Before considering the legacies of the uprising, however, it’s useful to look at how the events of December 2008 became possible in the first place.

Beyond Preservation: Rebuilding Old Shanghai

by Non Arkaraprasertkul

Arkaraprasertkul, Non. “Beyond Preservation: Rebuilding Old Shanghai” The Exposition Magazine of the University of Oxford. 3 (Hilary Issue): 10-18 (2010)

Even governmentality begins as an image: Institutional planning in Kuala Lumpur

by Richard Baxstrom

Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, Number 61, Winter 2011 , pp. 61-72 (12)

This article considers the complexity of contemporary urban life in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, through an analysis of... more This article considers the complexity of contemporary urban life in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, through an analysis of planning and the plan itself as a thing in this environment of multiplicity. It argues that the plan functions as a vehicle for action in the present that does not require a singular vision of the future in order to succeed. Plans in the context of governance and urban development gesture to “the future,“ but this gesture does not require “a future“ in order to function in a highly effective manner. The evidence presented indicates that the primary effectiveness of the plan largely relates to its status as a virtual object in the present. Such virtual objects (plans) bind subjects to the conditions of the present within the desires and limits asserted by the institutions seeking to dominate contemporary life in the city, but this domination is never absolute, singular, or complete.

Living on the horizon of the everlasting present: power, planning, and the emergence of baroque forms of life in urban Malaysia

by Richard Baxstrom

From the edited volume "Southeast Asian Perspectives on Power" (series: The Modern Anthropology of Southeast Asia), edited by Liana Chua, Joanna Cook, Nicholas Long, Lee Wilson, Routledge, 2012

[for the book]

The book works from the ground up, portraying Southeast Asians’ own perspectives,... more [for the book]

The book works from the ground up, portraying Southeast Asians’ own perspectives, conceptualizations and experiences of power through empirically rich case studies. Exploring concepts of power in diverse settings, from the stratagems of Indonesian politicians and the aspirations of marginal Lao bureaucrats, to mass ‘Prayer Power’ rallies in the Philippines, self-cultivation practices of Thai Buddhists and relations with the dead in Singapore, the book lays out a new framework for the analysis of power in Southeast Asia in which orientations towards or away from certain models, practices and configurations of power take centre stage in analysis. In doing so the book demonstrates how power cannot be pinned down to a single definition, but is woven into Southeast Asian lives in complex, subtle, and often surprising ways.

Tracing the City: Exploring the Private Experience of Public Art through Art and Anthropology

by Martha Radice

Co-authored with Kim Morgan and Solomon Nagler. Presented at ISEA2011, Istanbul.

What happens when the private experience of art is disrupted or reframed by the chance encounters and events of urban... more What happens when the private experience of art is disrupted or reframed by the chance encounters and events of urban public life? Conversely, what happens when modes of production of art are opened up for the public to intervene in artistic creation? We draw on Lefebvre’s sociospatial theories to present the framework for our interdisciplinary research-creation project, and use it to interpret an art installation on a public city bus route.

‘Incendiary Central: The Spatial Politics of the May 2010 Street Demonstrations in Bangkok’. Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity Working Paper Series, WP 12-04.

by Sophorntavy Vorng

MPI-MMG Working Paper

In May 2010, anti-government demonstrators created a flaming inferno of Central-World Plaza – Thailand’s biggest, and... more In May 2010, anti-government demonstrators created a flaming inferno of Central-World Plaza – Thailand’s biggest, and Asia’s second largest shopping mall. It was the climactic close to the latest major chapter of the Thai political conflict, during which thousands of protestors swarmed Ratchaprasong, the commercial centre of Bangkok, in an ultimately failed attempt to oust Abhisit Vejjajiva’s regime from power. In this paper, I examine how downtown Bangkok and exclusive malls like Central-World represent physical and cultural spaces from which the marginalized working classes have been strikingly excluded. It is a configuration of space that maps onto the contours of a heavily uneven distribution of power, and articulates a vernacular of prestige, wherein which class relations are inscribed in urban space. The significance of the red-shirted movement’s occupation of Ratchaprasong lies in the subversion of this spatialisation of power and draws attention to the symbolic deployment of space in struggles for political supremacy.

'Bangkok's Two Centers: Status, Space, and Consumption in a Millennial Southeast Asian City'. City and Society (23)S1: 66-85.

by Sophorntavy Vorng

Journal Article

Despite Bangkok's current incarnation as a globalized city of shopping malls and skyscrapers, indigenous concepts of... more Despite Bangkok's current incarnation as a globalized city of shopping malls and skyscrapers, indigenous concepts of power and space emphasizing center and hierarchy continue to pervade status differentiation in everyday social life. This is evident in tensions in the spatial-symbolic relations between Bangkok's politico-religious “old city” in Rattanakosin and the newer downtown consumption hub which emerged around the locales of Siam and Ratchaprasong, and highlights how urban and social transformations engendered by neoliberal market forces and embodied in downtown Bangkok's modern, consumerist milieu have mapped onto and exacerbated cultural logics of hierarchy drawn from much older notions of urban power and privilege in Southeast Asia. This produced modes of inscribing socio-economic inequality into space and a striking culture of status display uniquely shaped by the intersection of modern capitalism and Bangkok's distinctive culture and history of indigenous urbanism and suggests that understandings of space, power, and consumption in today's cities may benefit from a less Western-centric and more regionally sensitive conceptual framework.

Language and Superdiversity (Blommaert & Rampton 2012)

by Jan Blommaert

Thesis Defense Presentation: "A ver quem passa". O Rossio. Proceso social y dinámicas interactivas en una plaza del centro de Lisboa.

by Daniel Malet Calvo

Defensa de la Tesis Doctoral, leída y discutida el 31 de octubre de 2011 entre las 11 y las 14 en la "Sala Gran" de la Facultat de Geografia i Història de la Universitat de Barcelona.

Autor: Daniel Malet Calvo

Director: Manuel Delgado Ruiz

Tribunal: Joan J. Pujadas (Universitat Rovira i Virgili); Manuel João Ramos (ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa); Gerard Horta (Universitat de Barcelona)

Calificación: Excelente "Cum Laude" por unanimidad