Welcome to the ANTH 2350 class blog!
Some of the questions that drive this course, and that your contributions will engage with:
- What makes a city a city? How do we cast the city in our imagination? How might we rethink the connection between criminality and violence in the city?
- Which social processes are defined as urban, and why? What other processes happen under the rubric “urbanization”?
- What kinds of urbanisms (as opposed to ‘organisms’) exist in the different (social) spaces of the city? In what ways might cities encourage, support, enable or suppress resistance?
- Are political cities, colonial cities, world cities, slum cities, analytically sound categories that capture the dominant processes of a particular city? What are specific colonial legacies that post-colonial cities must contend with?
- Is urbanization a form of globalization?
- The blog is a site for interaction as well as critical reflection. Engage with your classmates. Respond to their ideas. Have your posts be a dialectic. You may post inspirational photographs, short videos, links to other websites, projects, research, respond to the day’s reading, film, or ask a discussion question. Every posting you make should have an explanatory paragraph that clearly explains the analytical links to the reading or idea you have been inspired by. For you to obtain credit, there must be analysis present. Please remember to include your name in your title or post.
3 comments:
Experiencing Sao Paulo begins about thirty miles outside the “city limits”, on the winding highways that snake through rolling hills and thick forests before eventually spilling into the swarming metropolis of seventeen million inhabitants [Homo sapiens]. A burnt, yellowish haze appears on the horizons as one approaches the city, smothering even the bluest of skies with a stale coating of dust and fumes. The city itself sprawls out oppressively across the landscape (one can hardly discern where Sao Paulo ends and the rest of the world begins) like a cancerous growth that can hardly contain its own voracious appetite. Towering skyscrapers and apartment buildings flare up into the clouds and the buzzing chatter of footsteps on cement echoes upwards, ringing against glass storefronts and dissolving into the murmur of whizzing buses and motorbikes. One can’t help but feel small in the depths of such vastness. The avenues resemble cavernous tunnels on the floor of a concrete jungle, the appendages of which rise up ominously in all directions, surrounding you in a cocoon of bustling human activity… indeed, one could easily begin to doubt the presence of other life forms save within the tiny cracks on the massive sidewalks. The suffocating noise and movement of Sao Paulo sweeps you away along with it, there’s no escaping it. One can encounter traffic jams at three o’clock on a Tuesday morning and the only likely peaceful release comes with your eyes closed and your head resting on a pillow (if one can ignore the everlasting buzz from streetlights, late night revelry, and the intermittent gunshots followed by screeching tires). Small houses hide cramped behind locked metal gates, accompanied by old, manual transmission Volkswagens and motorcycles whose exhaust pipes still bubble with heat from having just been powered down. There is a striking difference between the home- quiet, reserved, a sanctuary of privacy and the tranquility of your own thoughts- and the dynamic, forceful energy of the ‘outside world’. The click from the lock hanging on the front gate signals the transition between worlds that portends either stillness or hysteria.
Katie Gosselin
City Memory
Welcome to the city of New Haven; a place where dreams are not created but instead every glimpse of even the slightest trace of success or gratification is swallowed up by the wide expanses of poverty and despair. A cloud of gloom shadows the city and continues to grow as time passes for more buildings become withered and begin to crumble just as the people that inhabit them. Paint is chipping off almost every sign, cars are coated in rust and putter as they morbidly move, and the front porch stoop seems to be the favorite and most popular gathering spot.
Along the dilapidated sidewalks caked with shards of glass, the solemn vagabond gazes emptily at his feet, afraid to meet the eyes of any person passing, knowing the shame and embarrassment that constitutes his life will be revealed through one simple glance. While one man struggles to endure the curse of destitution, elitist scholars earn their education to make a difference in the world at the prestigious Yale University. The ironies arise when one realizes that although within the campus walls these young people are living a life where to them anything is possible and any dream can be accomplished; those people outside these walls face struggles everyday and only dream of one day being able to free themselves of the poverty stricken plagues of the city by escaping and achieving happiness, a dream that to them is almost entirely impossible.
While during the day the city may seem oppressive; women merely the age of fifteen already pushing a stroller over the uneven sidewalks, the barren, desolate looks of the people that crowd the streets and store doorways; at night the streets become vacant. Dark, ominous shadows linger in the alleyways as the sound of frequent gunshots interlock with angry shrieks and swears and the cries of misery and hopelessness. To any outsider, no matter the time of day upon entering this somber place, one can immediately sense the depressed vibes that are projected from the city itself.
Moe Moe Kyaw Oo Khin
Singapore is a nation overwhelmed with the features of multiculturalism and ethnic diversities. The city is recognized as the international transportation hub of Asia and the host of multi sea and air trade routes. Compare to the rest of the developing world of South East Asia, Singapore is a nation with the features of the developed world, such as skyscrapers and casinos. Walking down the lanes of the city, tourists experience the city as the fusion of western and eastern cultures. For instance, people spend time by dining in a fancy restaurants; drink champagne and have steak or dive oneself in the malls of the luxury goods that are located on the Orchard road. One the other hand, the Mustafa or the Little India is packed with Hindis and Muslims bargaining of goods, assembling together to attend mosques and in addition, cross-cultural patronage is seen in the neighborhood of Little India. Native Chinese go to Little India to buy spices for cooking and get a retail on consumer goods such as cell phones and electronic devices. Moreover, walking down the streets of the Chinatown, one steps on the ground of the traditional Chinese temple, food vendors and fortunetelling stalls. One can also hop on the trishaws and get a closer glimpse of the Chinatown. As it gets to the end of the day, one could enjoy the night life of Singapore by walking down the Clark Quay, a place buzzing with life and activities. Restaurants, wine bars, entertainment spots and retail shops enhance the vibrant beauty of the Clark Quay. Clark Quay is the home to the delights of Chinese, Italian, Mediterranean and local cuisines. Overall, Singapore is the spotlight of Asia, where vibrant activities, ethnic diversities and multiculturalism are portrayed.
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