Urbanities,
Vol. 4
·
No 2
·
November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
103
Lastly, the urban setting is rich with peripheral experiences that are difficult to
capture, let alone verbalize. ‘Choice Notes’ would acknowledge the difficulty of managing
the relationship between background and foreground, with contributors drawing on the notion
of a periphery for the purpose of either carefully delimiting or problematizing the boundaries
of specific research projects. Following the former approach, some authors would invoke the
ideal of holism in a manner that is consistent with current practices, such as demonstrated by
Italo Pardo’s work ‘as a participant observer’ (Prato and Pardo 2013: 96). Pardo ‘”followed”
his informants in their dealings within and without the neighbourhood, thus providing an in-
depth, articulated understanding of the ways in which local people relate to the wider social,
economic and political system…’ (96). Authors who would follow the latter approach, and
problematize the boundaries of specific research projects, might sacrifice holism’s aesthetic
and analytical logic of completeness for the purpose of innovating our conceptual toolbox.
Acknowledging the allure of distraction as a feature of both urban anthropology and, more
generally, city life, the authors of these peripheral observations would conjure new metaphors
for describing and expressing the urban experience.
To conclude, a section dedicated to peripheral observations might lead to innovation at
three levels: the discipline, individual practitioners, and their tools. It could become a creative
space for launching the ‘…generative first steps in the emergence of … new developments of
… expertise, and new modifications of … conduct and its generative principles’ (Ness 2011:
83). But would the proposed section deliver on this promise? This depends on the broader
context. Each ‘journal and its publication program…’ is ‘…an institutional nodal point in a
complex disciplinary conversation…’ (Silverstein 2012: 575). The disciplinary conversation
may or may not shift in favour of paying more attention to peripheral observations and their
innovative potential. Yet as I argue here, the peripheral observations in our field notes are
assets that we could play to our individual and collective advantage, making urban
anthropology the richer for it.
References
Fassin, D. (2014). True Life, Real Lives: Revisiting the Boundaries between Ethnography and
Fiction.
American Ethnologist
, 41 (1): 40-55.
Ness, S. A. (2011). Bouldering in Yosemite: Emergent Signs of Place and Landscape.
American Anthropologist
, 113 (1): 71-87.
Prato, G. B. and Pardo, I. (2013).
‘Urban anthropology.’
Urbanities
, 3 (2): 80-110. Available
at
Silverstein, M. (2012). Response: Beyond the ‘Monumental’ Role of Journal Publication.
American Anthropologist
, 114 (4): 573-575.
Touval, A. (2011). The Pastoral, Nostalgia, and Political Power in Leipzig, Germany.
Urbanities
, 1 (1): 43-53. Available at:
