Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
126
My first step out of the mould engaged me in the study of a gay synagogue in Greenwich
Village (Shokeid 1995/ 2003) recruiting its congregants from all parts of New York City and
nearby neighbourhoods. Though ‘Jewish’, they represented a mixed crowd of American born
citizens, nostalgic of a cultural tradition, but mostly expressing their sexual identity
communitas
shared with other gay-lesbian participants in various religious and secular organizations in New
York City. I moved on to study a services centre also in Greenwich Village catering to a wide and
heterogeneous constituency of LGBT participants. I conducted observations among its
kaleidoscope of voluntary associations and other activities (e.g. Shokeid 2002).
I end my ‘story’ responding to Prato and Pardo’s search of the raison d’être, the
theoretical construction, the methodology and the agenda of urban anthropology versus that of
other contemporary anthropologies. I consider myself an urban anthropologist because I engage
in research of various facets of social behaviour and cultural presentations unique to city life. I
mention in this context Bech’s assertion about the unique conditions, the gains and pains of gay
life in the city: ‘The city with its crowds and mutual strangers, is the place where the homosexual
can come together with others; and – at the same time and for the same reasons – it is the place
that confirms his loneliness’ (1997: 98). No doubt, the specific sites I observed could be chosen
for research projects from other major sub-disciplinarian perspectives, such as, ethnicity, religion
or sexuality. However, gay congregations and LGBT services centres have emerged mostly in
metropolitan cities. Ethnic enclaves of legal and illegal immigrants, as much as present day
waves of refugees, develop mostly in major cities (I am presently observing the growing
concentration of many thousands of refugees from Eritrea in downtown Tel Aviv). Although I
conducted my observations in New York sites, nevertheless, there is sufficient evidence to
confirm that my reports represent similar sites in other major American cities. For example, most
gay organizations I observed are part of national networks. However, I believe my ethnographies
contributed no less to various specific sub-fields under the umbrella of anthropology.
In conclusion, my choice of field sites was not instructed by the orientation of a scholar
specializing in ethnic, religious or gay studies. I was drawn to these social aggregations and
‘cultures’ generated and developed under the unique circumstances of the urban environment. It
was rather a product of the same old drive to observe and report about the human condition and
social life in ‘other’ cultures that has triggered the emergence of the art of anthropology. In my
experience, the city of today represents the African continent that absorbed the energy and
imagination of my teachers in Manchester before the proliferation of specialized sub-fields. I
accept the stigmatic verdict of nourishing an eclectic, naive taste for urban social ‘exotica’.
References
Barker J., Harms, E. and Lindquist, J. (2013). Introduction: Figuring the Transforming City.
City
& Society
, 25:159-172.
Bech, H. (1997).
When Men Meet: Homosexuality and Modernity.
Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
