Urban anthropology: what it is and what is studied in it

Urban anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies the sociocultural processes that occur within cities. It has arisen as a consequence of the needs that population growth and the expansion of cities have generated. For the same reason, it has positioned itself as a branch of study that will be essential to understand and analyze our social organization in the medium and long term.

In this article you will find What is urban anthropology and what does it study?, how its object of study arose and some of its applications.

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What is Urban Anthropology? Definition and influences

Urban anthropology is known as the set of investigations and studies that are carried out within urban spaces, through a fundamentally ethnographic methodology.

It is a relatively recent area of ​​study, which follows the line of the sociocultural tradition of anthropology. But not only that, but it has many influences from the more classical traditions of sociology, which focused on

study the institutions and social relations within the industrialization processes of the 19th century.

Among other things, these traditions were strongly based on an important distinction of ways of life: there are urban settlements, and there are rural (or non-urban) settlements; and the processes and social relations that are established in each one are also different.

The new conception of the city

All of the above led some sociologists to consider cities as a kind of social laboratories, as well as everyday and ordinary life (apparently devoid of meaning) as an activity that could reflect much of the social problems, and their possible solutions.

Thus, there was an important academic divide between sociology and sociocultural anthropology. Given this, there were anthropologists (especially from the North American tradition), who noted that the communities that traditionally studied by anthropology were part of a broader social configuration, where cities played an important role.

This was one of the first motivations for anthropologists to study social processes from the perspective of cities and anthropology. In the North American context, for example, studies related to rural-urban migration and migration have been very popular since the first half of the 19th century. the impact that urbanization processes have on people. All this quickly moved to other major European cities where anthropology was also developed.

Finally, interests in urban studies led to the organization of various academic publications, as well as multidisciplinary symposia on anthropology and ethnological sciences, societies of specialists in anthropology applied to the urban, specific professionalization in the area, etc.

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Object of study: what is urban?

In its early days, anthropology was dedicated to the study of tribal societies and non-industrialized communities (formerly called "primitive societies"). In contrast, what were called “complex societies” (which are basically Western industrialized societies), had remained spaces of little interest to anthropology.

As we have seen, it was through historical and geopolitical events (which among other things have extended the processes of urbanization and industrialization on a global scale), when anthropologists began to move toward the study of cities and the urban.

Especially this increased from the 1990s, between different discussions and opinions on whether urban spaces and industrialization processes could constitute itself as an object of study of its own, which also discussed the legitimacy of urban anthropology as a subdiscipline differentiated from social anthropology and anthropology. sociology.

In the meantime, various proposals have emerged. There are those who think that urban anthropology is the study that is carried out within urban areas, which brought a new need: to define the object of study of urban anthropology. In other words, to clarify what “the urban” is, as well as determine which can be considered urban areas and which cannot.

Initially, the "urban" was defined in terms of population density and in relation to population settlements where social interaction takes place. Others have defined it as the different attributes that cities have as a specific social institution; others as centers of technological and economic change, to mention just a few examples.

How does it apply?

Initially, sociological studies of the urban, which significantly influenced the development of urban anthropology, adopted methods based on historical evidence, interviews, and above all statistical and demographic material that would allow them to understand different social processes.

It was a quantitative methodology, which was soon rejected by different researchers who subscribed to the development. of more qualitative methodologies that would allow them to understand the meaning produced by the actors themselves within the city. Among other things, the ethnographic method emerged, which soon became one of the main tools of anthropology in all its branches.