Urban Anthropology
Although the term urban anthropology was coined only in the 1960s, anthropology and urban studies have always been closely associated. As Chicago sociologist Robert E. Park put it in his founding text of American urban studies, The City (1915), the same methods of observation that anthropologists had used to study “primitive” peoples “might be even more fruitfully employed in the investigation of the customs, beliefs, social practices, and general conception of life” in the different neighborhoods of American cities.
Academic Writing, Editing, Proofreading, And Problem Solving Services
Get 10% OFF with 24START discount code
Louis Wirth, a colleague of Park in Chicago, greatly influenced the development of urban anthropology through his essay, “Urbanism as a Way of Life.” Wirth theorized that urban life exerted a clear influence on social organization and attitudes. To Wirth, urban life is marked by impersonal, instrumental contacts that tend to free individuals from the strong controls of such primary groups as the extended family, yet at the same time, this freedom of individual action is accompanied by the loss of collective security. The Chicago School’s early reliance on interviews, ethnographic work, and life histories is particularly evident in founding texts of urban anthropology, such as Carolyn Ware’s Greenwich Village, 1920–1930; W. Lloyd Warner’s Yankee City; and William Foote Whyte’s Street Corner Society.
With its proposed shift from the study of “primitive” civilizations to urban cultures, urban anthropology stands in opposition to colonial anthropology that assumes “primitive” people as being essentially different from Western civilization. This opposition, urban anthropologists claim, is no longer valid, as there has not been a single society that has remained untouched by the process of industrialization.
The new subject of analysis required anthropologists to reassess their methodology. The traditional form of participant observation that put the researcher in a close relationship with a small community for a certain period of time was no longer viable in an urban context. Anthropologists working in the field have had to expand their scope to include other materials, such as surveys, historical studies, novels, personal diaries, and other sources. The rise of urban anthropology in the 1960s reflects the acknowledgment that traditional target groups of anthropological research, such as tribal and peasant people, became increasingly integrated in an urbanized world. Topics such as rural-urban migration, urban adaptation, ethnicity, poverty, and other social problems have been particularly important in urban anthropology, which has increasingly been integrated in the discourses of other social sciences.
ORDER HIGH QUALITY CUSTOM PAPER
Always on-time
Plagiarism-Free
100% Confidentiality
