Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
127
Shokeid, M. (1971/1985).
The Dual Heritage: Immigrants from the Atlas Mountains in an
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Manchester: Manchester University Press (1985, augmented edition,
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Children of Circumstances: Israeli Emigrants in New York
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Cornell University Press.
Shokeid, M. (1995/2003).
A Gay Synagogue in New York.
Columbia University Press (2003,
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Shokeid, M. (2002). Sexual Addicts Together: Observing the Culture of SCA Groups in New
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Social Anthropology
, 10: 189-210.
Alex Weingrod, PhD
Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, Ben Gurion University, Israel
Giuliana Prato and Italo Pardo’s excellent essay is a genuine tour-de-force. Elegantly written,
their critical review of Urban Anthropology presents not only a global view of the field’s
development, but also presses ahead to present new challenges in understanding the changing
nature of ‘urbanism as a way of life’. On behalf of all of us, Bravo!
As they correctly emphasize, many anthropologists study important issues that take place
in cities, but too few give attention to the more fundamental problems thrust upon urban people
by the very nature of living in cities. This means not just studying social complexity and the
absence (or presence) of community, not only examining urban anomie and disorganization (or
organization), but also, following Pardo, analysing the broken links between citizenship and ‘the
legitimacy of governance’ and other fundamental urban issues. Two Examples: the possibility of
living a meaningful life in The Metropolis; the consequences of an absence of ‘traditions’ in
urban worlds that are remade every few years. We are in need of new formulations, different
slants of analysis that will better explore the dilemmas inherent in urbanism.
Prato and Pardo also examine the methodological problems involved in doing
anthropological field work in cities, and they consider strategies to overcome these (team
research, ‘multi-sited’ studies). There is a new development on the horizon that is worth
recognizing.
The era of ‘Big-Data’ (or as it is sometimes called, ‘hyperdata’) is upon us. The
computing giants have accessed zillions of data-bits about everything and everyone, and the
applied mathematicians have now produced logarithms that presumably are able to locate
‘patterns’ within this gigantic mass-mess. Imagine what this means for studying people in cities,
where everything from land registration to parking tickets to shopping for tomatoes (and on and
on) can be tabulated and calculated. Given the technology, we can anticipate an outpouring of
sociological-historical research reporting on ‘newfound patterns’ in urban life across the globe.
