Giuliana B. Prato – författare

This collection brings together leading thinkers on human beings in urban spaces and inequalities therein. The contributors eschew conceptual confusion between equality — of opportunity, of access, of the right to compete for whatever goal one chooses to pursue — and levelling. The discussions develop in the belief that old and emerging forms of inequality in urban settings need to be understood in depth, as does the machinery that, as masterfully elucidated by Hannah Arendt, operates behind oppression to sustain power and inequality. Anthropologists and fellow ethnographically-committed social scientists examine socio-economic, cultural and political forms of urban inequality in different settings, helping to address comparatively these dynamics.

The complex, highly problematic, often thorny dynamics of trust and authority are central to the anthropological study of legitimacy. In this book, this sine qua non runs across the in-depth examination of the ways in which healthcare and public health are managed by the authorities and experienced by the people on the ground in urban Europe, the USA, India, Africa, Latin America and the Far and Middle East. This book brings comparatively together anthropological studies on healthcare and public health rigorously based on in-depth empirical knowledge. Inspired by the current debate on legitimacy, legitimation and de-legitimation, the contributions do not refrain from taking into account the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the health systems under study, but carefully avoid letting this issue monopolise the discussion. This book raises key challenges to our understanding of healthcare practices and the governance of public health. With a keen eye on urban life, its inequalities and the ever-expanding gap between rulers and the ruled, the findings address important questions on the complex ways in which authorities gain, keep, or lose the public’s trust.

This edited volume uses ethnographic cases to examine social, political, and economic inequality in diverse urban settings. This book is couched in the idea that ethnographically based analysis helps to bring out the nature and interconnections between different forms of inequality and sheds light on the major forces that combine to create inequalities. Ethnography also helps to identify the dynamics that undergird the principle of freedom of thought and of action—a key principle, that is, of associated life in a democracy—and recognize empirically that these dynamics not only protect difference but increase it, for they underpin the freedom of the individual to use their talents to manage their lives and achieve their goals. This first volume in a two-part series focuses on legitimacy, governance, labour and urban change, and stereotypes and individual choice. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in sociocultural anthropology, sociology, politics, socio-legal studies, urban change, and education.

This edited volume uses ethnographic cases to examine social, political, and economic inequality in diverse urban settings. This book is couched in the idea that ethnographically-based analysis helps to bring out the nature and interconnections between different forms of inequality and sheds light on the major forces that combine to create inequalities. Ethnography also helps to identify the dynamics that undergird the principle of freedom of thought and of action — a key principle, that is, of associated life in a democracy — and recognize empirically that these dynamics not only protects difference but increase it, for they underpin the freedom of the individual to use their talents to manage their lives and achieve their goals. This second volume in a two-part series focuses on housing and residential patterns, development and urban regeneration, and education. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in sociocultural anthropology, sociology, politics, socio-legal studies, urban change, education.

These ethnographically-based studies of diverse urban experiences across the world present cutting edge research and stimulate an empirically-grounded theoretical reconceptualization. The essays identify ethnography as a powerful tool for making sense of life in our rapidly changing, complex cities. They stress the point that while there is no need to fetishize fieldwork—or to view it as an end in itself —its unique value cannot be overstated. These active, engaged researchers have produced essays that avoid abstractions and generalities while engaging with the analytical complexities of ethnographic evidence. Together, they prove the great value of knowledge produced by long-term fieldwork to mainstream academic debates and, more broadly, to society.