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Urban anthropology is a discipline that emerged only with great difficulty. Its origin in the Chicago school of sociology made the discipline dependent upon urban sociology. The ethnographic focus of the Chicago school was short-lived, overtaken by a statistical, quantitative sociology that came to long dominate the field. For their part, anthropologists were late in dealing with cities, arriving only in the 1960s. Since then, they have vacillated between doing anthropology in the city and doing urban anthropology. Given this problem, the urban philosopher Henri Lefebvre may provide us with some fresh insights. In this article, I propose an anthropological rereading of some Lefebvrian concepts, such as "lived space" and "everyday life," emphasizing their socially transformative character. I offer a series of epistemological reflections relevant to our discipline and, by drawing on examples from my ethnographic research, seek to contribute to the methodological formulation of a critical perspective on urban ethnography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of Georg Simmel on American sociology has been repeatedly pointed out. Robert E. Park and the Chicago School of Sociology in particular owe important impulses to Simmel. It is sometimes overlooked, however, that Simmel himself drew on imported knowledge in his famous essay 'Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben' when focusing on the nervousness of the city dweller. This article will therefore tell the brief story of a reciprocal transatlantic knowledge transfer between Berlin and Chicago. It looks at the mutual fascinations and influences, examining both the Americanisation of knowledge and the Europeanisation of experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People who are homeless represent -- today as a hundred years ago -- one of the most extreme forms of poverty. Too often, the lack of recognition of the social problem adds up to the personal drama of a condition of grave poverty. Following Nels Anderson's unsurpassed text The Hobo as a conceptual map, a reflection on some selected theoretical and analytical points related to homelessness is proposed. Retraced the genesis of Anderson's research, from a perspective of comparison and dialogue with the classic, we will focus on the defining aspects of the phenomenon; the themes of work/non-work and marginalization in the urban context will be investigated; finally, the most current reconfiguration of the processes of material and relational impoverishment and the dynamics of exclusion in the contemporary socioeconomic background will be analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Shanghai Physical Education Institute / Shanghai Tiyu Xueyuan Xuebao is the property of Shanghai Physical Education Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

From a sociological point of view, the First World War is significant for two reasons: on the one hand, because of the massive involvement of intellectuals in the propaganda and public debate of all the countries involved [Mommsen 2000]; on the other hand, because it engaged the classics of sociology: Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Töennies, Sombart, George Herbert Mead, among others. In this article, we will focus in particular on the correspondence Georg Simmel had with Albion Small between the summer and autumn of 1914, i.e. at the dawn of the First World War. The episode has not so far aroused substantial interest among historians of sociology, but it is nevertheless useful to understand how global events as such bring out major tensions to the representatives of the discipline, engaged in a complex relationship of interdependence [DeFleur Ball e Rokeach 1970, tr. it. 1995] between three fields: the political, the journalistic, and the broader academic field [Bourdieu 2010]. Reflecting on this episode thus allows a more extensive understanding of the kind of disciplinary reconfigurations [Elias 1978] that such events produce in the relationship between social problems and sociological problems [Kitsuse and Spector 1973] and the reconfigurations that affect intellectuals within and outside the academic field. The point of view adopted is the ecological one [Abbott 2005]. The positions of Simmel and Small will therefore be contextualised within the broader intellectual and political communities in which the two intellectuals participated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paul Siu's dissertation on the experience of Chinese laundry workers in the United States is a hallmark study in the Chicago sociology of migration. Siu joined the Chicago sociology program in 1932, defended his dissertation in 1953, and had it published as a book in 1987. This article identifies Siu's key contributions and discusses the relationship between Siu's work and the Chicago sociology of migration. An immigrant himself, Siu offered an approach to migration that was closer to the migrants: an immediate and often intimate window into the subjective dimension of migration. While Siu's closeness to the migrants allowed him to collect the kind of firsthand data associated with Chicago sociology, it also revealed elements of the migrant experience that stretched the boundaries of Chicago's analytical framework. Siu's understanding of migration as temporary, in particular, departed from Chicago sociology's emphasis on immigrant assimilation. This article seeks to reexamine Siu's contribution and underline its value for current and future research on migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assimilation of the theoretical and methodological constructions of Western sociology into the investigation of primarily reform oriented social research problems of twentieth century China, is the background to the work done by most of the pioneering Chinese sociologists such as Fei Xiaotong. The aim of this paper is to analyse the movement of ideas and research methods in the global circulation of knowledge and the formulation of distinct traditions of academic enquiry, in this case, Chinese sociology. This article uses the chronology of Fei's life to present the interactions between American (Robert Parks and the Chicago School), British (Malinowski and social anthropology of 1930s), Russian (Shirokogoroff) and Chinese (Wu Wenzao and Yenching school) sociological traditions and their influences in Fei's works, primarily his most famous work, From the Soil. Fei's indigenous concept of Chaxugeju, presents a clear distinction between Chinese and Western societies. In this article, we apply Chaxugeju in some of the fairly common social research questions on family structure, gender and state- society relations to bring out the nuanced distinctions in the American and Chinese theoretical traditions. We also look into the problems in Fei's theorising in the use of community studies, in tackling the colonialism aspect and with respect to the cultural context in Chinese sociology and its similarities in its challenges with Chicago school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Martin Bulmer made distinguished and groundbreaking contributions to the history of sociology, particularly in his classic study of the Chicago School, which spanned the era of personal memory and archival history. His work particularly emphasized empirical research, which led him to problems relating to the Laura Spelman Rockefeller fund and its leader, Beardsley Ruml, as well as to the problematic of the relation of sociology to the social survey movement. His work on funding led to the "Fisher-Bulmer" debate, over the aims of the fund, which Bulmer regarded as primarily scientific and concerned with the improvement of research, rather than political. In later years the idea of history of sociology as reparations for the neglect or exclusion of women and minority scholars was a source of controversy, which Bulmer responded to with a defence of traditional historiographic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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During his career, William I. Thomas richly contributed to the development of youth research, both within the University of Chicago and outside the academy, in contact with social agencies. Moving from a broad focus on the studies carried out by the Chicago School of Sociology, the paper aims at tracing Thomas' contribution and legacy to the advancement of youth research, in order to recognise his influence on the definition of the fields of investigation, the theories, and the research methods employed. The paper first considers the analysis of the women reformers affiliated with the Hull House. The core of the analysis aims at re-evaluating Thomas' contribution, taking into specific consideration three of his works. On this basis, in the last section, the paper attempts to recover his legacy through the studies carried out by the young scholars who worked at the Department of Sociology and in its affiliated institutes and projects. Paying specific attention to the suggestions he offered, with specific reference to the analysis of the lives of young people with migrants background, young women and the programs for the treatment of delinquency, helps to identify the main strengths and challenges of the first comprehensive study of 'urban youth', that - over time - have inspired fruitful perspectives of analysis and important research experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article analyzes the socioecological structure of Kaunas city (one the centers of the Russian Empire's provinces) in 1870-1914 based on the ideas for the analysis of the structure and development of modern cities proposed by the Chicago School of Sociology. The first part introduces Burgess's "Concentric City Model", which is considered to be the most representative theoretical tool for modern urban structure and development analysis. In the second part, this model is applied to the analysis of the Kaunas socioecological structure in 1870-1914. The conclusions give an answer in which stage of the modern urban structure and development Kaunas city was during the period under investigation. The novelty and relevance of the research can be seen: 1) in the first attempt to present the analysis of the structure and development of Kaunas city in 1870-1914 with the help of socio-ecological concepts; 2) in the contribution to the development of interdisciplinary dialogue between history and social sciences (namely, urban ecology theories); 3) in the continuation of the research on the socioecological structure of the major cities of Lithuania during the period of the Russian Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studies of Lithuania's History is the property of Lietuvos Istorijos Studijos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article describes the role of the Chicago School of Sociology in the development of empirical social research. It traces the increase in the significance of the education of doctoral students on American universities at the turn of the 20th century, and the role of philanthropic foundations. It focuses on the contribution of prominent individuals: W. R. Harper, rector and founder of the University of Chicago, obtained top figures and founded journals in some major fields. A. W. Small was the first chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, founded the American Journal of Sociology and wrote the first two textbooks of sociology. W. I. Thomas was responsible for the famous study Polish Peasant in Europe and America and for the theoretical foundations passed on to his successors. In 1916 R. E. Park published a project in which Chicago became a social laboratory and he inspired and was an advisor for numerous doctoral projects that later were published as sociological monographs. The methodologist E. W. Burgess organised empirical research for the school of doctoral studies that emerged in Chicago and successfully worked there for twenty years. It is beyond the scope of one article to discuss also the monographs by doctoral students at the University of Chicago. Paper examines in detail only the monograph by Park, Burgess and McKenzie titled The City.

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I produce a critique of Marx Horkheimer's book Critique of Instrumental Reason as a way to introduce the concept of pragmatic critical theory. I start by mentioning that C. Wright Mills's concept of 'The Sociological Imagination' has many of the qualities of critical theory while emphasizing its potential for pragmatic solutions to social problems. I discuss some of the qualities of German social theory including its tendency toward over-philosophizing, before going on to discussing this book as well as the work of such scholars as W. I. Thomas and Emile Durkheim who produced morally-relevant social analysis, and especially the work of Max Weber whose exposition on the nature of rationality is used to provide background information that puts the work of Max Horkheimer in broader sociological context. I discuss how fantasies and substitute satisfactions are substitutes for a well-balanced life. I emphasize why Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School in general did not appreciate the American concern for pragmatism, but I nevertheless show the importance of a pragmatic approach to social reform. His critique of nationalism that runs as a theme throughout this book as offering a poor substitute for a sense of community is also pertinent. I end by emphasizing that Horkheimer's emphasis on authoritarianism as a reaction to modernization, and Christopher Lasch's emphasis on narcissism as a reaction to modernization, both emphasize negative aspects of their own societies, and learning how to avoid both extremes is a useful lesson to take away from both of their writings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the growth of symbolic interactionism (SI) as a specialization in English-language Canadian sociology, 1922-1979. We do not focus on theoretical and/or methodological developments. Rather, we document three empirical indicators of the institutionalization of SI: faculty members hired, research published and SI-receptive programs established. We find that Canadian sociologists institutionalized SI in two phases. From 1922 to 1959, SI institutionalized slowly. There were few SI "core" faculty and scarcely more "SIaccommodative" faculty. Little SI-based literature was published. McGill had Canada's only SI-friendly program. After 1960, SI grew rapidly and by 1979, was well institutionalized: over ninety SI and SI-accommodative faculty had been hired, SI literature (journal articles, textbooks) was commonplace. Many sociology departments offered an SI-accommodative program. Sometime in the 1980s, classical SI began to "de-institutionalize." Ironically, as SI's footprint grew and influence spread, it appeared to become less discernable, less coherent and less viable as a distinct and unified approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical tools are needed for navigating the concept of minority and its usefulness for the study of culture. This article reflects on the cultural and political purposes that are served when distinguishing between majorities and minorities, and the various historical and intellectual agendas that have shaped these social practices of classification. It begins by examining Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘minor literature’ as an anti-sociological reworking of minor and minority, then turns its attention toward the policy-driven sociological traditions of the Chicago School, and how this has informed the contemporary construction of ‘minorities’ reflected in Australian immigration debates. As a third key paradigm in the study of the ‘minor’, the article revisits cultural studies’ own embrace of the Popular as a site for political struggles over the meanings attached to ‘major’ and ‘minor’ social identities. Finally, we consider the range of transformative cultural practices addressed in this Minor Culture special issue, and reflect on the utility of the minor in holding together disparate political projects. There are a range of ways in which the minor might productively imagine or construct collective identities, in ways that do not anticipate, or even desire, majoritarian endings. It is argued that minoritised social categories do substantive political and cultural work, while acknowledging that numerical descriptions of minorities can hide as much as they reveal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Becker, author who survives to the classics and predecessors of the Chicago's school, niche of great creators of influential theories in the context of sociology and criminology, by explanations for interaction, learning, exclusion, social structures, among others. This author, comes to realize a synthesis, that seems to be perfected and potentially more accepted and adapted to the present time, with results that often gives the good synthesis, along with the appropriate media, and above all, the argumentation of the experiments and theoretical reviews. Thus, in the present, shows the theory of labeling, along with the processes of qualification of deviant behaviors, who stigmatize them as such and the social effects that cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudos Historicos is the property of Fundacao Getulio Vargas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article describes the role of the Chicago School of Sociology in the development of empirical social research. It traces the increase in the significance of the education of doctoral students on American universities at the turn of the 20th century, and the role of philanthropic foundations. It focuses on the contribution of prominent individuals: W. R. Harper, rector and founder of the University of Chicago, obtained top figures and founded journals in some major fields. A. W. Small was the first chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, founded the American Journal of Sociology and wrote the first two textbooks of sociology. W. I. Thomas was responsible for the famous study Polish Peasant in Europe and America and for the theoretical foundations passed on to his successors. In 1916 R. E. Park published a project in which Chicago became a social laboratory and he inspired and was an advisor for numerous doctoral projects that later were published as sociological monographs. The methodologist E. W. Burgess organized empirical research for the school of doctoral studies that emerged in Chicago and successfully worked there for twenty years. It is beyond the scope of one article to discuss also the monographs by doctoral students at the University of Chicago. Paper examines in detail only the monograph by Park, Burgess and McKenzie titled The City.

O artigo explora a interface entre Saúde Pública e Ciências Sociais no pensamento de Alberto Guerreiro Ramos (1940-1950), à luz de sua trajetória intelectual e do desenvolvimento daquelas disciplinas no Brasil. Indica-se como a Saúde foi um elemento-chave para as interpretações de Guerreiro Ramos sobre a Nação e sobre o papel que as Ciências Sociais deveriam assumir no processo de modernização da sociedade. Iniciando sua carreira em agências governamentais, seus primeiros trabalhos sobre Saúde e Infância foram inspirados por abordagens sociológicas norte-americanas, notadamente da chamada "Escola de Chicago". Nos anos 1950, Guerreiro analisou o problema da mortalidade infantil como resultado de estruturas socioeconômicas subdesenvolvidas e criticou os programas de saúde pública que, a seu ver, estavam desarticulados do objetivo prioritário de industrialização.This paper explores the interface between Public Health and Social Sciences in Alberto Guerreiro Ramos' thought (1940-1950), in the light of his intellectual trajectory and the history of Social Sciences in Brazil. It shows how Health itself was a key-element for Guerreiro Ramos's interpretation about nation and the role of Social Sciences in the process of modernization. Starting his career in Brazilian government agencies, Guerreiro's first writings on Well-child care and Health were inspired by north-American sociological approaches, mainly derived from the so-called "Chicago School of Sociology". In the 1950s, Guerreiro Ramos accounted for health problems such as infant mortality in terms of "underdeveloped" social-economic structures and criticized Brazilian health programs he somehow considered detached from the country's main goal of industrialization.

The article presents a re-appraisal of the intellectual foundations of contemporary urban anthropology. It explores the common origins of urban sociology and anthropology, highlighting the epistemological debt owed by anthropological studies to the Chicago School of Sociology (CSS) in Illinois. It discusses the foundations contributions of CSS, citing why and how anthropology took a particularistic turn.

Many writers are no longer satisfied with telling about or representing the real, but envision literature as a means of testing, studying, even experimenting with it. Instead of proposing novels nurtured by their observations, their books narrate the practical experience, difficulties, and reflections that their very composition entails. Such works invent singular forms, irreducible to either the novel or the essay, opening a new literary space, based on their shared use of fieldwork, and therefore closer to the Humanities and Social Sciences. Rather than vainly searching to determine this genre, this essay attempts to establish a corpus of works that I name “Literary Fieldwork,” and to define their characteristics in terms of forms, systems, objects, practices, poetics, and aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the contribution that pragmatist philosophy can make to the way that we do research and teaching in human geography. It provides a historical overview of the key ideas in the tradition, their influence on the Chicago School of Sociology and community organizing, and the implications of this work for epistemological practice. The paper then looks at the variety of ways in which human geographers are using research as a means to engage in the world today, focusing in particular on the contributions of participatory action research (PAR), before making the case for ‘process pragmatism’ as a framework for doing this kind of research. To illustrate the potential of this approach, the paper outlines current research, teaching and organizing activity being undertaken by geographers at Queen Mary University of London. The paper suggests that pragmatism provides a theoretical and methodological foundation for research and teaching which can facilitate the creation of new publics, and can help to build power and democratic capacity with the aim of remaking the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a theoretical comparison between field and ecology, as developed by Pierre Bourdieu and the Chicago School of sociology. While field theory and ecological theory share similar conceptualizations of actors, positions, and relations, and while they converge in their views on structural isomorphism, temporality, and social psychology, they are quite different on several other scores: power and inequality, endogeneity, heterogeneity, metaphorical sources, and abstraction. With a fine-grained comparison of the two approaches, this article provides the basis for a continuous dialogue among social theorists and empirical researchers regarding the nature of social space, its structural and processual composition, and how it changes over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a re-thinking of the relationship between sociology and the biological sciences. Tracing lines of connection between the history of sociology and the contemporary landscape of biology, the paper argues for a reconfiguration of this relationship beyond popular rhetorics of 'biologization' or 'medicalization'. At the heart of the paper is a claim that, today, there are some potent new frames for re-imagining the traffic between sociological and biological research - even for 'revitalizing' the sociological enterprise as such. The paper threads this argument through one empirical case: the relationship between urban life and mental illness. In its first section, it shows how this relationship enlivened both early psychiatric epidemiology, and some forms of the new discipline of sociology; it then traces the historical division of these sciences, as the sociological investment in psychiatric questions waned, and 'the social' become marginalized within an increasingly 'biological' psychiatry. In its third section, however, the paper shows how this relationship has lately been revivified, but now by a nuanced epigenetic and neurobiological attention to the links between mental health and urban life. What role can sociology play here? In its final section, the paper shows how this older sociology, with its lively interest in the psychiatric and neurobiological vicissitudes of urban social life, can be our guide in helping to identify intersections between sociological and biological attention. With a new century now underway, the paper concludes by suggesting that the relationship between urban life and mental illness may prove a core testing-ground for a 'revitalized' sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As capitalist urbanisation evolves, so too does gentrification. Theories and experiences that have anchored the reference points of gentrification in the Global North for half a century are now rapidly evolving into more cosmopolitan, dynamic world urban systems of variegated gentrifications. These trends seem to promise a long-overdue postcolonial provincialisation of the entrenched Global North bias of urban theory. Yet there is a jarring paradox between the material realities of some of the largest non-military urban displacements in human history in the Global South, alongside a growing reluctance to ‘impose’ Northern languages, theories and politics of gentrification to understand these processes. In this paper, I negotiate this paradox through an engagement of several seemingly unrelated empirical trends and theoretical debates in urban studies and gentrification. My central argument is that interdependent yet partially autonomous developments in urban entrepreneurialism and transnational markets in labour, real estate and education are transcending the dichotomy between gentrification in cities (the traditional focus of so much place-based research) versus gentrification as a dimension of planetary urbanisation. Amidst the planetary technological transformations now celebrated as ‘cognitive capitalism’ and a communications-consciousness ‘noösphere’, these developments are coalescing into a global, cosmopolitan and multicultural tapestry of explicitly evolutionary class transformations of urban space that adapt to multiply scaled contingencies of urban history, socio-cultural difference, state power and terrains of resistance. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, I explain how social Darwinism was deeply embedded within conventional urban theory in the decades before Ruth Glass gave us a language for the discussion of gentrification, thus perpetuating debates over narrow empirical issues at the expense of deeper critical scrutiny of the evolutionary logics of socio-spatial classifications. Second, I examine the recent movement for a ‘cosmopolitan decolonisation’ of gentrification theory that has emerged at the precise moment when powerful alliances are consolidating the networked infrastructures of gentrification on an unprecedented scale. Third, I analyse the contemporary evolution of gentrification as a recombinant blend of old and new, as the means of class transformation of urban space are accelerated through intensified competition in work, education and housing. The built environments of planetary urbanisation provide ample opportunities not only for diverse cosmopolitan descendants of old-fashioned urban renewal in the style of Haussmann’s Paris or Moses’ New York, but also for new generations of ‘capitalists with conscience’–entrepreneurial coalitions closing ‘moral rent gaps’ by integrating the economic profits of gentrification with the discourses and practices of environmental sustainability, socially responsible development and global fields of educational opportunity. All of these escalating competitions are legitimated as inclusive multicultural meritocracies. Yet the relentless optimism of competitive innovation in the cognitive-capitalist noösphere is creating dangerous new frontiers of human ecology that reproduce the social-Darwinist ‘form of society’ that Frederick Jackson Turner envisioned in his theorisation of the ‘recurrence of the process of evolution’ in America’s colonial-settler waves of violent dispossession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]