Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
129
‘allocated’ to other social sciences and to the humanities; in particular, sociology, political
science, economy and history. The main concern is how to apply the traditional anthropological
methodology to contemporary Western and non-Western societies and, where adaptations are
needed, how to avoid losing disciplinary identity. Of course, like cultures, scientific disciplines
are not static. They are dynamic entities, continuously changing and developing. They alter their
identity, though they always do have an identity. Thus, new collaborations arise, widening the
field of interdisciplinary research; and yet, there is no interdisciplinarity without disciplinarity. In
studying the complexity of the world in which we live, interdisciplinary work — in the sense of
cooperation and exchange of research findings — is undoubtedly of critical importance in gaining
an informed, adequately articulated understanding of human beings and society. Participants in
this Conference engaged with the argument that, although the complexity of life somehow
compels anthropologists to specialise in a specific field, there is absolutely no need for such a
complexity to translate into academic complication and disciplinary insecurity. Specifically, new
approaches in urban ethnography have recognizable stature and profile.
The empirically-based analyses developed by Subhadra Channa (University of Delhi.
Critical Reflections on the Cognitive Dimension of ‘Being Urban’ in the Global Context: The
Case of India
); Vytis Čiubrinskas (Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania,
New
Lithuanian immigrants in Urban Chicago: Networks, Livelihoods and Loyalties
); Paola De Vivo
(University of Naples Federico II,
The Debate in Urban Anthropology and the Development of
Empirical Investigation on Governance
); Christian Giordano (University of Fribourg,
Investigating Multiculturalism in the City: Anthropological Insights from Southeast Asia
);
Wolfgang Kaltenbacher (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici,Naples, Italy,
Facing New
Clusters: Methodological and Epistemological Reflections on Anthropological Research in
Urban Areas
); Jerome Krase (Brooklyn College, City University, New York,
Visual
Ethnography: Bridging the Gaps
); Italo Pardo (University of Kent, U.K..
Italian Elite Groups at
Work: Views from the Urban Grassroots
); Giuliana B. Prato (University of Kent, U. K.,
Polis,
Civitas and Metropolis: An Anthropologist’s Reflections
); Michel Rautenberg (University Jean
Monnet, Saint-Étienne, France,
Cities, (Re)generators, Tombs or Social Heritages and Social
Memories? Urbanity as Heritage of Cities
); François Ruegg (University of Fribourg,
Switzerland,
‘Nouveaux Riches’ in and Around the City: An Aspect of Urban Transformation in
Eastern and Central Europe
) stimulated epistemological reflections on the state of the art of
urban ethnographic research, on the prospected impact of this field on anthropology in general
and on the relations of anthropology with other disciplines and with the broader society.
Revised versions of the individual papers, incorporating key aspects of the round-table
discussions, are now in preparation for publication in a Special Issue of the international Journal
Diogène/Diogenes
, a quarterly publication published under the auspices of the International
Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies with the support of the UNESCO. It is hoped that
further expansion of this debate will generate a volume to be published in the forthcoming Series
‘Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology’.
