Urban Anthropology

Urban Anthropology explores the complexities of urban life and the cultural dynamics within cities, offering insights into human behavior in densely populated settings. This field is essential for understanding and addressing the social, economic, and environmental challenges faced by contemporary urban populations.

Urban Anthropology

1 Foundation of Urban Anthropology

  1. Historical Perspective: Meaning, Aim, Scope and Expanding Horizons of Urban Anthropology
  2. Historical Antecedents I: Complex Societies and the Chicago School
  3. Historical Antecedents II: Manchester School
  4. Urban Anthropology in the 1960s and 1970s
  5. The Spatial Turn
  6. Expanding Horizons
  7. Influence of other Social Sciences on Urban Anthropology
  8. Basic Concepts of Urban Anthropology
  9. Cities: From Preindustrial to Industrial

2 Theoretical Perspectives

  1. The Chicago School
  2. The Manchester School
  3. Social Network Analysis
  4. Extended Case Method
  5. Concept of Scale in Urban Anthropological Studies
  6. Emerging Approaches to the Study of Cities

3 Folk Urban Continuum

  1. Continuities between Rural and Urban
  2. Folk Urban Continuum: Robert Redfield and McKim Marriot
  3. Semi-Urban and Peri-Urban
  4. Towns and Two-Tier Cities

4 Urban Processes

  1. Urbanisation
  2. Types of Urbanisation- Primary and Secondary
  3. Urbanism
  4. Urban Structures
  5. Urban Challenges and Problems
  6. Urban Ecology

5 Diversity and Differences in Urban Spaces

  1. Urban Spaces: Diversity and Differences
  2. Neighbourhoods
  3. Ethnicities, Inequalities, Resources, and Entitlements
  4. Institutions, Bureaucracy and Governance in Cities
  5. Creation and Presentation of Indian Cities
  6. Rise of Neoliberal Urbanism in India

6 Movement from rural to Urban

  1. Migration and its Effects in Urban Spaces
  2. Migration and Adaptation
  3. Acculturation and Acceptance
  4. Role of Networks and Kinship in Migrations
  5. Issues of Identity, Marginalisation, Citizenship and Legality

7 Family, Marriage and Kinship

  1. Significance of Kinship in Urban Context
  2. Social Networks as Kinship Networks in Urban Context
  3. Family in the Urban Context
  4. City Life and the Transforming Family
  5. Urbanisation and Marriage

8 Caste and Class

  1. Caste in Cities
  2. Caste and the Urban Labour Market
  3. Urban Space and Political Assertion by Caste Groups
  4. The Concept of Class and Urban Ethnographies
  5. Urban Class as Lifestyle Groups
  6. Anthropology and the Urban Middle-Class

9 Religion, Faith and Tolerance

  1. Religion and Conception of Rural and Urban in Anthropology
  2. Religion and Colonial Cities
  3. Road-Side Temples and Shrines in Urban Areas
  4. Religion as Marker of Urban Space: Fear, Conflict and Violence
  5. Religion in Urban Space: A Battle Ground for Secularisation and New Religious Movements
  6. Urban Aspirations, Globalisation and Religious Fundamentalism

10 Multi-Ethnicity and Multiculturalism

  1. Multi-ethnicity and Multiculturalism in Urban/Global Cities
  2. Public Space and Urban Social Life
  3. Urban Mobility Patterns and Social Identity of the City
  4. Negotiating the Multi-ethnic or Multicultural Identity within a City

11 Contemporary Urban Concerns

  1. Crisscrossing of Anthropology and Sociology
  2. Anthropological Reflections on the Concept of ‘Urban’
  3. Increasing Interest in Urban Research

12 World Cities and the Production of Space

  1. Beginnings of Studies in Urban Spaces and Globalisation
  2. World Cities and Spaces – History, Definition, Characteristics, and Types
  3. World Cities and Spaces in Global South & the World
  4. Impact of Capitalist Globalisation on Urban Spaces
  5. Global Integration and Territorial Re-differentiation of Urban Spaces
  6. Geographical Scale and Social Production

13 Urban Ethnography

  1. Research in Urban Anthropology
  2. Fieldwork in the Cities
  3. Research Methodologies in Urban Anthropology
  4. Ethical Concerns in Urban Anthropological Research