Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
98
critical to recognize that each of these cities have different history and different meanings for its
inhabitants (whether they are new immigrants or old residents); that they are marked by diverse
economic and social conditions and that they belong to different political systems which, despite
global and transnational processes, inevitably affect a wide range of urban policies.
The diversity of cities is reflected in recent works on migration, such as the volume edited
by Glick Schiller and Çaglar (2011) on the interrelationship between migrants and cities, with
particular reference to the ‘rescaling’ of cities. Looking at the relationship between locality and
globality, including historical transnationalism linked to labour migration, the volume aims to
show how the ways in which migrants of different backgrounds establish themselves in cities and
their contribution to urban restructuring are affected by the different political, economic and
social conditions of the host cities (See also contributions in Prato ed. 2009).
It goes without saying that the works mentioned thus far, and those that follow, are by no
means exhaustive of the research carried out in the urban anthropological field. They represent
major trends that have developed throughout the years and they show the extent to which
Urban
Anthropology
has changed over the years.
Among the issues that have caught the attention of urban anthropologists in the 1990s and
at the beginning of the twenty-first century are industrial relations (Harris 1986; Parry, Breman
and Kapadiaeds 1999; Spyridakis 2006); social marginality (for example, Bourgois 2002 and
2003 [1995], Pardo 2009, Perlman 2011); the sociological significance of kinship in social
relations (Pardo 1996, Donner 2008); citizenship, the relationship between ordinary people and
their rulers and the legitimacy of governance (Holston ed. 1999, Pardo 2000 and 2001, Prato
2000, Gill 2000 and 2001, Zhang 2002, Bray 2005, Sam Hickey and Diana Mitlineds 2009, Pardo
and Prato eds 2010); religion and modernity (Parry 2008); political ideologies and urban planning
(Bray 2005, Colombijn 2006); gender issues (Harrison 1991; El-Kholy 2002, Engebretsen 2012);
violence and conflict (Armstrong 1998, Caldeira 2000, Sant-Cassia 2000, Colombijn and
Lindbandeds 2002, Mollica 2010), also addressing movements of resistance (Holston 2008,
Gledhill and Schell 2012); the problems raised by the growing movement of population and
multiculturalism (Ong and Nonini 1997, Feldman-Bianco 2001, Zhang 2001, Erdentug and
Colombijn eds 2002, Prato ed. 2009, Nagle 2009, Weingrod 2010, Krase 2012); legitimating
processes of state formation and ethno-nationalistic revival (Rubel and Rossman 2009, Weingrod
2006), urban symbolism (Jezernik ed. 1999, Nas and Samuels eds 2006), the cultural meaning
and use of urban space (Rotenberg and McDonogheds 1993, Makhulu 2002), environmental
issues (Prato 1993, Aoyagi et al. eds 1995, Torsello 2012).
The activities of the
Commission on Urban Anthropology
have reflected the breadth of
these new interests, often stimulating new research and acting as a springboard for debate on
methodological and theoretical issues (see, Prato and Pardo eds 2010 and eds 2012). Following
the collapse of Communism, there has been a renewed interest in Eastern and South-Eastern
European cities, linking them to global geopolitical processes (see, for example, Prato 2004 and
2012, Thiessen 2007 and 2012, Bardhoshi 2010). Several publications of the
Commission
’s
