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While the anthropological field initially shied away from the debate on multiculturalism, it has been widely discussed within the fields of political theory, social policy, cultural studies and law. Beyond Multiculturalism is the first volume of its kind to offer a comparative, worldwide view of multiculturalism, considering both traditional multicultural/multiethnic societies and those where cultural pluralism is relatively new. Its varied case studies focus on the intersections and relationships between cultural groups in everyday life using employment, identity, consumption, language, legislation and policy making to show the unique contribution anthropologists can bring to multiculturalism studies. Their work will be of great interest to scholars of race, ethnicity, migration, urban studies and social and cultural geography.
These ethnographically-based studies of diverse urban experiences across the world present cutting edge research and stimulate an empirically-grounded theoretical reconceptualization. The essays identify ethnography as a powerful tool for making sense of life in our rapidly changing, complex cities. They stress the point that while there is no need to fetishize fieldwork—or to view it as an end in itself —its unique value cannot be overstated. These active, engaged researchers have produced essays that avoid abstractions and generalities while engaging with the analytical complexities of ethnographic evidence. Together, they prove the great value of knowledge produced by long-term fieldwork to mainstream academic debates and, more broadly, to society.
The complex, highly problematic, often thorny dynamics of trust and authority are central to the anthropological study of legitimacy. In this book, this sine qua non runs across the in-depth examination of the ways in which healthcare and public health are managed by the authorities and experienced by the people on the ground in urban Europe, the USA, India, Africa, Latin America and the Far and Middle East. This book brings comparatively together anthropological studies on healthcare and public health rigorously based on in-depth empirical knowledge. Inspired by the current debate on legitimacy, legitimation and de-legitimation, the contributions do not refrain from taking into account the ...
With half of humanity already living in towns and cities and that proportion expected to increase in the coming decades, society - both Western and non-Western - is fast becoming urban and even mega-urban. As such, research in urban settings is evidently timely and of great importance. Anthropology in the City brings together a leading team of anthropologists to address the complex methodological and theoretical challenges posed by field-research in urban settings, clearly identifying the significance of the anthropological paradigm in urban research and its centrality both to mainstream academic debates and to society more broadly. With essays from experts on wide-ranging ethnographic research from fields as diverse as China, Europe, India, Latin and North America and South East Asia, this book demonstrates the contribution that empirically-based anthropological analysis can make to our understanding of our increasingly urban world.
In this book, an international team of urban anthropologists, sociologists, and ethnographers argue that politics, intergroup relations, and development in cities cannot be understood without reference to the local contexts that endow each city with specific characteristics. They also show how local urban economic, social, and cultural lives are influenced by powerful external forces. In these 'glocal' regards, the authors demonstrate how city images, borders, and social processes such as migration, tourism, and local development must be seen in broader contexts. The contributors examine them through the lenses of foreign investment, migration, and history. The volume takes an interdisciplinary approach and employs a range of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Contributors’ multidisciplinary expertise and insights about spaces and places are applied to nine unique cities across three continents.
Dhobis of Delhi: An Urban Ethnography from the Margins, 1974–2023 is a saga covering more than four decades of interactions with an 'untouchable' caste--the Dhobis (washermen and washerwomen), who are among Delhi's oldest inhabitants. It describes their ways of life, economy, livelihood, struggles, and adaptation to the city's changing demographic, cultural, and politico-economic profile. Utilizing an experiential perspective and a gendered and feminist approach, the author elaborates on the Dhobi identity, which is focused on their community (biradari), and discusses their struggles to be identified as skilled professionals at par with others, rejecting at the same time the political iden...
With half of humanity already living in towns and cities and that proportion expected to increase in the coming decades, society - both Western and non-Western - is fast becoming urban and even mega-urban. As such, research in urban settings is evidently timely and of great importance. Anthropology in the City brings together a leading team of anthropologists to address the complex methodological and theoretical challenges posed by field-research in urban settings, clearly identifying the significance of the anthropological paradigm in urban research and its centrality both to mainstream academic debates and to society more broadly. With essays from experts on wide-ranging ethnographic research from fields as diverse as China, Europe, India, Latin and North America and South East Asia, this book demonstrates the contribution that empirically-based anthropological analysis can make to our understanding of our increasingly urban world.
Global in scope, this original and thought-provoking collection applies new theory on legitimacy and legitimation to urban life. An informed reflection on this comparatively new topic in anthropology in relation to morality, action, law, politics and governance is both timely and innovative, especially as worldwide discontent among ordinary people grows. The ethnographically-based analyses offered here range from banking to neighbourhoods, from poverty to political action at the grassroots. They recognize the growing gap between the rulers and the ruled with particular attention to the morality of what is right as opposed to what is legal. This book is a unique contribution to social theory, fostering discussion across the many boundaries of anthropological and sociological studies.
The Liminal Worker examines the experience of work, employment, employment insecurity and precariousness in a context of high unemployment and welfare state crisis in modern Greece. A theoretically-informed, anthropological exploration of the notion of work in contemporary western society and its relation to processes of political decision making, this book challenges the mainstream conception of work as an economic or purely productive activity, presenting a comparative analysis of work as a social phenomenon. Drawing on original empirical research, it explores the key themes of the transformation, experience, meaning and narrative of work and its relation to attendant social policies. A un...