Urban Ethnography Research Articles

Muzeul de etnografie sub presiunea interferențelor disciplinare

This article analyzes the evolution of ethnographic museums in the context of political and social pressures in the 20th century, especially under communist regimes. The two world wars and the communist regime deeply influenced the national museography, promoting ideologies such as proletarian internationalism, socialist realism and scientific atheism, to the detriment of national specificity. Museums of history and ethnography were the most affected, but neither art nor natural history museography remained untouched. The standardization pressures triggered instinctive reactions of rejection, with an emphasis on regional and national specificity in periods of political relaxation. Several personalities in the field of archeology and ethnography, such as Kurt Horedt and Ion Nestor, indirectly supported ethnography through their activities. Cooperative agriculture and the Soviet model produced negative changes in the Romanian villages, and the post‑December period brought the degradation of traditional values. Ethnography museums had the role of preserving and researching rural heritage, but they faced difficulties in adapting to contemporary realities. Ethnographic museums have played a crucial role in preserving national and cultural identity by developing national and regional strategies and programs. Administrative reorganization and museum policies have contributed to strengthening the museum network and diversifying the cultural offer. However, museums face challenges in heritage development and urban ethnography research. Inter‑museum cooperation, including with history and natural history museums, is essential for projects aiming to preserve and safeguard heritage. The importance of a high professional awareness and specialized education in museography is emphasized to ensure success and performance in the field. Ethnography museums must recalibrate their role and adapt to contemporary requirements, while maintaining their mission of preserving national and cultural identity.

Neighborhood as Theater: Building a Goffmanian Framework for Comparative Urban Ethnography

While the history of urban sociology features myriad detailed descriptions of neighborhood life reflecting various theoretical, political, and practical purposes, the field lacks general templates for conducting in-depth neighborhood research and comparison. In this paper, as a remedy, we propose a Goffmanian framework for qualitative neighborhood description and analysis which we call "neighborhood as theater." While revisiting previous ethnographic research of two neighborhoods in Hollywood, Los Angeles, conducted in the late 1990s, we argue that local social life operates along three main dramaturgical axes—sets, characters, and performances—each divided into several subcategories. These three focal points reveal observable, yet easily overlooked, key elements of neighborhood life besides illuminating broader, structural aspects and connections. We argue that conceptualizing neighborhoods “as theater" offers a general template for ethnographic urban research that can advance comparative and critical spatial analysis while remaining grounded in meaning-centered, embodied experiences of mundane local life.

A new theorization of non-binary urban geographies: introducing the ‘urban grotesque’

ABSTRACT This article introduces the ‘urban grotesque’ as a novel theoretical lens to explore non-binary urban representations, using the Lokmacı/Ledra Street Buffer Zone in Nicosia, Cyprus, as a case study. Situated in a city divided by conflict, the Buffer Zone serves as a living laboratory for examining the complex interplay of memory, identity, and place beyond traditional binary frameworks. Through a rich tapestry of empirical observations and qualitative urban ethnography, the study traces the Buffer Zone’s transformation from a symbol of division to a vibrant place of non-binary urban representation. It highlights transformative events and movements that challenge binary norms and foster a sense of belonging and inclusivity, illustrating the fluid nature of urban places shaped by an array of social practices and experiences. The ‘urban grotesque’, inspired by Bakhtin’s conception of transformation and ambivalence, emerges as a pivotal framework for understanding the essence of non-binary urban geographies. This perspective not only bridges the theoretical and empirical but also enriches our perception of urban places as realms of endless becoming, inviting us to see beyond dichotomies. Ultimately, this study promotes an inclusive, dynamic comprehension of urban places in conflict zones, highlighting non-binary perspectives to enrich urban environments.

Distinction, difference, and the place(s) of Latine working-class immigrants in the creative city

ABSTRACT This urban ethnography examines the “place(s)” of working-class Latine immigrants who participate in the production of cultural spaces in the creative city. In order to better understand their power to shape the space and the city itself, “place” is framed using theories of habitus and the production of space. Moving beyond professional elite artists and complicating the established categories of artist and worker, the analysis focuses on 37 in-depth interviews with first- and second-generation Latine immigrant artists and cultural workers. Based in the City of Santa Ana’s historic and gentrifying downtown, the research examines different locations from which working-class mostly Mexican immigrants help produce the creative city while also accepting and dissenting their various political, economic, and social positions. Latine immigrants in the creative city inhabit multiple physical and social locations with shifting levels of visibility and mobility shaping both minimal and maximal forms of difference. Although mostly temporary, expressions of alternative subjectivities and dispositions can exhibit distinctions associated with cultures of solidarity for working-class immigrant communities facing both exploitation and displacement.

Migrants in the Old Train Wagons Borderland in Thessaloniki: From Abandonment to Infrastructures of Commοning

The article examines the living and infrastructuring practices of homeless newcomer migrants who find shelter in abandoned train wagons in the west end of Thessaloniki, an area described as “one of the biggest train cemeteries in Europe.” Hundreds of train wagons have been abandoned there over the years, especially after the 2010 financial crisis, when the state-owned railway company was faced with significant financial difficulties. These abandoned wagons form an urban borderland and have provided temporary shelter to numerous homeless and unregistered migrants who stop in Thessaloniki on their route to Central and Northern Europe. Although there is a significant number of studies which discuss the formal infrastructures provided by the state and the NGOs, little attention has been given to the various ways by which homeless and unregistered migrants create and self-manage their own infrastructures to meet their needs. The article aims to shed light on this shortage while examining the (re)production of arrival infrastructures by the migrants themselves. In doing so, the article builds upon the concept of abandonment and attempts to enrich it by drawing on the theories of arrival infrastructures and urban commons. It combines spatial analysis and urban ethnography in order to explore how an urban borderland with abandoned infrastructures, like the train wagons, are re-used and transformed into commoning infrastructures, where newcomers and settled migrants join their forces in their attempt to support each other, meet their needs and of “becoming otherwise.”

Doing sonic urban ethnography: Voices from Shanghai, Berlin and London

Matters of sound and listening are increasingly being attended to across the social sciences and humanities, reflecting what has been termed a ‘sonic turn’ since the early 2000s. In urban ethnographic research, scholars are starting to pay attention to the role of sound in social relations, in expressions of identity and senses of belonging, as well as in processes of othering. In this paper, we explore the theoretical and methodological opportunities of sonic urban ethnography, that is, an urban ethnography that foregrounds sound and listening in theoretical and methodological ways. We argue that the promise of sonic urban ethnography lies in its ability to interrupt the predominant focus on text and the visual by developing expanded practices of listening for alternative ways of knowing and engaging with the urban. We share four empirical vignettes from Shanghai, Berlin and London that illustrate, in their different ways, the power exercised through sound in the urban environment. Our discussion of the empirical cases highlights three key ‘lessons’ for doing sonic urban ethnography.

Kent Etnografisinde Çoklu Yöntem Kullanımı: Yürüyüş, Fotoğraf ve Video

Bu araştırmada, 2013-2023 yılları arasında yaptığım saha araştırmalarının arka planına odaklanarak kent etnografisinde çoklu teknikleri bir arada kullanmanın metodolojik ve teorik katkılarını inceliyorum. Bu araştırmalar süresince tuttuğum alan notları üzerinden yürüyüşün kentsel mekândaki toplumsal yaşamı anlamaya katkısını ele alıyorum. İstanbul, İzmir ve Sapanca’da yürüttüğüm etnografik ve otoetnografik araştırmalar ve bu esnada yararlandığım yöntem ve tekniklerin kent etnografisinin olanaklarını genişletmeye etkisine odaklanıyorum. Metropolleşen kentin gündelik hayatını analiz ederken, kentte bir yaya olarak hareketliliği, hareketliliğin sınıfsallığını ve toplumsal cinsiyetini tartışıyorum. Görsel ve işitsel teknolojilerin imkânlarının gelişmesi, kentleşmeye başlayan bölgelerde kaybolan doğal yapının kaydını tutmaya da olanak yaratıyor. Mobil teknolojilerin artan etkisiyle sahada daha çok kullanılmaya başlanan fotoğraf çekimi ve video kaydı kent hafızası oluşturma ve kentin ve kentlinin hikâyesini toplamaya önemli katkı sağlıyor. Bununla birlikte, sahada çoklu metotları işletirken dikkate alınması gereken farklı dengeler devreye giriyor. Bu makalede, sahadaki ilişkilere ve araştırılanların gündelik hayatına müdahale etmeden metotların nasıl çoğaltabileceğine dair öneriler getirmeye çalışıyorum. Kent etnografisinde çoklu teknik kullanmanın dezavantajlı gruplar için ortaya çıkarabileceği katılımcı yöntemleri ve etnografiyi sosyal adalet için bir araç haline getirmenin imkanlarını değerlendiriyorum.

Introduction: Assimilation, integration or transnationalism? An overview of theories of migrant incorporation

Introduction: Assimilation, integration or transnationalism? An overview of theories of migrant incorporation

You Will Never Walk Alone: Ethnographic Training as Collective Endeavor

Despite being intensely sociable, ethnographic research is also deeply isolating. Although fieldworkers may feel lonely, we contend that they are not (or should not be) alone. At the 10th anniversary of Urban Ethnography Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, we reflect on the ethnographic training cultivated there. We detail objectives, experiences, and lessons learned while also considering challenges for pedagogical projects of ethnographic collectivity—as well as techniques to address them. We contend that learning and teaching sociology through the ethnographic craft is not limited to the classroom but combines reading, writing, fieldwork, and dialogue with other ethnographers. These four dimensions are cultivated through various, simultaneous, classroom-based and research-development activities. We examine activities conducive to the creation of what we call, borrowing from Norbert Elias, an “ethnographer aperti.” Finally, we discuss the replicability of this model, suggesting how universities can expand pedagogical support by pursuing ethnography as more than work in isolation.

Oltre l’intenzione. Etnografia urbana, lavoro sul campo e progettazione territoriale

La relazione stabilita dal lavoro etnografico sviluppa un legame tra antropologi e interlocutori in grado, in certe circostanze, di produrre cambiamento. Si tratta spesso di una trasformazione non direttiva, risultato insito nella relazione stessa che, attraverso il dialogo, permette di vagliare criticamente posizionamenti e dinamiche di una determinata arena sociale. Sulla scorta di cinque anni di lavoro sul campo come membro di un gruppo interdisciplinare di ricerca-azione, in questo articolo proverò a “mettere a terra” tali considerazioni, tratteggiando una figura per così dire “spuria”, cioè a stretto contatto con altre professionalità e altri campi del sapere. Il testo nel suo insieme illustrerà un ruolo da antropologo capace di mettere in gioco diverse competenze e agire su più livelli, al di là dell’intenzionalità del gesto antropologico.

Contributions of Urban Ethnography to Educational Research

Este artículo explora el uso de la etnografía urbana en la investigación educativa y discute sus aportaciones, tensiones y dilemas a fin de responder la siguiente cuestión: ¿cómo se puede incorporar la etnografía urbana para explorar y comprender los fenómenos educativos en espacios públicos? El presente ensayo busca contribuir a los debates actuales sobre la investigación educativa y su necesidad de reinventarse ante tiempos de incertidumbre y complejidad mediante el análisis de la etnografía urbana con orientación móvil. El documento se organiza en tres partes: primero, se analizan las fronteras entre lo escolar/lo educativo; segundo, se definen algunas herramientas de la etnografía urbana frente al estudio de los fenómenos educativos; y tercero, se exponen las aportaciones, tensiones y dilemas que enfrentan los investigadores educativos en su empleo. Para concluir, se enfatiza en la necesidad de promover la invención etnográfica para desarrollar nuevas estrategias de investigación educativa que permitan avanzar en dos sentidos: cuestionar los espacios y formas utilizadas en el estudio de los procesos educativos y escolares en el espacio urbano; y propiciar la generación de dispositivos para recuperar datos de naturaleza diversa, en apego a posicionamientos colaborativos, artísticos, decoloniales y críticos basados en la cocreación de conocimiento.

A bus as a compressed public space: Everyday multiculturalism in Milan

The article contributes to understanding public transport as a public space by exploring diversity and the city through mobility. It investigates the compressed and mobile space of the 90/91 trolleybus in Milan. Due to its itinerary and extended schedule, this bus is intensively used by citizens with different ethnic, economic, social and cultural backgrounds. Literature on planning and transport has recently started exploring qualitative issues through individual ethnographic research on transport means. Research on everyday multiculturalism, despite recognising the role of public transport as a promising space to study the negotiation of difference, rarely adopts this specific focus and does it mainly from a socio-anthropological point of view. Against this background, the work investigates the compressed space of a bus through an ethnographic exploration of people, spaces and practices onboard. Notably, the article is is grounded on direct observation carried out by three classes of students in the Urban Ethnography course offered in the MSc in Urban Planning and Architecture at Politecnico di Milano, and presents a post-hoc reflection on the outcomes of the teaching project. Grounding on this experience, the article argues that the compressed and mobile space of public transport is an excellent observation point to investigate everyday negotiation of difference and a privileged observatory of broader city dynamics. Additionally, the multiplication of points of view embedded in the observations and experiences of students has proved how, in the face of increasingly diverse cities, pluralisation may be a key methodological approach.

Urban Data Analytics as Research Topic, Method and Ethical Concern

Local and global business interests assemble images of neighbourhoods from localised knowledge, including disparate forms of public data such as reviews, blog posts, and open data from municipalities and other organisations. (In)visible forms of working with and worrying about neighbourhood data can be understood as an engagement with the neighbourhood's reputation, or rather its symbolic trajectory: a set of tangible and intangible indicators through which an urban space is known and treated accordingly over time. This paper addresses ethical concerns that emerge from contemporary datafied urban ethnography. We consider a combination of large-scale and bespoke, quantitative, and qualitative analyses of available sources with sustained ethnographic engagement with a Dutch neighbourhood coping with a troubled reputation. While the latter activities can mitigate ethical issues stemming from the former, ethnography in turn raises further concerns of exploitation and risk exposure and should not be treated as a kind of 'ethical panacea' for big, open, or public data projects. A multifaceted and interrogative approach to data collection may offer a more rounded account of contemporary urban data practices by drawing upon distinct and possibly conflicting accounts of social life. The challenge is to prioritise under-represented and otherwise marginalised voices in both the design and the dissemination of research on urban data analytics.

Comment l’ethnographie urbaine s’est imposée aux États-Unis (1920-2000)

Cet article cherche à expliquer le développement de l’ethnographie urbaine et les carrières réussies de ses praticiens, notoires dans les années 1990, mais pas dans les années 1920-1940, en examinant plusieurs facteurs : la dispersion géographique des élèves de l’université de Chicago formés au travail de terrain, l’expansion universitaire, les révoltes urbaines des années 1960, la multiplication des centres de recherches sur l’urbanisme, et le renforcement de l’intérêt des anthropologues pour les questions « urbaines ». L’article permet donc de mieux cerner, en décrivant les parcours des acteurs et les développements institutionnels, ce qui est en général décrit de façon imprécise comme une conséquence du mouvement des idées.

Serial migrant mothers and permanent temporariness in Dubai

Abstract Based on a five-year urban ethnography, this article explores the subjectivities of permanent temporariness that characterize the experience of serial migrant mothers in Dubai. By going beyond approaches that select middle class participants based on fixed category classifications such as ethnicity or citizenship, this article uses a processual lens and sheds light on a sociologically unmarked category of migrants in the city whose experiences of mothering and work have been shaped by shifting intersectionality in the context of multinational migration. Through detailed biographies of four serial migrants, this article offers an illustration of the subjectivities of permanent temporariness and shows how they are reproduced through three mothering practices: propagating roots, reflexive selving, and normalizing movement. Examining serial migrant motherhood practices challenges methodological nationalism and illustrates how the flow and friction of multinational migration gets reconstituted into family and work lives.

Sustainable neighbourhood gastronomy: Tokyo independent restaurants facing crises

Neighbourhood gastronomy, the agglomeration of restaurants and smaller eateries in residential urban areas, contributes to the lives of residents and visitors economically, culturally, and socially. Since winter 2020, neighbourhood gastronomy in Asian cities has been severely disrupted by COVID, compounded by many other long‐term stressors. In urban Japan these stresses include gentrification, the aging of proprietors, urban renewal, and corporatisation of gastronomy. Empirically, this paper discusses how independent restaurants in Tokyo contribute to community life by supporting grassroots creative industries, small business opportunities, meaningful artisanal work, convivial social spaces, local cultural heritage, and a human‐scale built environment. The study uses intensive single‐site urban ethnography to discuss how restaurateurs face immediate and long‐term crises at the community level. By using the “neighbourhood as method,” a concept of sustainable neighbourhood gastronomy is developed that should be applicable in other urban contexts.

Review: Muslim American City: Gender and Religion in Metro Detroit, by Alisa Perkins

Book Review| February 01 2022 Review: Muslim American City: Gender and Religion in Metro Detroit, by Alisa Perkins Muslim American City: Gender and Religion in Metro Detroit. By Alisa Perkins. New York University Press, 2020. 264 pages. $89.00 hardcover; $30.00 softcover; ebook available. Kristin M. Peterson Kristin M. Peterson Boston College Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2022) 25 (3): 136–137. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2022.25.3.136 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Kristin M. Peterson; Review: Muslim American City: Gender and Religion in Metro Detroit, by Alisa Perkins. Nova Religio 1 February 2022; 25 (3): 136–137. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2022.25.3.136 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentNova Religio Search Muslim American City from Alisa Perkins focuses on how Muslims in Hamtramck, Michigan create boundaries to determine how they will live out their faith in the religiously diverse but secular-liberal context of the United States. This urban ethnography takes on a distinct religious context: a small city surrounded by Detroit with a diverse mix of White Polish Catholics; African American Muslims and Protestants; and Bangladeshi, Yemeni, and Bosnian Muslims. The city has the largest concentration of Muslim residents (40 percent) of any city in the United States. By engaging with theories around space, group identity, and boundary formation, Perkins asserts that these religious and ethnic minorities “expand the boundaries of American pluralism from its margins” (9). In particular, these Muslims challenge the secular-liberal ideals of religious pluralism and the distinction of public/private spaces. Perkins’ ten years of ethnographic work in Hamtramck along with her fluency in Arabic allow her to... You do not currently have access to this content.

O Quarto de Carolina : O gênero, a moradia e os direitos sociais em Quarto de Despejo

The urban ethnography, written in informal language by a slum dweller, brings the verbal outlines of the thoughts of someone who has suffered the marks of social segregation, aporophobia, racism and misogyny. Quarto de Despejo, written in the format of a diary, raises the interweaving of the themes of gender and housing, allowing us to identify the intersectionality of gender, race, and class in the social production of space. Prior to the formulation of the feminist theoretical scope on fighting inequalities, Carolina emerges from poverty, alien to academia, identifies pertinent social issues, and produces archetypes that allow for confrontation with later postulated theories. More than half a century after her first publication, it is still possible to see in practice how these issues remain entangled and without adequate confrontation, adding other components. Thus, using the literature review method and centered on a historical-descriptive understanding, the considerations presented are about gender theories, which can be debated from the perspective of social rights and the public policies produced, comparing the literary work and the sociological perspective

Photography, composition, and the ephemeral city

AbstractPhotography is ultimately concerned with the ephemeral – with capturing and preserving transient moments. As a place in constant flux, full of ephemera and the ephemeral, the city has long been an important site for photographers. Those who study the city are increasingly incorporating photography into their research thanks to changing and more accessible technologies and epistemological shifts across the social sciences. Photographs are taking on new roles and are not only adjuncts or images that serve to illustrate or support text; they are integral to varied methodologies that centre the creation of images, from participatory methods using photo‐voice to visual urban ethnographies. This paper considers how a move from illustrative and documentary style to more creative and evocative photography is changing the ways geographers compose images. Geographers are not just taking images but making them, involving themselves in a form of hybrid geographic and artistic practice. This shift involves a move from more objective to subjective framings and, in some cases, from more passive to active techniques. Taking graffiti photography as a departure, this paper explores how a hybrid geographic and artistic approach influences the composition and aesthetic qualities of images. The paper takes the reader through five compositions emerging from a study on the politics of graffiti in Norway: 1. Documentation; 2. Obstruction; 3. Abstraction; 4. Reflection; and 5. Negation. These compositions are useful in understanding the place of graffiti, one of the most contested and quintessentially ephemeral features of the urban landscape. This analysis demonstrates how a divergence from more typical representations is important in conducting critical urban photographic research, how an artistic eye is about the analytic as well as the aesthetic.

Breasts and the city: an urban ethnography of infant feeding in public spaces within Cardiff, United Kingdom

BackgroundInternationally, women report challenges breastfeeding in public spaces. This study aimed to investigate the social-spatial aspects of public spaces in one UK city, Cardiff, in order to suggest possible barriers and facilitators to breastfeeding in public spaces.MethodsThe study observation location guide prioritised places that had been reported as hostile to breastfeeding or breastfeeding friendly in the existing literature. Data were collected between April and September 2018 at various times of day, in several areas of the city, and included transport (n = 4), transport hubs (n = 3), high streets (n = 4), cafes (n = 2), a large city centre shopping complex, comprising of three joined shopping malls and a large city centre department store containing a third café. Low inference field notes were written on an encrypted smart phone and expanded soon after. Data were analysed thematically using deductive codes based on the observation schedule. Additional inductive codes relating to places were added.ResultsOverall, public transport and the city centre were inhospitable environments for those who might need to breastfeed, and even more so for those who need to express breastmilk. The core barriers and facilitators across locations were the availability of appropriate seating coupled with either high privacy or politely unimposing strangers (civil inattention). The one variation to this model arose from the department store café, where civil inattention was not performed and there was low privacy, but breastfeeding occurred anyway.ConclusionsThis research highlights the physical and social barriers to breastfeeding within one urban city centre in the UK and its associated transport links. It is clear that there is an urgent need for change in urban city centres and public transport if countries are to meet their aims in relation to increasing breastfeeding rates. Interventions will need to be multifaceted, accounting for social norms relating to infant feeding as well as changes to the physical environment, policy and potentially legal change. Further research should be undertaken in other countries to examine the extent to which hostile environments exist, and if correcting these could facilitate breastfeeding and reduce gender-based violence.