Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
128
Why do I bring this up now? New research formats often capture public attention and become
fashionable, and ‘Big Data’ is more than on the horizon. My point is that while such research can
sometimes be illuminating, it does not replace anthropological field research. In fact, it makes
long-term field studies even more vital and important. What actually is taking place in cities of
whatever size is best understood by exploring how particular people interact and lead their lives
in very specific urban contexts.
Placing Urban Anthropology: Synchronic and Diachronic Reflections
International Conference, University of Fribourg, September 2013
Italo Pardo
(University of Kent)
Last September a round-table Conference on
Placing Urban Anthropology: Synchronic and
Diachronic Reflections
took place at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Inspired by the
publication of
Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory
(I. Pardo and G. B. Prato eds,
2012, Ashgate Series ‘Urban Anthropology’), the Conference was convened by Wolfgang
Kaltenbacher, Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato and was organized by the Department of Social
Anthropology of the University of Fribourg with the financial support of the Swiss National
Foundation and the Rectorate of the University of Fribourg. The thirteen participants, ten paper-
givers and three discussants — Andrea Boscoboinik, Edward Conte and Helen Hertz — debated
the state of the art of urban ethnographic research, diachronically and comparatively, and the
potential for methodological and theoretical development in the shared awareness of the unique
contribution that ethnography offers for a better theoretical as well as practical grasp of our
rapidly changing and increasingly complex cities. The structured contributions by a strong field
of anthropologists, two sociologists and a philosopher, and the intense discussion
offered an
important opportunity to develop a detailed examination of the significance of the
anthropological paradigm in urban research, its centrality both to mainstream academic debates
and to society more broadly and the potential for development of this field of research.
Today half of humanity is living in urban settings and that proportion is expected to
increase in the coming decades. Cities are identified as hubs of cultural and ethnic interaction as
well as challenging settings for future sustainable development. Clearly, studying urban settings
and the attendant complex dynamics is timely and of great importance. Field research in
anthropology is an ‘art of the possible’, and in cities there are many possibilities. Combined with
specific research objectives, the application of ethnographic methodology leads to a great variety
of approaches and to new paradigmatic challenges.
Undeniably, today anthropologists find it increasingly difficult to define their field of
study, for global changes force them to take into account data that traditionally are academically
