Transcript Urban Anthropology and the Study of Cities

Urban Anthropology and the Study of Cities
without Europeans: Teotihuacan and Beyond
CHICAGO by Day
Urban anthropology
Is a branch of anthropology that focuses on cultural and social processes in urban areas. A relatively newsubfield that
emerged in the 1960s and 70s, urban anthropology is often concerned with issues of urbanization, poverty, and
neoliberalism. Ulf Hannerz quotes a 1960s remark that anthropologists were "a notoriously agoraphobic lot, anti-urban
by definition". Various social processes in the Western World as well as in the "Third World" (the latter being the
habitual focus of attention of anthropologists) brought the attention of "specialists in 'other cultures'" closer to their
homes. [1]
4 Subfields: Cultural, Linguistic, Archaeological and
Physical
• Anthropology (from Greek anthropo- = human
being + logy- = science of) is the scientific as
well as humanistic study of the origin,
behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural
development of humankind. Of course, many
other disciplines, in the humanities as well as
the social sciences, study aspects of human
endeavor.
Anthropology as a Way of Seeing
• Archaeology: The Past
• Cultural Anthropology: The Present
• Archaeological Excavations of Teotihuacan
allow the archaeologist to reconstruct past
behavior: without writing or living
desendents.
Birth of Modern Cities
London, England
Paris, France (Hotel de Ville)
What is a City?
• A city is a collective artifact, made of many
buildings and spaces designed by a variety of
architects, builders, craftsmen, and patrons. In
some cases, like Venice or Katmandu, cities
have such a wealth of architectural expression
that they strike one as total works of art (that
is in fact the exact expression Marcel
Duchamp used to describe Manhattan in
1913)
The Meaning of the City and Its Roots
Etymology of “City”
•
Almost every serious definition of the city
arrives at a point when it must be considered
as both a social and a physical phenomenon.
The ancient Roman terms for it give us the
two intersecting categories of Urbs and
Civitas: the first referring to morphology, the
second to the social institutions. Put in more
recent language, Kevin Lynch explains: "City
forms, their actual function, and the ideas
and values that people attach to them make
up a single phenomenon." The other
important ancient term,polis, although it
derived from the word for fortress came to
signify the administrative hierarchy, and
some form of political autonomy. One
important point that you will read about in
Kostof's definition of the city is that it is
never alone, but part of a series of cities in
which it fits according to hierarchical order.
Ancient Rome, Coliseum
Archaeology
• The reconstruction of
past societies and
culture through the
analysis of physical
remains.
• Archaeologists recreate
the life and culture of
the people living at a
certain place and time
in the past.
Archaeologists “Dig”
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Physical Remains:
1. Artifacts
2. Features
3. Eco-facts
4. Human Remains
All of these physical objects, structures, or
remains represent human behavior, values,
religion, diet, etc.
The Origins of Cities
o Geological changes at the onset of the Holocene epoch
(14,000 years ago).
o Human Settlements = Cultivation and Domestication of
local food resources
o Domestication = denser populations (the few can feed
the many)
o Happened independently around the world: Near East
(10,000 BC), Mesoamerica (7,000 BC), Africa (6,000
BC), China and India (6,000 BC), North America (2,000
BC)
o Dense populations in a given area caused the rise of
large scale societies. These societies began to form
“cities.”
The Rise of Cities (5,000 BC)
• The Formative Era - the coming together of
several cultural changes that facilitated the rise
of cities.
• 1. Agricultural Innovation
• 2. Diversification of Labor
• 3. Centralized Government
• 4. Social Stratification
• When there is the presence of these four
cultural innovations, there is a complex society.
When there is a complex society, there are cities
Teotihuacan
• 200 BC – 700 AD
• Located in the
Central Highlands of
Mexico
• Typical City?
– Agricultural
Innovation
– Centralized
Government
– Diverse Labor
– Social Stratification?
Avenue of the Dead
Sun Pyramid
Pyramid of the Moon
Ancient Mystery
Teotihuacan: a Non-Western Gem
The Mysterious People
An Original Cosmic City
•
Teotihuacan, commonly translated
from the Nahuatl as "City of the
Gods", is organized around this
central axis, now called the
"Avenue of the Dead". It is not
exactly a road, since it is blocked off
in many places to create courtyards
near monumental architecture. The
name stems from an early rumor
that this was where the
Teotihuacanos buried their kings.
While most scholars have discarded
this idea due to the lack of burials,
others note the possibility that
mummy bundles of ancestors once
lined the "Avenue of the Dead".
Without Archaeology we know
Nothing of Teotihuacan!
Western Ethnocentrism is
Wrong!
The Pyramid of the Sun
• Cities as “Repositories of Cvilization”
• Prot. Work Ethic vs. Holistic Religion
• Living together vs. Apart
• Who are we to deem non-Western peoples, cultures and
civilizations as “savage” or “backwards”.
• Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology
offer us two different portals or “Ways of
Seeing” present and past Societies.
• All of culture is integrated and
adaptive!!!!!
100,000 Strong
Archaeologists seek to re-construct
past behavior. One way of doing this
other than digging in the dirt is to
speak with indigenous people who still
live there.
This ethnographic approach often reenforces the “hard/scientific” data.
And boom, we can begin to
reconstruct history.
What interests us?
Subsistence and Economy
Kinship and Family
Art, Religion, Philosophy, Theory
Material Culture
Architecture
History, etc..
What Can Teotihuacan Teach us about or own Ideology, Culture and Society?
From Dirt, Garbage and Bones
we make conclusions:
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1) Religion: From art, burials,
petroglyphs and oral history we can
understand Beliefs
2) Politics/Economics: From artifacts,
ecofacts, features and junk we can
understand political-organization and
what people did for a living
3) Kinship/Individualism from
residence patterns we can interpret
the amount of egaliitarianism, etc.
Detroiters vs. Teotihuacanos
• Citizenship / No citizenship
• Individualism / Collectivity
• Specialization / jack of all
• Monotheism / Polytheism
• Nuclear / Extended
• Religion / Magic
• Stratification / Equality
• Hybrdid / Cosmic
• Hetero / Homo (population)
Other Places
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Meso-America
1. Chichen Itza*
2. Copan*
3. Coxcatlan*
4. La Venta*
5. Monte Alban*
6. Tenochtitlan
7. Palenque*
8. Teotihuacan*
9. Tula**
10. Uxmal*
11. Zapotec*
12. Cuello* - Maya in Belize
13. Coba* - Maya in Mexico
14. Kabah* - Maya in Mexico
15. Tikal* - Maya in N. Guatemala
16. Tulum* - Maya in Mexico
17. Cerros* - Maya in Belize
18. Dos Pilas* - Maya in Guatemala
19. Monte Alban - Zapotecs (Mexico
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Africa
1. Askum
2. Hadar
3. Makapan
4. Timbuktu
5. Bassar* -West African Iron Age
6. Daima* -West African Iron Age
7. Taforalt* - Maghreb
8. Tamar* - Maghreb
9. Esh Shaheinab* - Khartoum Neolithic
10. El Qoz* - Karthoum Neolithic
11. Kadada* - Khartoum Neolithic
12. Shaqadud* - Khartoum Neolithic
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Mansa Musa from the Ancient Kingdom of Timbuktu gave
away so much gold on his “hajj” to Mecca in the 12th century
that he depleted the value of gold world-wide by 1000% (see
Ali A. Mazrui, 2002)
The Dynamics and Methods of Fieldwork
in Cultural Anthropology
By Dr. Eric J. Montgomery Honors 1000 / 2008
Modes and Methods of Reseach
• Problem(s)
• Theory
ParticipantObservation
Interviews
Surveys
Archival
Research
• Ethics
• Methods
Montgomery: Intro to Cultural
Anthropology 07
Fieldwork really includes…
 All means of gathering data to work
with
 Traditionally means going to live with
the people under study
 Usually for extended periods of time
 Usually in their homes and communities
 Usually is completely emersive (24/7)
 Can produce serious forms of culture
shock…Fieldwork is a Way of Seeing!
Montgomery: Intro to Cultural
Anthropology 07
Culture…
Is THE KEY CONCEPT in anthropology and
is another way of seeing!
 Explains how individual expressions of
behavior are linked together
 Made up of our beliefs and assumptions
about how the world operates
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– Our actions express how we use these beliefs
and assumptions
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You CANNOT do anthropology without
understanding this concept
“Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has
created, I take culture to be those webs” - Clifford Geertz
Dr. Eric J. Montgomery: lectura de cultura
Culture Expressed continued…
 Everything
you do that is not
biologically based is a product of
culture
 Example: a sneeze is biological
– but saying something such as “Salud”
or “Bless You”, or even, “Damn bro, get
a kleenex” is cultural
- “Multi-culturalism” vs. “mono-culture”
– “Culture” as neo-liberal newspeak
Dr. Eric J. Montgomery: lectura de cultura
Culture Defined
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Culture has been, defined many ways
First by Edward B. Tylor in 1871
Tylor equated culture with civilization
(meaning 19th century English
civilization)
His definition emphasized physical
traits:
– architecture
– literature
– and other “academic” achievements
Dr. Eric J. Montgomery: lectura de cultura
Culture’s Characteristics
Focusing on core ideas of culture as a
concept.
 NOT discussing specific areas of behavior
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such as subsistence
economy
kinship
or the like
ARE discussing the ways in which we
envision the concept of culture to exist
and to operate
Dr. Eric J. Montgomery: lectura de cultura
Cultural Relativism
 Is
the idea we try to use to
overcome ethnocentrism.
 Cultural relativism is the process of
interpreting another society’s culture
in terms of its needs and history
– It is the attempt to understand why
people in that society do what they do
from their perspective
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Dr. Eric J. Montgomery: lectura de cultura
From Teotihuacan to Detroit:
Two Experiments in Living
Heidleberg/ Detroit
The Poorest of the Poor:
Homeless Shelter Detroit
2001
Figure 7 shows poverty for children in
Detroit. In 2000, 34.8% of the children
under 18 years old in Detroit were
poor. But there is an additional
classification, called "working poor."
This constitutes households that earn
an annual income that is between
101% and 150% of the official poverty
level. The official poverty level is so
artificially and criminally low, that
150% of the poverty level is still very
poor. EIR has long regarded 150% of
the poverty level as the true poverty
threshhold. What Figure 7 expresses is
that one out of two children in Detroit
suffers poverty, a truly stunning
development
How would Teotihuacanos deal
with Poverty, Homelessness,
Violence ?
What can we learn from them?
Pre-1963: Let the Good Times Roll
• Our Republic has lasted
only 200 years, these
people lasted a millenium?
Why did they die out?
• Will we die out?
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During the 1939-44 economic mobilization
for World War II, Detroit, already possessed
of sizeable industrial capacity, reconverted
that capacity with advanced technologies, to
produce planes, tanks, etc. Detroit grew into
the greatest manufacturing center in the
world. Population flooded into the city, living
standards rose. After Roosevelt's death,
following the conversion of auto production
capabilities back to civilian use, the upward
trajectory of Roosevelt's development
methods continued, even with some
problems, up through 1963.
We went through two revolutions, Teo 8!
What happens when Crack replaces real Jobs?
Discuss here Phillipe Bourgeous. This is a 1982 photo. “Selling Crack in
Spanich Harlem”.
Detroit: The City that Created
more middle class wealth
than any city on earth now
looks like this:
Random Detroit/ Palmer Park
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The scope of Detroit's erosion is staggering, though
the world ignores it.
In 1950, Detroit had a population of 1.850 million;
the Department of Commerce projects that its
population in March 2004 would be 914,000. Half its
population has fled the City.
There is an extraordinary deindustrialization. Factory
after factory of the City's famed auto, steel, machine
tool, and other heavy industrial facilities, have been
boarded up, or been sold for scrap. As an example:
During World War II, Ford's legendary River Rouge
plant complex employed between 90,000 and
100,000 workers. Today, it employs 6,000.
Since 1970, a staggering three-quarters of Detroit's
manufacturing jobs have been eliminated.
Infrastructure from hospitals, to schools to transit
has deteriorated, or been eliminated.
• Single Family? What would
Teotihuacanos do about
blight?
What can the Past Teach Us?
• In his book The Origins of the Urban Crisis,
historian Thomas Sugrue captures the flavor
of Detroit's organization: "Factories, shops,
and neighborhoods blurred together
indistinguishably, enmeshed in a relentless
grid of streets and a complex web of train
lines.... Rail lines formed the threads that tied
the city's industries together.“ There was no
publicity in Teotihuacan or was there?
'Photographs are as much an
interpretation of the world as
paintings and drawings are'
(Susan Sontag)
Industrial Ideology of
Late Capitalism
Vs.
Collective Ideology of
a Social Democracy
like Teotihuacan