Urbanities,
Vol. 4
·
No 2
·
November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
97
anthropological influences that have shaped our practice, as well as of the hype surrounding
the newness and innovative character of the city in an increasingly globalized world. A
critical approach is needed. As I have mentioned, cities are not constituted by moral narratives
but by individuals. Cities are not smart themselves. Cities are made efficient or better
organized, as human artefacts —
by human action. Theorization arising from fieldwork is the
backbone of our work and facilitates the dialogue anthropologists could maintain with other
disciplines which also deal with the city. Nevertheless, we should be well aware of the
specificities of theories and perspectives born in precise moments and how this corpus was
shaped by places and concrete problems.
‘Urban Anthropology’ is no longer a ‘poor man’s Anthropology’, to use A.P. Cohen’s
(1986: 15) expression. It has become one of the more dynamic and promising areas of
Anthropology, both because of the relevance of the city and of the urban transformation
fuelled by globalization, and because of its ability to engage ethnographically with the
complex, global world we live in. For once, urban anthropologists or just anthropologists
doing research in urban settings seem to be in the right place at the right time. Cities and the
urbanization processes related to globalization are arguably two of the defining forces
transforming the world.
One final point, the essay written by Prato and Pardo (2013) deals mostly with the
‘urban anthropology’ produced in English-speaking world. As other commentators have
pointed out, there are other traditions or ways of dealing with the city inside the
anthropological discipline. In the case I am more familiar with, there is a tradition, well
acquainted with the French, British and American anthropological traditions, but nurtured by
Latin American and Spanish History and academic traditions. In this increasingly globalized
world we should try to open up a debate as much as possible. There is a lot to share out there.
References
Cohen, A. P. (1986). The social anthropology of Britain and the question of otherness.
Anthropology Today
, 2 (1), 15.
Garcia Canclini, N. (1995).
Hybrid Cultures. Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press (1st Spanish Edition, 1990).
Prato, G. B. and Pardo, I. (2013).
‘Urban anthropology.’
Urbanities
, 3 (2): 80-110. Available
at
Maria Giulia Pezzi, Ph.D
Research Fellow in Social Anthropology, Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Italy
Giuliana Prato and Italo Pardo’s exhaustive account on the developments of Urban
Anthropology as a field of research (2013) accurately show the complexity of carrying out
ethnography in urban contexts, both in terms of identifying the research subject and
developing a specific methodology.
