Tracing Urban Life
3.0
creditsAverage Course Rating
Baltimore is often described as "a city of neighborhoods." But what exactly does this mean? In this class we will use the tools of urban anthropology to disentangle the notion of "neighborhood," inquiring how it is defined by spatial contours, layouts and material histories; and asking about the vibes, experiences, and cultural traits that characterize neighborhoods and distinguish them from one another. We will engage in an on-the ground, hands-on exploration of a local neighborhood to collectively craft a biography of its lived and built environments. First, we will examine how city-wide and local events might leave marks on the experiences of local dwellers and the stories of the urban landscape, and we will use these as entry points for tracing the life of the neighborhood. We will do archival research to learn how the neighborhood has been shaped by power relations as well as resistance, how it has changed through shifts in capital investment, zoning and political decision-making, and flows of populations. Then, we will refresh our skills in various methods of urban ethnography, such as participant observation among local residents and organizations, in-depth interviews, life-stories, kinship charts, and narrative maps, that will allow us to trace individual trajectories as well as the unfolding, in time and space, of buildings and urban areas. Our aim will be to map out variety of affects and dynamics of contemporary urban everyday life.
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