34 Urban Anthropology

Dr. Shyamasri Mohanty

Contents of this unit

1.   Learning Outcomes

2.   Introduction

3.  Scope & Development of Urban Anthropology as a sub-discipline.

4.  Methods & Techniques of Urban Studies

5.  Cross-Cultural Studies by different scholars

6.  Some Study-based generalizations

7.   Conclusion

8.   Summary

1. Learning Outcomes

After studying this module

• You will come to know urban studies in anthropological perspective.
• You will be able to understand the difference in approaches to urban studies from anthropological & sociological orientation
• You will be able to know various methods & techniques used relating to urban studies.
• You will be able to appreciate the efforts of the scholars to comprehend various aspects of urban anthropology.
• You will be able to know the generalizations drawn from various studies.

2. INTRODUCTION

Study of urban anthropology is a step forward in implementing the traditional claim of anthropology to deal with man everywhere and as a whole. As a discipline it has always contributed in providing convincing account of what is happening to the people in varied real life situations and putting them in broader framework of time and space. Anthropologists have long been aware that exclusive interest in small, isolated, exotic culture was a quicksand which would engulf them if they do not realize the broader relevance of their insights (Aidan Southall, 1973). Therefore, they were becoming more and more concerned with the transformation of countrymen and peasants into city dwellers, industrial workers and national elite. Robert Redfield was a prominent anthropologist who studied both folk and peasant societies. While researching peasant societies of developing nations, such as India, he discovered that these communities were dissimilar to folk societies in that they were not self-contained. For example, peasant societies were economically linked to forces outside of their own community. In other words, they were part of a bigger society is the city.

3. SCOPE & DEVELOPMENT OF URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY AS A SUB-DISCIPLINE:

Urban Anthropology developed as a consequence of the rapid transformation of rural groups into city dwellers & focuses on topics such as immigration to cities, rural-urban networks, voluntary associations that facilitate adjustment and culture change. Recent researches in this area have focused on the interplay of the global and the local and the transnational flow of people, capital & commodities. The objective of the sub-discipline is to bridge the gaps between micro-social studies of inter personal relations and macro-social studies of urban structure. As a result, the door was opened for more anthropologists focusing their study of societies (regardless of whether they were Western or non-Western) from the perspective of the city. However, this was not the only occasion where social scientists were interested in studying the city. The Prehistoric age civilizations were also a subject of study for historians and other related disciplines. It was during 1920s the Chicago School of Urban Ecology conducted a study on city and defined city in terms of urban ecology. Since then, the school became the main reference in urban anthropology as with them started a theoretical trend which has the influence till the present.

Among the various individual scholars who contributed to the study is Louis Wirth, who prescribed the study of city from three perspectives: as a Physical structure, as a system of social organisation and as a set of attitudes and ideas. Further, Lloyd Warner made an academic landmark in the field of urban anthropology by applying the community study approach used earlier to study primitive cultures.

4. METHODS & TECHNIQUES OF URBAN STUDIES:

Urban Studies is a multidisciplinary field of research and scholars across different disciplines have contributed to the growth & development of this field of Anthropology. Methods of research have also been different depending on the nature of the disciplines and their approaches to the extent required. Anthropologists are into the habit of taking advantage of using fieldwork tradition and ethnographic method in their study. In case of urban anthropology, while applying ethnographic method in the study, the researchers use ‘city’ as independent variable or dependent variable. They use single case study techniques to present a single urban society & also an improved one as controlled comparisons, where different societies are compared with controlled variables. In this approach, the associations are found to have relatedness & not only co-related. However, both single case study and controlled comparisons are made to make the study more research-oriented & analytical.

5. CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY BY DIFFERENT SCHOLARS:

Cross-cultural studies mainly conducted in Africa, Latin America, Japan, Indonesia, India and Pacific give an account of diverse subjects but give a number of common themes. The relation of urban to rural and of city to nation and state is one of the oldest human themes which has been illustrated here by a range of situations and views. The links between the institutions of the town and the country, between urban and rural populations, and between urban and rural phases in the career of individuals, need to be distinguished. The following are some account of data and theory arising from cross-cultural studies.

Anthony Leeds who studied favelas of Rio de Janeiro says, community study method is inadequate for the study of state-organized societies, nations, complex societies. He insists on the intertwining of local and supra-local, or urban and national institutions. He denies the conventional similarity between the self-contained tribe and the local community as viable autonomous units of study. He emphasized on the study of both, the impact of locality power on the centers of power and local impact on the power centers.

Oscar Lewis shows how the urban locality in Mexico City can retain many features of behavior which they brought with them from more rural areas: despite the different institutional framework in which they find themselves. Secondary relationships may be more numerous but have only minor psychological effect; whereas primary relationships are successfully maintained and even deeper in significance. He even corrects the implications of Robert Redfield’s urban secularization hypothesis. The retention of solidary relationships by the urban poor is a necessity for survival and has been widely noted not only in Asia and Africa but in North American ghettoes. At different status level the opposite process is taking place in western countries. Urban middle and upper class persons are carrying city ways, city outlooks and city involvements with them into the countryside, either by residence or by decentralizing urban functions and institutions in the countryside. As a result of both processes the countryside is in many respects ceasing to be rural.

Peter Lloid’s examination of Yoruba (Nigeria) cities gives insight into the concept called urban. Yoruba cities were large by pre industrial standards with dense population. They were also heterogeneous in number and engaged in specialized occupations, as well as political positions and titles. Their trading links were between the cities and with city- states. Indeed this long distance trade was probably more noticeable before the colonial period, since colonial institutions tended to supersede it. Still, most of the men were partly engaged in agriculture going out of the city to outlaying farms and staying in the forms during planning/harvesting seasons.

Takeo Yazaki concisely documents the long unbroken continuity of the Japanese urban tradition, as undoubtedly the most significant non- western urban tradition for the contemporary world, because it is the only one in which the problems of industrialization were successfully mastered while maintaining autonomy from the west. It is the only case to date of industrialization without Westernization. The Japanese urban tradition began rather suddenly in eighth century with adoption of the already ancient Chinese urban model. The intertwining urban political and economic evolution of Japan over a thousand years shows a certain parallels with the west in case of alteration of centralization and decentralization, of feudal and bureaucratic structure, but in case of the place of merchants, it shows a striking contrast. In this case, one startling aspect was the capacity to organize and maintain a level of individual and family mobility between town and country which was quite unheard anywhere in the world before industrial era. Eighteenth century travelers noted the Japanese cities and the traffic on highways as greater than anything they had seen in Europe. Despite the dramatic suddenness with which the transformation seemed to take place after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Robert J Smith notes that in many important respects Japan was prepared for this transformation long before.

William L Rowe, on the other hand cites example from India, despite its ancient and extensive urbanization, the contemporary cities derive from the colonial impact rather than from the indigenous urban traditions. The caste ecology of cities has largely remained despite high migration rate. Rowe recognizes the urban and rural aspects are simply parts of single system. The city enables the village to survive through migrant’s cash remittances. While citing example of Bombay, he says, the migrants suffer caste indignities and humiliation in the city which they hide from their rural kin generation after generation. They keep their two lives separate and retain their status as well as land rights in the village. On the other hand, many southern migrants to Bangalore are so destitute that retaining village ties is hardly worth and they move to cities permanently. His study reveals that caste association have provided a bridge between the solidarities and the institutions of the migrant’s home places and the cities to which they have gone in search of greater opportunities, just as ethnic associations have done in Africa or in the United States. Upto a certain point the caste associations continue to play the caste game, by struggling to better the relative status of their members within local systems of caste relations. But beyond that point they have begun to play a more purely political or economic game by acting as pressure groups and reservoirs of power and support which can maneuver to secure for their members political privileges or monopolistic control over certain sections of industry, outside and beyond mere caste considerations. At the same time many associations with quite secular names as in the name of labor organizations, remain nonetheless mainly channels for the expression of particular caste interest.

6. SOME STUDY-BASED GENERALIZATIONS:

• Edward M. Burner made an important general point that, where the institutions and controls of the state are shaken to their foundations and remain in doubt for considerable periods, as has been the case in postwar Indonesia, ethnic groups in the cities are forced to rely more heavily upon the adaptation of their own local and traditional institutions. This applies to a number of other countries like Zaire, and more horrifyingly, to the new nation of Indo-China.
• Willium A. Shack suggests historical parallels between the urbanization of Ethiopia and Japan, based on the dominance in both cases of an empirical, feudal and military structure. Indeed, Japan and Ethiopia are two parts of the very few countries which have successfully resisted colonial conquest, both suffering military defeat but being rather soon reinstated without loss of cultural continuity.
• J. Clyde Mitchell, after his study of Zambian Copper belt towns puts his findings that, the more distant the migrant’s rural home, the lower his urban involvement, as measured by the presence of his wife in town, the spending of more time in town than in country (especially of long unbroken periods in town), and the expectation of long continuous future residence there. Although the more distant migrants had spent less time in town, their wages and skill were somewhat higher on the average than those of nearer migrants.

7. CONCLUSION:

To sum up & conclude, the urban studies are more from Asia and Africa & even the empirical studies of interpersonal relations in non-western cities are extremely few and far between. The generalization therefore is purely understood to have not really a generalized one in absolute terms. At times, these understandings may not result in conclusive evidences drawn from sample surveys & macro-social studies, in the realms of understanding the scope of urban anthropology.

8. SUMMARY:

• In order to study man in a holistic way, the focus shifted from small, isolated & exotic society to modern & complex societies.
• Anthropologists realized that countrymen & peasants are transforming into city dwellers.
• Interplay of local, global & transnational flow of people, capital & commodities-is the main focus of the study.
• Cross-cultural analysis has been undertaken in countries like Japan, India, Nigeria, Ethiopia etc using ethnographic methods.
• Broad Generalizations have been formulated by the scholars based on their understanding from empirical findings.