Urban Life: Readings in the Anthropology of the City, Sixth Edition

George Gmelch · Petra Kuppinger

Jan. 2018 · Waveland Press

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More than half of the world’s population lives in cities. What are their lives like in very different global and globalizing cities? How can urban anthropologists study and understand the diverse and complex experiences of urban dwellers all over the globe?

The latest edition of Urban Life explores questions about how to study urban lives and examines experiences of urban inhabitants in cities across the globe. Authors ask questions such as, how can one study the activities in a huge fish market in Tokyo? How do elderly residents benefit from urban agriculture in New York City? How do people maneuver ever-present traffic jams in Istanbul? How do low-income residents in Cairo manage their lives drawing on neighborhood social networks? How do immigrants fight for green spaces in Paris? How do families manage transnational ties between New York City and Ecuador?

The book is organized into six parts: Urban Fieldwork; Communities; Urban Structure, Inequality, and Survival; Immigrants, Migrants, and Refugees; Changing Cities; and Current Topics in Urban Anthropology. The last part addresses issues at the forefront of anthropological research and broader political debates, like environmental justice, disability and accessibility, and access to water supplies. Each part includes an introduction and each chapter is preceded by notes about its context and relevance. The rich ethnographic content of the chapters makes them highly accessible to students while addressing relevant topics and themes.