86,637 research outputs found
Introduction
No full textChapter 1If we accept the arbitrary, yet widely accepted, claim that the Chicago School is the progenitor of urban sociology (Hannerz 1980: 20), then ‘ethnic diversity’ can be seen to have been an important component of urban studies since its conception. About eighty years ago, Robert Ezra Park and his colleagues at the University of Chicago published their pioneering studies on the city. In their view, the city was made up of different groups of people, defined in terms of social class and ethnic background, with each group finding a niche in the city in which to work, to live or to spend their leisure time. Ethnic groups tended to live in certain quarters and economic functions were clustered in certain areas. Expanding ethnic groups or booming economic functions invaded the territory of other groups or functions, as well as succeeding each other in one particular spot. Different groups competed for space – for instance, street gangs (mostly originating from specific ethnic groups) were organized territorially – but also established symbiotic relationships to share certain spots in town (Park, Burgess and McKenzie 1967 [1925]; cf. Eriksen 1993: 18-20; Hannerz 1980: 19-58). Louis Wirth, another Chicagoan, asserted that the city has historically been a ‘melting-pot’, which ‘has brought together people from the ends of the earth because they are different and thus useful to one another’ (Wirth 1938: 10). Hence, inter-ethnic relations are more likely to develop in cities than in villages, because the diversity of services and opportunities offered by cities attracts a larger variety of people than a village economy. Moreover, statistics suggest the probability that the bigger the population, the higher the number of different ethnic groups. Wirth was pessimistic about the superficial, anonymous and transitory nature of urban relationships. However, later research – by Herbert Gans (1982 [1962]) on the Italians in Boston’s West End – showed that friendly, closely knit communities developed in immigrant neighbourhoods, partly because communal life mostly took place on the street. These neighbourhoods showed considerable residential stability
Moving at a different velocity: The modernization of transportation and social differentiation in Surabaya in the 1920s
No full textGuardians of living history: The persistence of the past in post-Soviet Estonia
Full text linkNyiri, P.D. [Promotor]Colombijn, F. [Copromotor]Hondius, D.G. [Copromotor
Constructing Civil Society in Myanmar Struggles for Local Change and Global Recognition
Full text linkItem does not contain fulltextFree University Amsterdam, 19 september 2016Promotor : Schulte Nordholt, H.G.C. Co-promotor : Colombijn, F.xviii, 318 p
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Under Construction. The politics of urban space and housing during the decolonization of Indonesia, 1930- 1960
No full textIn Under construction the social changes in Indonesian cities during the process of decolonization are examined. These social changes are studied from the angle of urban space and the provision of housing. This focus on the everyday worries of space and housing, in combination with a local level of analysis, provides fresh insight into the question how people experienced the Japanese occupation, the Indonesian Revolution, and the early 1950s. In the first half of the book, the author challenges the idea that a shift from ethnic to class differences was the paramount social change during decolonization, and argues instead that social class already formed the predominant principle of stratification in colonial urban society. The second half of the book, through the use of hitherto unused historical sources, presents a wealth of new data about such themes as the competition between self-serving civil and military authorities to appropriate available housing; the exasperation of both tenants and landlords about the residential permits issued by the corrupt Housing Allocation Bureaus; and the shifting balance of power between landlords and tenants. The attention paid to public housing, squatting, and kampong improvement makes this study of the Indonesian city during the understudied decades of the 1940s and 1950s also of great importance for people interested in urban anthropology, and the study of Third World cities
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