HW: 12/1/11: Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park

Orchard Beach is a very diverse area. It is well utilized, and is thriving and full of life. The ethnic groups that largely populate the area are Latino's and Caribbeans. There is a lot of cultural segregation. People like to make this beach their own. Many of the visitors that visit the park are Latino, seniors, and naturalists.

The Public Space Research Group conducted surveys of Pelham Bay Park between July 1996-June 1998. The studies focused on describing the demographics of the visitors and collecting user evaluations of the park, participant evaluation, behavioral mapping, key informant interviews, and face-to-face interviews.

Parks are socially constructed and have complex histories. Descriptions of cultural groups and their symbolic expressions and cultural pride add depth to the social life of the park. It is a "home" to the Latino's and seniors that may feel marginalized.

HW November 24th - Jacob Riis Park

Jacob Riis Park is a beach with a boardwalk, playground, and concessions. The park lacks funds to keep it kept up well. That was and is a concern for people who use the park.

The research they did was finding out who used the park and the concerns they had about it. The REAP ethnographic assessments they used were individual interviews, expert interviews, transect walks, and behavioral maps.

There are a few different bays in Jacob Riis Park. Bay 1is a nude beach where a lot of gays go. It seems like a dirty beach that doesn't have bathrooms or concessions. Bay 5 and 6 has bathrooms, concession, showers, and the famous clock. There is access to the parking lots, play ground, ball courts and a barbecue area. Bay 14 has no facilities and acts as a cul-de-sac for boardwalk activity. Many young people come to drink beer and hang out.

The back beach area is where the park and playground are. Families come to picnic here. Many different ethnic groups use this park. The park offers diverse territories for the groups that they can claim. The park itself serves recent immigrants and poor to middle class residents of Brooklyn and Queens.

HW November 17th- Chapter 4, "The Ellis Island Bridge Proposal"

This chapter is about whether the National Park Service should build a bridge from Ellis Island to Liberty State Park in New Jersey. In 1994, the Public Space Research Group interview the public to see what they thought about the bridge proposal. They had 15 constituency groups in Battery Park that they used. Twelve of the groups were work/park related. In Liberty Park, they used twelve constituency groups and of those twelve, five were work/park related. They also spoke to focus groups, did spontaneous interviews, expert interviews, physical trace maps, and behavioral mapping. While doing the spontaneous interviews, they used Spanish, English, and Russian languages.

The most important observation they found out from interviewing people in Liberty Park, Battery Park, and the area surrounding Liberty Park was that the people were extremely interested in the issue and were very understanding of the problems and consequences of the issue regardless of ethic background. Some of the issues with building the bridge that were brought up were cost, access, park quality, aesthetics, safety and comfort, health and recreation, ect. There was a wide range of answers they got from people either for or against the bridge.

HW November 10th, 2011

Chapter 3, "Prospect Park: Diversity at Risk"


Prospect Park, a pastoral landscape 526 acre park, is located in northern Brooklyn. It is extremely culturally diverse with whites, blacks, hispanics, and many other ethic groups visiting on a regular basis. It was built between 1867 and 1873 by the Protestant ministers of the fast and growing Brooklyn during that time.

The park is a large site for cultural expression including music. There is an officially sponsored diverse pop music concert program. On Sundays, there is a drumming phenomenon that takes place on the east side of the park. Most of the drumming rhythms reflect African rhythms - Nigerian, Haitian, and some of Afro-Brazillian variety.

The data in this chapter reflects the values of users in the park and the activities they do. It also break it down by race to see who comes to the park to do what activity. Many of the Blacks and Hispanics come to the park in big groups to do activities together. Many whites come to enjoy the nature and wildlife of the park as a refuge from the city. The racial and cultural issues are clearly known in Prospect park. The west side of the park is a lot nicer than the east side. It is more well-kept and clean. The white population is usually on the west side. The east side usually consists of hispanics and blacks. The different races feel safer on their "side" of the park. The blacks and hispanics feel out of place and uncomfortable when they go to the west side, and the whites feel unsafe and uncomfortable when they go to the east side.

HW November 3rd

Chapter 2 "History and Social Context," pages 19-20


The first urban park were used for grazing cattle and militia training. They were underdeveloped and were called "commons." During the 1820-1840s, a movement began to make tree-lined paths for the fashionable citizens who lived near by. The phase of letting cattle graze in the parks began to end, and more improvements were made to the open public spaces.

Landscape parks were designed as refuges from the city. Prospect Park and Central Park are a few examples of landscaped parks.

As parks began to develop in New York and Boston, the movement to improve the public spaces spread. State parks started popping up.

In the 1920s and 1930s, public recreation centers began to develop. Instead of focusing on the contact with nature, the recreation centers were created to bring about the benefits of wholesome recreation to urban people.

Riis Park provided the transition from municipal and state parks to a discussion of the National Park system. These parks help preserve the wildlife habitats. Heritage sites help preserve historic landmarks and structures.

Because of federal funding, national parks are much less dependent upon local political conditions. Most municipal parks depend on local public funds.

This chapter was all about the different types of parks there are and how they were made and what they are used for.

HW October 27th, 2011

Thoughts on Urban Life

I enjoyed reading this book (for the most part). It was interesting reading about ethnography and how people go about researching other communities. Some of it was boring to me since I am not overly intersted in anthropology, but I enjoy learning new things, and this opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at my community and the city itself.

Rethinking Urban Parks (pages 1-18)

"The Cultural Life of Large Urban Spaces"
This chapter was an introduction to looking at urban spaces. It give reasons why public urban spaces are important. We depend on spaces such as parks, garden, benches, ect for cross-class and multicultural contact. We need these types of spaces to promote social and cultural diversity. Here are six lessons to provide a guideline for park planning, management, and design:
1. People and their culture need to be represented in these spaces
2. Acess (visitation and income) must be taken into account for all social groups
3. Social intereaction within diverse groups can be maintained with safe, spacially adequate space for everyone
4. Accomodating differences in the ways social class and ethnic groups use and value public sites
5. Contempory historic preservation for the facilities, diversions and scenic aspect.
6. Symbolic ways of communitcating cultural meaning

Social sustainability is important in the framework of planning and managing large urban spaces. Place preservation, cultural ecology theories, and cultural diversity help make up this framework. There are many arguments that affect social sustainability. Cultural property rights, community participation,empowerment and citizenship, heritage, and cultural values are a few that are touched on in this essay. It is really important to have an understanding of sultural diversity adn community values if a city is to have a successful park, bench or heritage site.

I think this book will be very interesting since it takes public spaces from New York City and focuses on them. I am looking forward to learning more about this.

The Edge and the Center: Gated Communities and the Discourse of Urban Fear

Setha Low writes this essay to show why people move to gated communities. She takes a gated community in Queens and San Antonio and interviews people in those communities. She uses these two because they are very different from each other. Some of the differences are population size and density, history of the gated community development, scale and design of the gated communities, legal and government structure, crime rates for the region, and cultural norms and behaviors. Many people move to gated communities because they feel it is safer. One third of all new homes built in America are in gated communities. In New York, nine out of ten of the people Low interviewed mentioned that crime was a reason they moved to the gated community. Nine of the interviewees in San Antonio said crime was a reason. Many of the moms in San Antonio moved for their children.

In New York, most of people moved to the gated community because of the deteriorating communities they had lived in and the increase of crime. In San Antonio it is similar, but more people were afraid of illegal immigrants and kidnapping.

I thought this was a very interesting article. I enjoyed learning about reasons why people move to gated communities.

Homework for October 20th

Malerie Brill

October 20^th, 2011

SSN

Prof. Galvin

“From Cuenca, Ecuador, to New York, U.S.A.: Families and Transnational Lives” (pages 378-393) Miles

Ann Miles illustrates for us in this essay the challenges that immigrants face with transnationalism. She interviewed a man named Vincent Quintasacas who moved to New York from Cuanca, Ecuador. He faced many challenges throughout his journey. He was so sad about leaving Ecuador because that was where his whole life was. His family and friends lived there, and moving to the unknown was very intimidating. Money was an issue, and Vincent owed a lot of money to some of his family and friends who loaned it to him. It was difficult for him to send money back to his family though because he had many unexpected costs. He had to spend money on a car because he got beat up in the subway on the way home from work. That was an expense he wasn’t expecting, but one that was important for his well-being. It wasn’t hard for him to get a job. He had a friend help him out with that. The language barrier made it difficult as well. Learning English was difficult for him. He found that making a living was hard. He worked many many hours a day, and made very little. He also says that health can be a problem. He was fortunate to be in good health, but if he wasn’t he wouldn’t be able to work and many money to support himself. Vincent went back and forth in his story about whether he wanted to stay in the states or go back to Ecuador. He seemed to think he would stay, but then he would say he missed his family and home and would want to go back to Ecuador. He felt as if he were a river that had no place to go.

This was a very interesting article. It was interesting to read an immigrants viewpoint on life here in America, and the struggles and accomplishments he went through.

“Global Tranactions: Sudanese Refugees Sending Money Home” (pages 394-402) by Dianna Shandy

This article by Shandy shows us how transnationalism is connecting rural and urban areas because of the money that the immigrants send back to their homes. Many people in the home countries are moving to cities to be able to receive the money sent to them more easily. She focuses on the Nuer refugees from Sudan that are now living in the US. So many of these refugees that are living in Addis Ababa rely on the remittances that their relatives abroad send them. Western Union has become a large business because of the need for these people to get the money from overseas. They use kiosk-like structures for the people to easily access their remittances. In a refugee camp, formal employment is not legal, so the people must rely on either the remittances they receive or work informally. Many people receive monthly remittances, and some receive just one to cover a medical bill or anything that is a larger expense.

This article was a large overview of remittances and how they work. I thought it was not super interesting, but it gave a good idea about the process of remittances.

“Beyond urban and rural Communities in the 21^st Century” (pages 413-420) by Walter Zenner

Zenner seeks to explain how rural and urban terms are becoming less relevant today. So many communities that in the past would be described as rural are now showing signs of urbanism. During the 21^st century the population changed from being predominately rural to being predominately urban. Zenner gives us eight examples of an urban community.

1) High degree of specialization in labor and mass production of goods.

2) Higher commitment to mechanical power

3) Individuals are more transient and detached from tradition. More people live away from where they were born.

4) High mobility in day-to-day life. More job and residence changes.

5) Continuous changes in the environment – technology and structural innovation

6) More mechanical and held by time

7) Verification to prove who we are

8) Conflict between the desire for freedom and the desired to keep control over people

Location and size do matter when talking about rural and urban spaces. Many places in the US have a distinct urban community and a distinct rural community.

Homework, October 13, 2011

Malerie Brill

October 13^th, 2011

SSN 182.6858

Professor Galvin

“Civic Ecology, Urban Elders, and New York City’s Community Garden Movement”  Pages 243-255 by Jay Sokolovsky

This article by Sokolovsky describes how in an urban setting, “community” and “garden” goes together hand in hand. There are 300+ community gardens in NYC, and those are places where older people can spend their free time and younger people can learn from their elders. It is a place where people come together to make something beautiful and learn from each other. Many places where community gardens are located used to be trashy and run down. The action of transforming these places to be beautiful gardens is a form of “civic ecology.” It promotes community involvement and socialization. Many people of all ages are involved with community gardens here in NYC, most of the time it is an older person who is in charge of the garden.

Community gardens have been going on for many years. In bad economic times, the community gardens were a source of food.  Victory gardens during WWII and “relief” gardens during the Great Depression are just a few examples of when community gardens flourished.

Many gardens maintain an assortment of medicinal plants that they use regularly for minor hurts. Not only can one find healing plants in the gardens, but the gardens themselves can be mentally healing. Horticultural therapy was introduced in the 1800s and is still being used in many rehabilitative settings.

I loved this essay because I am very interested in gardening and being outdoors in nature. I love reading about how so many gardens are here in the city, and people are coming together to work and maintain them. Being ale to be outside and work with your hands is a wonderful feeling, and I think is very beneficial to an urban community.

“Caste, Politics, and Criminality in Urban India” by Jeffrey Witso (pages 269-279)

In this article, Witso describes the crime in a city called Patna in India. Patna is the capitol of the state of Bihar, the poorest state in India. He describes how much of the crime is run by the politicians and people in power. The people living in Patna were afraid to out after dark for fear of being kidnapped or robbed. For a long time, people in higher-caste systems were in power. Caste plays a huge role in India’s wealth and crime. Many of the corrupt politicians that were being voted into power were in a higher caste system. Because of the caste system, they had more power to get into the positions they wanted. Politics is central to both caste relations and crime in the city. Once the NDA succeeded to get rid of the upper caste in the political system, the political geography started to change. There was still crime, but the people were no longer afraid to be outside after dark.

I thought it was interesting how the different caste systems operate and how they reflect political and personal life.

“The Extended Community: Migration and transformation in Tzintzuntzan, Mexico” by Robert Kemper (pages 285-299)

When Kemper began this study of the community in Tzintzuntzan, he did not thing it was going to be a very long one. But, it turned out to be a 40 year study on the people there and their “extended community.” The “extended community” is the people who spend more time outside of the place where they live. The people who are migrating to other areas face different issues they must overcome. Where will they work and live? How will they handle being away from their old community and family? Kemper has discovered that now it is hard to define who is and who is not a resident of Tzintzuntzan. People come and go constantly. Distance is no longer a significant factor because of inexpensive travel by many different means. Communication is no longer a problem because of phone and internet. The increasing number of students that live outside of the community but come back for holidays and weekends. And the earnings that people are making outside of Tzintzuntzan help keep the community’s economy up. Inheritance plays a large factor in the “extended community.” Older migrants still have homes and land in Tzuntzintzan that will pass them onto relatives. Many younger migrants want to share the family claims by visiting tzuntzintzan on a regular basis. Tzuntzintzan was treated like a closed system by many villagers and anthropologists, but now it is expected to continue growing and expanding.

I thought this was a good article about how migrants continue to keep in touch with their old background, but it was a little boring.  

“Transnationalism, Old and New: New York Immigrants” by Nancy Foner (pages 363-377)

Foner suggests that transnationalism has been going on for a long time. She points out the differences between then and now. Back in the early twentieth century many immigrants that came to the states, maintained relationships and connections to their homelands and traveled back and forth when they could. Many of them planned to return to their old countries. Now days, technology has changed the way we travel and communicate making it easier for immigrants to stay in the country and still be connected to their old homeland. Because of international businesses, the global economy, dual nationality, and a greater acceptance of multiculturalism many immigrants have a more hopeful view of transnational connections.

This article was very interesting and I enjoyed reading about how transnationalism has changed in the past century.

October 6th Homework

Malerie Brill

October 6^th, 2011

SSN 182.6858

Professor Galvin

“How Urban Ethnography Counter Myths about the Poor” Pages 185-199 (Judith Goode)

In this article Goode attempts to refute the stereotypes of poor people. They are not irrational people. With their limited choices, they make rational solutions to fix their problems. Goode suggests that instead of looking at the people as the problem, we must look at the economy and political structure and fix that.

Family is an important part of survival for the poor. If one home and family is linked to another family, they can help each other out in the harder times. Many families are “doubling up” and moving in together to strengthen that bond of trust. Mullings (1995) showed that many times when people see a black unwed mother with children, they look down on her as being irresponsible and stupid. When in reality, her family is what is keeping her together. The sacrifices she has to make and the investments for their future inspire her to push through life.

Goode discusses welfare programs, and says that throughout recent years, research shows that poor people are not lazy. They want to work. Working in the programs is hard. Many of the providers are dishonest which then makes the welfare workers afraid. The workers sometimes hide things from their overseers and that could cause a lot of problems and make them seem as if they are dishonest as well. That’s why many people resort to underground work.

I think the point of this article was a fantastic one to think about. Poor people should not be categorized as lazy and unwilling to fix their lives. Yes, some do not care, but so many of them do not like where they are at. They want better jobs, they want nicer homes, and they want to provide for their families. We are people stereotype to a fault. If we actually got to know these people, we would see that they are trying very hard to make a better life for themselves and their families.

“Gangs, Poverty, and the Future”  Pages 232-242 (Vigil)

The article “Gangs, Poverty, and the Future” gave us a look into some impoverished neighborhoods (barrios) in Los Angeles, CA and why poverty and gangs go together.  Vigil suggests that the main reason for the rise of street gangs is poverty. Because many of these neighborhoods lack strong families, good education, and healthy law enforcement, gangs replace family, education, and law enforcement. Because of racial discrimination, many of the neighborhoods that have gangs are in spatially distinctive neighborhoods. They are set away from nicer areas. Many Mexicans and African Americans make up a large part of the gangs. It is difficult for youth in these types of areas because no matter if they are involved in a gang or not, they are affected by it. Many people seek out gangs when school or family has failed. For many of them, it is something to keep them safe as they live in their neighborhood. They feel a sense of worthiness in a gang that they could not find anywhere else. Many of the kids join gangs to get attention because they did not get any at home. Most drop out of school because the schools in their area are no good.  The California budget for prisoners is the same amount of money as the Los Angeles school district. The problem with that is that there are over 700,000 kids vs the 150,000 prisoners. The school system is a joke and the drop out rate in the Los Angeles district is 30-59% in inner-city neighborhoods. The kids that do make it through high school usually have a hard time finding good opportunities available to them afterwards.

Reading this article made me very sad. Because of the way many of these children are raised, they usually do not see any other way of living their life. I don’t think this goes for all people living in an inner-city neighborhood, but it is harder for them to get out of it and go make a good life for themselves. I think the government should use money to help the school systems and living conditions in those areas instead of spending it on something unimportant. We tend to avoid those areas and try to forget about them, when in reality, we need to be helping people out of those areas. We should be helping to make better education and job opportunities for them.

“Office Work and the Crack Alternative among Puerto Rican Drug Dealers in East Harlem” Pages 202-216 (Bourgois)

Bourgois talks about why some people deal drugs instead of work. Most of them start out at a young age working. They drop out of school because a job is more appealing. But, the problem comes in when they realize that they are not being treated the same at their job whether it is because of the way they are acting or because of their lack of education. Most of them are males and they have a hard time working in a situation where a woman is in a higher position then them. One man that Bourgois interviewed was named Primo. He started out working in an office. Things went downhill when his female boss would tell people he was illiterate. He didn’t know what that meant, so he had to look it up in the dictionary. He became angry that she was using a word to disrespect him that he didn’t even know. He then goes on to say his crack house franchise owner Rocky would never disrespect him. Primo felt he was more educated than Rocky because he had a GED.  He was more comfortable being involved with dealing drugs than working in a white collared environment. Working in the street, Primo was respected and excelled in the street’s underground economy.

Now days, heroin and crack are still a multi-billion dollar business that affects families living in the inner city.  It is not as open as it once was – now it is run indoors and quiet. Many of those who deal drugs have jobs as well.

Homework for September 22nd

Pages 101-118

In the article, “Urbanism As a Way of Life,” Louis Wirth describes how cities have a different mode of life than anywhere else. In order to say somewhere is a city, you have to take into account the many characteristics that make it a city. Size, density, transportation, communication, facilities, culture, recreation – these are all characteristics of an urban community. Not only are there many characteristics of a city, but there are also many variations in the people and neighborhoods.

Wirth talks about how the city affects people in the way they act and live. He says relationships are a lot different in the city than in rural areas. He says as city dwellers we become less open, less friendly, and more guarded. It’s a world of total strangers. Cities are highly competitive, and Wirth says the only reason we develop friendships is for selfish reasons. He also makes a statement that says the only thing that is keeping the city together are the laws in place.

While we discussed this in class, I became angry at all the assumptions that Wirth came to about cities. I can see on some level why he would make these points that he is, but I disagree with him in a lot of different ways. I believe we as a city are competitive, but I do not think that most people make friends for selfish reasons. I do believe people in cities have different relationships with people then people in rural areas, but I don’t think we are hostile and rude as Wirth makes it seem like.

Pages 119-130

Urban communities are full of complete strangers living together, and because of this, Sally Engle Merry wrote this article on Urban Dangers. Because of Wirth’s article, Merry decided to conduct her own study on the subject of urban dangers. She chose a subsidized housing project in the Northeastern part of the country to conduct her research. She studied the different people and ethnic groups that lived in the project. She was able to see how each group felt about their safety living in the projects. The turnover rate in the project was only 5%, but the sense of community was lacking. The ethnic groups were spread out over the neighborhood, but most of the residents maintained only close relationships with people of their same ethnicity. They would pass their immediate neighbors every day in the stairwells and not even attempt to get to know them.

As Merry got to know some of the residents, she began to see the difference in how each person felt about their safety. After more research, Merry states, “…[D]anger cannot be equated with the statistical probability of being the victim of a crime. Instead, it’s the individual’s interpretation of the surrounding environment.” She also suggests that it is not the people who are detached from the neighborhood that are dangerous, but it’s the ones who only appear to be attached.

I thought this was an extremely interesting article. I felt Merry gave her information in a very clear way.

Homework for September 29th

Pg 157-169

“In Motion”

Pardue did a study on social differences in Sao Paulo by focusing on the meaning of transportation. In this essay he wrote three different narratives that focuses on cognitive maps related to the social geography of Sao Paulo. In the first narrative, he compares trains, buses, and subways. Pardue interviewed a man names Robson and discussed the differences in the public transportation. Robson was a part of a working-class family that had a lot of pride. He explained that the bus is a more sophisticated way of traveling than the train because a bus affords views on life and perspective, whereas the train is a sardine can. His family knew the trains well, but if there was a family or group function, they would take the bus. He felt because the bus was above ground, it would help him be able to dream and enjoy the view of traffic. He felt the train was an undesirable way to travel and lowest legal form of transportation. 

In the next narrative, Pardue talked about a woman named Edilaine. She grew up in a working-class neighborhood where they had to take complicated forms of transportation to work. When she was older, she was able to work her from being a journalist to becoming an editor of a professional news release for doctors. She describes herself being different now, not in the way she looks, but in the way she acts and feels. After she married a doctor and moved to a different part of town, she forgot when she used to have to take complicated forms of transportation. She now has a private driver that takes her and her daughter where they need to go. 

The last narrative was about hip-hoppers and spacial occupation. The first hip-hoppers gathered around the subways in the 80’s. They targeted those public places to express that they were somebody. They believed that their confidence and rights to to public spaces were based on a morally deserved recognition. They used the public spaces as a way to accomplish greater things by getting recognition from society. 

This reading was very interesting to me. I love learning about what other people think of their communities and cities. 

Pages 171-184

“Urban Structures and Institutions”

“The Culture of Poverty”

This essay starts out by saying Wirth’s view are being challenged by other anthropologists because people are coming into the city and no matter what ethnicity, they are connecting with other people and it is a positive experience for them. It goes on to explain what Oscar Lewis studied, urban poverty. He explains it’s not the fault of people who lack sufficient economic resources, but it reflects the structural features of contemporary capitalist societies, lack of work opportunities. Government can sometimes be a help in those situations, but sometimes the government isn’t organized and people find other ways of surviving which are sometimes illegal. 

Lewis states, “The culture of poverty is both an adaptation and a reaction of the poor to their marginal position in a class-stratified, highly individuated, capitalistic society.” The culture of poverty is the way of life that develops in some of the poor that live in societies of low income, high unemployment rates, bilateral kinship system, cash economy, wage labor, ect. It tends to travel from generation to generation because of it’s effect on the children. They are so used to their way of life, that they never take the initiative to change it. 

I believe that Lewis has a pretty dark view on poverty in cities. I don’t wholly agree with him on everything. but I do have to agree with him and say generally poverty does travel through the generations because people don’t teach their children how to be responsible people. Now, I am not saying that all poor people are like that, and some really try their hardest to get out of the situation that they are in. I think that it is very difficult for them to do that though, because many times they have no support from their family and friends and they don’t necessarily know how to get out by themselves. 

Homework for September 15th

Foster and Kemper article, pg. 5-19

The article by Foster and Kemper describes how the study of urban anthropology has developed over the years. It started with fieldwork in the rural areas, and from that experience, it helped broaden the field of studying in urban areas. Most fieldwork in the urban areas started after WWII. Anthropology has evolved over a period of time. First, anthropologists were only interested in primitive people and cultures, then it grew to peasant societies and rural areas, and finally it grew to the cities.

Starting out in the field can be difficult. Anthropologists have to find the right area in which they want to gather information. They have to overcome culture shock and work to meet people to interview. Finding the right informants and then networking is a huge part of fieldwork.

I am thankful for all of the studies anthropologists have done to figure out communities and work to make them better.

Bestor article, pg. 20-35

Ted Bestor’s article focused on his studies of Tokyo, Japan and the way common people live there. Although Tokyo is the center of contemporary Japanese life, Bestor want to study and experience the way the communities in the city behaved. He had difficulty in finding the perfect place to settle down and conduct his research. One of the people he met there was able to point out a great neighborhood that was a mix of many kinds of people.

Networking was a large part of his studies. Who he met and whom they introduced him to was very important in getting his questions answered and in giving him a lot of information he needed. He was able to make great friends by helping out in the community instead of just always observing. It built trust with the Japanese. He learned that asking questions over and over again all the time eventually turned up the answers he was looking for. Networking also really helped him learn about the Tsukiji wholesale seafood market – the largest seafood market in the world.

Another way he did his research was by reading signs and observing homes and buildings. In Japan you can find a lot about a home if you read the signs on the houses. You can figure out if someone passed away recently or if someone is famous or a big part of the community.

I think Bestor had wonderful techniques to figuring out this Japanese community. He was very thorough and made himself apart of the community.

Gmelch and Gmelch, pg. 82-96

This article showed the big differences in cities vs. rural areas. There were two groups of students doing fieldwork in Barbados and Tasmania. This article showed the differences of the data found out by the students and the difficulty each group had. Students in the city felt as if they didn’t really understand the community they were living in because they weren’t in everyday contact with their informants and there were a lot of distractions for them. The students in the rural area had very intimate contact with people. They were able to spend lots of time gathering information and learning about the community. They did run into some problems though with privacy issues because the community was so close knit.

I think that this research was very interesting and I enjoyed reading about the contrasts of both communities and what the students learned. 

Homework for Sept 22, 2011

Malerie Brill                                                                                                 9/21/11

Urban Anthropology, SSN 182

Homework #2

Pages 101-118

In the article, “Urbanism As a Way of Life,” Louis Wirth describes how cities have a different mode of life than anywhere else. In order to say somewhere is a city, you have to take into account the many characteristics that make it a city. Size, density, transportation, communication, facilities, culture, recreation – these are all characteristics of an urban community. Not only are there many characteristics of a city, but there are also many variations in the people and neighborhoods.

Wirth talks about how the city affects people in the way they act and live. He says relationships are a lot different in the city than in rural areas. He says as city dwellers we become less open, less friendly, and more guarded. It’s a world of total strangers. Cities are highly competitive, and Wirth says the only reason we develop friendships is for selfish reasons. He also makes a statement that says the only thing that is keeping the city together are the laws in place.

While we discussed this in class, I became angry at all the assumptions that Wirth came to about cities. I can see on some level why he would make these points that he is, but I disagree with him in a lot of different ways. I believe we as a city are competitive, but I do not think that most people make friends for selfish reasons. I do believe people in cities have different relationships with people then people in rural areas, but I don’t think we are hostile and rude as Wirth makes it seem like.

Pages 119-130

Urban communities are full of complete strangers living together, and because of this, Sally Engle Merry wrote this article on Urban Dangers. Because of Wirth’s article, Merry decided to conduct her own study on the subject of urban dangers. She chose a subsidized housing project in the Northeastern part of the country to conduct her research. She studied the different people and ethnic groups that lived in the project. She was able to see how each group felt about their safety living in the projects. The turnover rate in the project was only 5%, but the sense of community was lacking. The ethnic groups were spread out over the neighborhood, but most of the residents maintained only close relationships with people of their same ethnicity. They would pass their immediate neighbors every day in the stairwells and not even attempt to get to know them.

As Merry got to know some of the residents, she began to see the difference in how each person felt about their safety. After more research, Merry states, “…[D]anger cannot be equated with the statistical probability of being the victim of a crime. Instead, it’s the individual’s interpretation of the surrounding environment.” She also suggests that it is not the people who are detached from the neighborhood that are dangerous, but it’s the ones who only appear to be attached.