I really enjoyed the reading “Outward Appearances”. I was initially fascinated by the opening bit about clothing as a second skin, however, it appeared as though that had been cut off. I am assuming that that page containing the information on the importance of dress was there only because it contained the ending of the preface. I would have loved to read the rest of that piece, but I wanted to comment on the little I got for the first page. I work for Bebe, a clothing company, that started in California and has a very Americanized, and shall we say, “party” tone to the majority of its merchandise. I started working there in October and in that short period of time, I have been fascinated by the broad range of people who patronize this store. Women wearing hijabs, who would probably be prevented from wearing many of our pieces alone due to their faith, frequently wander through. People who appear to fit the profile of someone living outside a gated community(lower economic class), spend a fair amount of money(our prices are not exuberant but definitely not cheap) on a single item, just so they can have a logo. I think what I have really found astounding is the desire for people who can barely speak English, to dress in the style of this very Americanized fashion. The latter also sometimes appears to part of a lower economic class, or has such a language barrier that I question sometimes if they know how much they are spending. While Boston could probably be categorized as a “global city” or at least on that attracts a fair amount of international inhabitants and visitors, there is still this social push to look American, which is accomplished through clothing. There is not the desire to represent an individual culture. When Leeuwen was talking about the dressing style of Zoraya, it was clear that there was a strong American influence, or a more liberalized character to her attire. This reminded me very clearly of my foreign costumers spending money to look the American part, or in hopes of appearing more advantaged financially then they are ( possibly to avoid the sting of class exclusion, although this was not the case for Zoraya). This brought me back to considering the concept that “global cites” are becoming less distinct, and if that fact is now apparent through fashion. Two weeks ago in my comparative politics class, we watched a video comparing India and China, or more specifically Delhi and Beijing. Beijing, much more “global” than Delhi, resembled and could have been mistaken for any major Western city, while Delhi had a very potent India flavor to it. The attire was definitely part of the visual effect that characterized Dehli, and made China indistinguishable. In conclusion, it would be great if the rest of that piece was made available for interest’s sake.
samantha levy--op ed in the new york times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/opinion/the-death-of-the-fringe-suburb.html?_r=1&src=tp&smid=fb-share
samantha levy
While I was away this semester, my parents moved from a suburb of Chicago into the city itself, just two block east of Michigan ave surrounded by the old Water Tower and the Hancock building. Thanksgiving break was my first trip home since the move and going from casual commuter to urban dweller was much more poignant than I imagined. After living in Boston for 3 years and Paris for 6 months, it wasn't the day to day routine I had to adjust to, but rather the reconceptualization of a place I felt like I was experiencing for the first time. One of the things that always made home feel more like home was the ease with which I could accomplish even the most banal task--because I had lived all 21 years of my life in the same house, I knew my neighborhood backwards and forwards. Although even the most basic task now requires the use of google maps, I realized that I was given a unique opportunity. I have the privilege of making new spaces out of places, of creating my own roadmap for a city that until the move I had let lead me along blindly, following its turns without really knowing where I was going. I'm grateful that my great migration and this class coincide with each other, for I am much more conscious of my surroundings after this semester.
Our discussion on Monday about gated communities got me thinking about my own situation as well. Though I did not live in a gated community, or come from an area with gated communities, my town was safe, and everyone knew it. Growing up I didn't have a curfew, and was only offered the occasional warning about being careful in the garage when I came home at night. The first conversation I had with my mother, however, when I returned for break last week was a lengthy tutorial on the many safety features of our apartment, the building, and the block. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe all the extra precaution was a knee-jerk reaction to our surroundings, that moving to the city meant new possibilities of danger. This got me thinking about gated communities, and how the motivation behind the gate is extremely telling--what does the gate do to the rest of the community? One of the main differences between the gated communities in Florida and the one in Jaffa is numbers. In Florida, the gated community seems to be a practical solution to urban planning, whereas in Jaffa the gate acts as an invitation for investment, and in so doing becomes a means of exclusion.
After reading Goldstein’s article, I feel that poverty is really high among the colored people. Moreover, it is really hard for the colored people to climb up the social mobility ladder because the society would not allow such people with opportunities and benefits. In addition, the society does not favor the colored people even if they work in honest professions. It is really hard to believe that those people who work in honest professions do not receive decent wages because of their appearance such as the color of their skin and their identity. Similarly, it is very interesting to find out that whiteness plays a significant role in Third World countries such as Brazil. In my opinion, whiteness superiority in Latin America is result of the colonial rule. I think that when a society is construed on the ideas of race and identity, it is the minority that will always get suppressed and discriminated.
Moe Moe
Networking Futures
As I'm sure many of you already know, Jeff Juris is a (beloved) professor here at Northeastern. In a class a few of us are taking with him (Global Markets and Local Culture), we have been assigned to read certain excerpts of his book, Networking Futures. This ethnography follows different political movements around the world, mostly against globalization and neoliberal ideals. Acting as a participant-observer in many influential protests across the globe, Professor Juris details these movements and the impact that space has on such protests. If you haven't read it I highly suggest it, but here I will copy a paragraph in order to give an idea of what I'm talking about.
"As Foucault famously argued, surveillance and control are achieved by regulating bodies in space through the use of disciplinary technologies. Building on this insight, Allen Feldman further explains that power 'is contigent on the command of space and the command of those entities that move within politically marked spaces. The body becomes a spatial unit of power, and the distribution of these units in space constructs sites of domination' (1991, 8). Indeed, direct action involves myriad micro-level spatial battles between protesters and police. Specific tacics thus attempt to occupy space, creating forums for political and cultural expression, while the police employ their own bodily and spatial techniques to control, enclose, or disperse protesters (cf. Jansen 2001, 39). By using measured spatial, bodily, and psychological tactics during the RTS [Reclaim The Streets] action, riot cops projected power, reestablishing control of space and preventing liminoid outbursts, In this sense, violence might be aboided, but at the cost of invisibility."
(Juris 2008:149)
In his descriptions of the protests, Professor Juris goes very in depth into the meaning of the urban space in which the protests are taking place. As I read I couldn't help but think of our discussions of what space means and how it can be manipulated, so I thought I would share these thoughts on the blog. It's extremely interesting to see how space has been used in the past movements he discusses in comparison with the Occupy movement of today.
-- Jillian
Small world?
Last week I traveled to Philadelphia for my first American Thanksgiving, and had a few adventures in New York along the way.
I was supposed to arrive in downtown New York at 9:00pm, the get a cab across to a different station for a 9:40 bus. Of course my first bus was 2 and a half hours late, so I was stuck in Manhattan at 11:30 at night... (there is eventually a point to all this)
A high school friend of my Canadian roommate (a fellow rower) is at Columbia, so I followed his directions to get across town to him (on a cellphone that had been flashing "low battery" for about an hour. The charger, naturally, was still in my room on campus.) Once at Columbia, I went out with Sam (my roommate's friend) and met a bunch of Aussies on Columbia's crew team. While it wasn't like running into a group of Kiwis, it was still good to wind them up about the Rugby World Cup earlier this year (New Zealand won), and hear a non-rhotic r and "mate" splattered liberally throughout every sentence. Then it turned out one of the guys knew an old coach of mine (the coach had spent some time at the University of Melbourne.) And then it came up the some of the Aussies were from Yale, and were paying the Columbia Aussies a visit. So of course the Yale boys knew Harry, a guy on their team from my club back home, and then of course one of them had recently hosted my good mate on his official recruit visit to Yale. It's a small world eh?
It was a succession of fascinating links, and, stuck in the massive, intimidating New York, I began to wonder how big my world really is. Does digital communication media allow us to patch together a kind of community that can fill what the urban lacks? It felt like I had wandered from home, but only into a suburb that looked just like my own home.
How easy do you think it would be, if you showed up in a foreign city, to find people quite like yourself, who know some of the same people? A few texts to the friend of a friend? How do you think a mobile, or facebook, changes the effects of urban alienation? Are you creating a different sort of cyber city-space among your connections?
Riordan
Graffiti Manners
I wish I had more photos of this process's evolution. You see, an individual or a group has taken to writing the word "love" in different ways, in different places, all over Mission Hill. Given the fading on some of the sites I suspect different people have picked up the can to continue the tradition and that it is not just one person, but I do not know for sure. While the idea of an unspoken trend of picking the graffiti "love" torch could serve as a blog subject a second occurrence caught my attention. It seems that none of the "loves" have been touched, that it, painted or written over by other artists except one. Why? Here's my theory, the only "love" to be written over was in a spot when it was placed over another writers piece. This has resulted in graffiti over graffiti over graffiti over graffiti. There was an original piece of graffiti, a long loosely rendered cartoon-esque face. This was sprayed over by a heart. The heart was then sprayed over by a 666 and what was to me an indecipherable symbol. This was then covered over by more paint to fill in the heart. None of the other "loves" in the neighborhood have been touched. This leads me to believe that the "beef" wasn't with the love but with the fact that whoever wrote it decided to place it over another piece.
- Alexis Brinkman
Urban Anthropology in the Media: Hidden City
While visiting friends over Thanksgiving Break, I managed to catch a peak of a new show that is coming to the Travel Channel called "Hidden City." This show follows acclaimed novelist Marcus Sakey as he attempts to navigate some of America's most prolific cities. While I admit that this may not be the freshest concept for a television show, I found it fascinating the way it was framed in a context that is similar to the way that we have described cities. All of the promo shots featured Sakey walking through the streets of a city. Sakey does his research for his stories by exploring the subcultures of a city, such as the historic gangster culture in Chicago. The last line of the commercial even says, "Cities are made of stories. And the best stories are usually about the worst people." The series premiers on Travel Channel on Tuesday December 6th at 10pm. The first city that Sakey is going to tackle is Chicago, but based on the information on the show's website (see below), it looks like he is going to try to uncover Boston as well later in the season.
http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/hidden-city
- Erin
"Eyes" Street Art
Hana
Oak Grove Village
Here is the website for the "apartment community" in Oak Grove that I was talking about in class. If you're ever near the Oak Grove T stop, I'd encourage you to go check it out....and contemplate it as a local manifestation of the fragmentation of the urban of course.
http://www.oakgrovevillage.com/index.php
- Rebecca Willett
I saw this picture recently, and I thought it was a very strong and polarized representation of gated communities, but with a slightly different twist than we've been talking about. Much of our discussion has centered around "tiered" communities where populations are very separated, but are all recognized as "being from" that geographic area.
These photos were taken in the Dominican Republic, one in a fancy resort neighborhood and the other in a small, poor village not far away. We all know about the division and inequality represented by expensive resorts and upscale tourism in developing countries, but in the context of our discussions today, it is interesting that the resort community is populated and supported typically by foreigners. Although they don't live permanently here, and different ones cycle through by the week, foreigners are the reason these communities exist, and are the basis for the social and economic exclusion that defines and regulates these areas. Even though they are only there for a week or so, the foreigners have a right to a very desirable part of this land, to which the local people, who live there and have lived there their whole lives, are not afforded access.
-Rebecca Willett
For another anthropology class, I recently read an ethnography called "Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network", about a group of undocumented, male, Mexican busboys working in an Italian restaurant in Chicago. The author, Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz, looks at various themes, including the ways that they form community and support each other, and their relationships with the US and their home countries.
At the end of the book, she counters a few popular anti-immigration arguments, including the argument that people who are not citizens or residents should not receive public services. She says "But what makes citizenship status an accurate reflection of a person's worth? Most of us reject the idea that characteristics such as race, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, ethnicity, or even age are legitimate bases for excluding people from necessary resources." In other words, citizenship has become just another arbitrary classifier of people, that, unlike race or religious affiliation, is somehow accepted as a legitimate determinant of personal worth.
I've been thinking about this in the context of our readings and discussion in class, and how we interpret, give meaning to, and promote borders and gates, whether physical or perceived. Gomberg-Muñoz, in this context, might argue that borders--or gates, in the smaller microcosm of a gated community--go farther than describing where someone is from or belongs, but how they should interact with (and deserve to be interacted with by) the rest of the world. How do borders and gates change the way we would interact with someone, solely based on our respective locations? To what degree is citizenship, or other forms of recognized inclusion, a determinant of a person's individual worth?
- Rebecca Willett
A great article
After our discussion today I wanted to look at how much crime actually occurred in gated communities, and more specifically the instances of drug abuse with youth. However, I ended up stumbling upon this article from USA today that talked about “gated communities” in the lower class. I thought the article did a great job of outlining the class separation that occurs through these developments. It is especially potent when the lower class is separating into “gated communities,” excluding some of their own class. It also talks about the practical reasons people have for moving into a gated community. Aside from the safety aspect, there was this explanation: "It's a sense of community, which is like American pie. It has a lot to do with nostalgia, the '50s suburbs, the image of the small town." This distinctly reminded me of the short advertisement film “In The Suburbs” that we watched, and while it was not touched on in class, solidified the relevance of the film to the topic of gated communities.
here is the article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-12-15-gated-usat_x.htm-Helen
gentrification
My dad, in his spare time, loves sending me editorial cartoons that he thinks I'll find either funny or accurate. He sent me this cartoon a while back and I thought it has some significance to the ideas brought up in the reading we did this past weekend. The controversies that lie behind gentrification projects bring up the idea of racial re-segregation and socioeconomic exclusion. This cartoon, while obviously oversimplified, does a good job of both making light of a very disturbing trend as well as point out some serious flaws within the logic of urban housing.
People create boundaries long before there is the construction of a wall. I don't believe it's a chicken/egg conundrum. I'm not struggling to see which came first. Monterescu's article detailing the construction of Andromeda Hill in Jaffa got me thinking about the meaning behind conflict and the meaning behind walls.
Multiculturalism is coveted in theory. It's trendy, it's new, it's politically correct. Yet, with all this in mind creating the idea of a multicultural environment is more a goal than actually having one exist. The hill is more of a product than a neighborhood, falsely advertised as the epitome of Israeli/Palestinian fusion. In past classes whenever an article spoke of Israeli/Palestinian fusion is usually meant a discussion of walls was well underway. My goal is not to delve into the Arab-Israeli conflict but having a discussion about Jaffa is almost impossible without mentioning the obvious. Two claims to one land. It's happened in history countless times before and usually the victor physically overpowers the loser creating minority and diaspora in the wake of their triumph. But here the battle isn't over, the tensions have not been resolved, the conflict persists in an urban area, in a setting where many people actively live their lives. More interestingly, we can focus on the walls people construct as a physical manifestation of the boundary that has already been created.
History's Walls: a sampling of walls from around the world aimed at keeping people in, but mostly out. (Not arranged in any particular order.)
The U.S./Mexico Border: The American solution to illegal immigration and smuggling.
All of these walls were the vision of a separation desired and attempted before their tangible presence ever touched the landscape. If I put it too simply they all aim to keep the "good" ones in keep the "bad" ones out. So in this way the gated community serves as a micro-version of what has been going on in places all over the world for a very long time. However, the scale of the gated community is key because it allows you to zoom in on the separation in a consolidated and in this case urban area. While interactions between Mexico and the U.S. at the border go largely un-talked about an urban border incites the same immediate emotions that urban violence creates. The location removes a boundaries from its typical sense, created by state and honored by brick. Instead in an urban setting you see a wall for what it truly is, a physical statement of a previously established sense of who's in and who's out. There is something about the presence of a wall that makes boundaries seem unnatural in a world where boundaries are the norm.
The next series of photos I've selected are the art of the separation walls which are not uncommon to Israel/Palestine. Neighborhoods are often sectored off and removed by tall features. Yet that is not to say people are content or that these walls are "working". In a class last semester we discussed the political motivations of a separation wall yet Urban Anthropology has brought my attention to how individuals confront political installments. So, to inject this blog with some hope, some texture, I've chosen to go back to graffiti and street art to look at the situation from an angle closer to ground level.
-Alexis Brinkman
State of Anonymity
While watching the Ravens game with my family on Thanksgiving, I saw a creative State Farm commercial that I felt really relates to what we've talked about with urban isolation. The commercials bears the title "State of Anonymity," and shows a plethora of different troubles different urbanites face in their lives in the city. What caught my attention was the exploration of the differences between this "anonymity" and the "personal service" of the company advertised. I'm posting a link to the video so you can see what I'm talking about. Also note the use of the Cheers theme song. This song is directly related (listen to the lyrics as you watch) and subtly related, as it represents Cheers, a small, home-y haven in the middle of a big city. A place "where everybody knows your name." A place where you are no longer anonymous, no longer isolated, but home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epmehHteODU
-- Jillian
TED Talk- Stewart Brand on Squatter Cities
In this TED talk Stewart Brand talks about the increasing move of the world’s population to urban areas. Most of these areas are slums. But, he argues, despite the label of a slum these places are good things. They are filled with people trying to get out of rural poverty. They act as population sinks (the birthrate drops to a replacement rate as soon as people move into urban areas and then continues to drop as cities become more established). He also argues that these slum cities are creating wealth (1/6 of India’s GDP comes from Mumbai).
I think that this is an interesting perspective. It certainly helps to assuage some people’s worries about the world ending after being covered by teaming slums filled with poverty and pollution. However, I think that it is a pretty impersonal viewpoint. These people may be climbing out of poverty but they are doing so by having to live in unsanitary conditions and by working in situations where they are being exploited or excluded totally from the formal economy. Also, although the population growth rate may be dropping in these urban slums this is partially because so many children die of disease or violence. Even if these children do live there is a high probability that they will never have access to adequate amounts of clean water, formal education, or opportunities for upward mobility. I wouldn’t necessarily say that slums are a good thing.
-Hannah Andrew
Extreme Sidewalk Chalk
I came across this on stumbleupon. Even though we already finished the graffiti unit I thought this was really interesting and fun to look at. Could this be the new graffiti and the up and coming latest trend in street art?
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/5to66A/www.nickcannon.com/post/insane-sidewalk-chalk-art
-Katie
samantha levy
Our discussion last week on Appadurai's reading reminded me of a major redevelopment project in Chicago--the refurbishment and rebuilding of Cabrini-Green. The attached article from 2009 has an obvious pro-redevelopment bias, but I thought it was interesting to see how one city took control of its slums and the "solution" that they came up with.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/11/60II/main532704.shtml
I was talking with one of my friends the other day and we discussed about some rap music. We were talking about the influence of rap music and we came to agree that in fact, those music are really violent and aggressive. Usually those music portray violence at home, abusive treatments, social problems and etc… But the amazing thing is that almost all of the rappers are black and they often talk about how they feel about the society and community. Also, the music is consumed by a large population of white adults and teenage. We were wandering why those rapper make billions of dollars on something that is aggressive and hostile? Moreover, it is unbelievable that people are really attracted to those music. I was thinking is that the culture thing? I realized that in certain aspects of the American society, there are some racial discriminations and prejudice. But when it comes to rap music, I don’t really get it.
Moe Moe
Blinking City-Hana Nobel
I found this on a blog that I follow. "Blinking City" is a chalk pastel piece that is a collage of various Hutong neighborhoods in Beijing, China. It is stenciled onto a wall of a home's courtyard. The colors showcase the changing events of the city. Each color has a meaning as shown on the project's website: http://www.instanthutong.com/blinkingcity_stencil.htm. I'm a bit confused by their meaning, but maybe it will be more clear to the rest of you.
The point of the piece is to showcase "the inadequacy of traditional maps for city environments characterized by fast pace transformation and urban growth. As soon as the map is done, the city it describes has already gone."
How then, can one continue to map a city as they grow and change so quickly? How quickly is an anthropological study outdated with these rapid changes? It makes me wonder if Stoller's research is still valid, or if his subjects have taken on a different way of doing business and a different way of living since he did his study.
An image of the piece is below:
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Tokyo Green Space
Tokyo green space is a website run by a design anthropologist living in Tokyo. The website is devoted to pictures and writing to do with nature and public space in Tokyo. Tokyo Green Space focuses on how resident's of the world's largest city make the most of a poorly planned and dense city by gardening in the smallest of places. There is a growing awareness that making maximum use of public space in cities has tremendous human and environmental benefits. On the website are examples of misused or wasted public space as well as examples and testimonials to the environmental, economical, and education benefits of trading unused concrete for soil and plants. I thought this was an interesting find because it urges a new use of urban space, claiming that this will allow people to become more connected to the naturalness to their surroundings.
-Hannah Andrew
I find that Bollywood has become the talk among people because of it’s success in both India and oversee markets. Bollywood films are heavily consumed by Indians because the film industry produces an estimate of 600 films every year. Indians find that Bollywood has become their daily routine or so because they feel that films portray India’s society and culture. In addition, jolly songs and dance creates audience to experience one’s extreme feeling. Moreover, most of the films are based on cultural roots such as religion. For instance, Bollywood produces mythological films which portray the adventures of Hindu gods and goddesses. Also, Bollywood film producers target foreigners as the audience because they know that their films will catch foreigners’ attention. The reason is that Bollywood concentrates a lot on Indian culture and the film industry tries to restrict Western influence such as Hollywood. For example, Bollywood dislikes Hollywood’s science fiction films because it contradicts Indian’s culture. Overall, Bollywood success comes from it’s determination to retain Indian’s culture and society norms.
Moe Moe
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