ethnography of the city
Cities exist for many reasons and the diversity of urban form and function can be traced to the complex roles that cities perform. Cities serve as centers of storage, commerce, and industry. The agricultural surplus from the surrounding country hinterland is processed and distributed within the city. Urban areas have also developed around marketplaces, where imported goods from distant places could be exchanged for the local products. Throughout history, cities have been founded at the intersections of transportation routes, or at points where market goods must shift from one mode of transportation to another such as river or ocean ports as well as railways. Cities are also sites of enormous religious and cultural significance not to mention being the center of administrative action. (Johnson, Earle)Cities have always existed in the mind as well as in physical structure. For many poor and disenfranchised a particular city can be assumed to be a utopia of possibility in which there will be economic wealth, job security, political refuge, and religious sanctity. Thomas More's Utopia envisioned a city in which no one was exploited or impoverished, because all work
1984. "Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties." In Society for Comparative Study of Society and History. This is also an example of the anthropologist's complicity as described by the tenets of functionalism advocated by Malinowski and practiced by Bourgois. Functionalism institutes a policy of complete noninterference with even the most objectionable elements of a society's practices (such as headhunting in the Trobriand Islands or institutionalized rape in El Barrio). Such a doctrine believes that all aspects of a society (institutions, interpersonal roles, norms, etc.) serve a distinct purpose indispensable for the long-term survival of a particular society. Such principles are based on the identification of inter-relatedness of the components within the society, which are so interpenetrating that a variation in single element could produce a disturbance within the whole. Within the last thirty years, however, much leeway has been made in the areas of examining emotions and their place in the study of anthropological subjects. According to Bourgois, "Substance abuse in the inner city is merely a symptom--and a vivid symbol--of deeper dynamics of social marginalization and alienation. Of course, on an immediately visible personal level, addiction and substance abuse are among the most immediate, brutal facts shaping daily life on the street." (17)
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2675
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)
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