Revista de antropologie urbană nr. 24

Anthropology in the City: Ethnographic Explorations of Contemporary Urbanities

As generally acknowledged for the anthropological study of urban life (urban anthropology / ethnologie urbaine), it might be represented as a “third subject matter”1 in the development of our discipline (after the research pursued in the middle of tribal or peasant populations). Indeed, a series of processes like the migration of many people from rural societies to urban centres2, the adaptation of traditional structures or networks of kinskip in the socioprofessional context of cities3, the integration or acculturation of diverse ethnic groups within towns4… – have accordingly tailored directions of investigation that define “the science of humane” in its dialogue with other socio-humanistic disciplines.

The Journal of Urban Anthropology, as a specialized publication of the Bucharest City Museum (now in its twelfth year of publication), proposes for its current issue not so much a theme or a particular dimension of ethnological reflection on one or another “citadel” and its customs still effective intra muros, but a (re)consideration of ethnographic practice – as a documentary anthropological approach – in the polymorphism of urban sites of all kinds (neighbourhoods, blockhouses, streets, marketplaces, parishes…)