Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Georgetown University ANTH 280-10 Fall 2015 Urban Anthropology: Cultures of the City Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30-1:45 PM Dr. Laurie King Car Barn 201 [email protected] “The city is the maximal expression of the human need – and capacity – for interdependence.” ~ Ulf Hannerz “Cities are problems in organized complexity.” ~ Jane Jacobs COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course explores the city as a product of, and a rich site for, humans’ negotiations over social and economic rights, identity, cultural meaning, and community. Drawing on a variety of historical, geographic, and ethnographic studies, we will ask whether urban life is qualitatively distinct from rural life, and whether there are different types of urban life in different places and times. The city is a site of economic and political centralization, but also a landscape of sentiment and memory. It is a space of ritual observance and spectacle, as well as the locus of inequality, alienation, suffering, and dysfunction. Debates over urban planning encompass moral, cultural, and personal concerns, not simply the planning schemes of economists, policymakers, and architects. Throughout the course, methodological questions regarding the city as an object of historical and ethnographic study are highlighted. We will look at Tokyo’s fish markets, the vibrancy of Karachi, mid20th century New York City, contemporary Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and the wounded cities of New Orleans and Beirut in order to understand the complexity of the urban experience through a holistic and critical anthropological lens. We will use the process of conducting urban anthropological research— deciding on a topic, undertaking participant observation, dealing with the logistics and ethics of qualitative research, and writing ethnographies—as the skeletal structure of the course. Whether you think about it or not, you are part of this city. You participate, to one degree or another, in the social and cultural frameworks of Washington, DC. Although you may spend most of your time west of Wisconsin Avenue, you are all intricately woven into the ecological, infrastructural, administrative, socioeconomic, and imaginative systems of our nation’s capitol. In this class we will explore the city and what it means to be in and of a city. As we will discover in our initial readings, cities are characterized by size, density, heterogeneity, and differences. The “anchor” text for our course, Ulf Hannerz’s Exploring the City, notes that cities are the “maximal expression of the human need – and capacity – for interdependence.” Cities are also full of surprises and serendipity. As another author, Richard Sennett, notes “Cities are places where strangers are likely to meet.” Cities present us with the opportunity, and the necessity, to play different roles at different times, and to traverse spaces and get to feel at home in new places. We shape cities, but they also shape us through our experiences and relationships in them. The quality, not just the quantity, of human interrelationships and interactions are what make a city a city. How are you woven into the many systems and cultures of Washington, DC? How do you “interdepend” with others, many of whom you have never even met? Two key themes in this course will be interdependence and interrelationships. We will explore these not only through our readings and discussions in class, but more importantly, through our explorations of the different neighborhoods of Washington, DC. By doing ethnographic fieldwork in the city, you will be mapping the sorts of interdependencies and interrelationships that make Washington Washington. You will also be entering into interrelationships of 2 interdependence with people in your field sites. Your own stories will be transformed by the telling of their stories. By the end of the semester, we will examine how Georgetown University participates in relationships of interdependence in Washington – historical, cultural, ecological, economical, and political. I hope you will learn not only about the city, but about yourselves and about the connections between you and others in this urban matrix known as Washington, DC. COURSE GOALS: To encourage students to engage with the principles and techniques of anthropology as an interpretive science that accounts for cultural diversity through the practice of ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative research in the form of visual and written narratives. To grasp how issues of power, justice, equality, and dignity are entailed in our definitions and perceptions, as well as our documentation, of difference and diversity in the city. To encourage students to see what they don’t see, and might not even know they don’t see, in the urban world of Washington, DC, in which they move as citizens and students. To encourage students to see that the ethnographer is himself or herself the very instrument of research. Reflexivity and critical discussion of what we know, how we know, and what we don’t know is crucial to any ethnographic project. To encourage students to think critically about the meanings and implications of diversity and difference through the doing of urban ethnography. To question the implications of “observation.” Does anthropology imply a focus on “the other,” “the different,” “the exotic” and “the strange”? Who decides what is different? How do we categorize diversity? What is diversity? How do we define it and know it? What are the boundaries and the distinguishing characteristics? How do we see, map, and accommodate diversity and difference? Are we different? Diversity is a relational concept, as is identity. 3 Texts (in alphabetical order) Auge, Marc. 1995. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. Davis, Mike. 2006. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New Edition). Gmelch, George, Robert V. Kemper, Walter P. Zenner. 2010. Urban Life: Readings in the Anthropology of the City. Hannerz, Ulf. 1980. Exploring the City. Inskeep, Steve. 2012. Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi. Jacobs, Jane. 1992. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Steinberg, Phil, and Rob Shields. 2008. What Is a City?: Rethinking the Urban after Hurricane Katrina. All texts will be available on reserve at the Lauinger Library On Blackboard: Blom Hansen, Thomas and Oskar Verkaaik, “Urban Charisma: On Everyday Mythologies in the City.” Krieger, P. “Aesthetics and Anthropology of Megacities: A New Field of Art Historical Research” http://actesbranly.revues.org/318#text Pickett, Cadenasso, et al., “Urban Ecological Systems: Linking Terrestrial, Ecological, Physical, and Socioeconomic, Components of Metropolitan Areas.” Selected readings on “wounded cities,” qualitative methodologies, and thinking exercises. COURSE EVALUATION: Two analytical papers (5 pages), 10 points each: Ethnography based on field research (15 pages): Reflective essay Weekly posting to our course blog Attendance and active participation: 4 20% 30% 15% 20% 15% Laptop and iDevice Policy: Laptops and smart phones are to remain unconnected to the Internet during class sessions. You may use laptops only for taking notes and relying on readings. Research paper: By mid-October, we will have chosen six or seven DC and/or Northern Virginia neighborhoods or topics for group field research projects. Each group will consist of no less than two and no more than four people. Each person in each group will complete a research paper on a particular aspect or dimension of the topic they are researching as part of their team. Teams will check in with me twice: in late October and then again before our Thanksgiving break. Students will submit their specific research topics to me for approval in mid-October. Attendance and participation: Students are expected to attend and actively participate in all classes. This requirement is very important and depends on good preparation by thoughtfully reading the assigned literature. Both lectures and class discussions will presume that you have completed your readings. COURSE SCHEDULE: Week One o Mapping the City: Powerpoint presentation and a discussion of maps and their various meanings and implications. Week Two o In-class socio-spatial mapping exercises. o Pickett, Cadenasso, et al., “Urban Ecological Systems: Linking Terrestrial, Ecological, Physical, and Socioeconomic, Components of Metropolitan Areas” (Blackboard) o Krieger, P. “Aesthetics and Anthropology of Megacities: A New Field of Art Historical Research” http://actesbranly.revues.org/318#text (Blackboard) o Chapters 1 and 2 in Urban Life (Gmelch, Kemper, and Zenner). Week Three 5 TWO FIELD TRIPS (Venues yet to be determined) Week Four o Chapters 4, 6, and 7 in Urban Life (Gmelch, Kemper, and Zenner). o Chapters 1 - 4 in Exploring the City (Hannerz). Week Five o Chapters 4 (pp. 119-135 only), 5, 7, and Appendix: Analytical Concepts, in Exploring the City (Hannerz). First Paper Due October 1st Week Six o Chapters 9, 13, 15, and 17 in Urban Life. o Inskeep, Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi (entire) CHOOSE FIELD RESEARCH SITES BY OCTOBER 8th Week Seven o Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Chapters 1-12) Week Eight o The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Chapters 13-22). Individual Research Paper Topics Due on October 15th Weeks Nine and Ten o Auge, Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity (entire) o Davis, City of Quartz (entire) o Blom Hansen, Thomas and Oskar Verkaaik, “Urban Charisma: On Everyday Mythologies in the City.” o Film: “Chinatown” by Roman Polanski Second Paper due on November 12th Week Eleven 6 NO CLASSES. SPEND TIME DOING FIELD RESEARCH Weeks Twelve and Thirteen o Chapters 13 - 16 in Urban Life (Gmelch, Kemper, and Zenner). o What Is a City?: Rethinking the Urban after Hurricane Katrina (entire); o Selected readings on “wounded cities” (Beirut, Nazareth, Port au Prince, Sarajevo). THANKSGIVING BREAK Week Fourteen Putting it all together: How do you now see and define “the city” as an anthropologist? Final Paper and Reflective Essay Due on Friday December 4th 7