ethnography

Reviews

An American in Marseille

Olivier Gaudin & translated by Oliver Waine - 17 March 2023

In his latest work, Marseille, Port to Port, the New York-based ethnographer William Kornblum paints a rich and...

Reviews

Episodes from the Social Life of the Delhi Metro

Sneha Mandhan - 20 January 2023

What is the impact of a new metro on a large and growing city? As new metros are cropping up across Asia, Rashmi...

Reviews

(Re)Constructing Inequality: Community Development in Public and Private

Claire Dunning - 14 December 2021

Claire Dunning reviews Jeremy R. Levine’s new book, Constructing Community, an ethnographic study of community...

From the Field

Social Housing in Postcolonial Contexts

Clémence Léobal & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 September 2020

What happens when national social-housing policies developed in mainland France are transposed in overseas...

Reviews

Why School Securitization Fails. Lessons from Morrill and Musheno’s Navigating Conflict

Andrés Besserer Rayas - 8 October 2019

Navigating Conflict describes how pupils are able to address conflicts on their own, and how school securitization...

Debates

Masculine Sports and “Respectable” Men in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Carine Guérandel & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 March 2019

In a work rich in ethnographic material, Akim Oualhaci questions how socialization through sports contributes to the...

From the Field

Beneath the Surface of Chinese Cities: Abandoned Places and Contemporary Ruins

Judith Audin & translated by Oliver Waine - 28 September 2018

Urban ruins represent a marginal subject of research within the field of Chinese studies, and yet are a precious...

Reviews

Nature’s Worth: Using Human Markets to Value Ecosystems’ Contributions

Anna Krol & Lisa Jean Moore - 20 February 2018

Mattijs van Maasakkers’ The Creation of Markets for Ecosystem Services in the United States: The Challenge of Trading...

From the Field

Snowbirds’ Gift Economy in the Arizona Desert

David Frati - 7 November 2017

Each year, 200,000 retired people spend the winter in and around the small town of Quartzsite, Arizona, in the...

From the Field

Liberty, Community and Religion: A Hispano-Moroccan Family in Andalusia

Alain Cottereau & translated by Oliver Waine - 11 October 2016

In Europe, the relationship that migrants originating from the Arab Muslim world – whether first- or...

Reviews

Evictions and Poverty

Hilary Botein - 28 June 2016

Matthew Desmond’s Evicted has drawn much-needed attention to the under-studied problem of unsubsidized rental...

Reviews

On Being Black and Poor in a Small City

Peter Moskos - 24 May 2016

No Way Out, Waverly Duck’s recent examination of how African Americans in an impoverished small city construct a...

Reviews

Neighborhood Change and the Right to the City

Adam Tanaka - 29 March 2016

New York City’s Stuyvesant Town is the largest housing development in Manhattan, and also one of the most...

From the Field

The Other Side of Austin, Texas

Caitlyn Collins & Katherine Jensen & Kristine Kilanski & Javier Auyero - 2 March 2015

Despite a booming economy, Austin, Texas, is a city where inequalities persist and grow in the shadow of neoliberal...

Reviews

How journalists see “the suburbs”: lifting the veil on a cliché

Julie Sedel & translated by Oliver Waine - 10 September 2014

“La banlieue”: in France, few terms convey such a clear and constant image: high-rise social housing, young men “of...

Reviews

Urban Ethnography: A Handbook

Daniel Cefaï & translated by Oliver Waine - 3 April 2013

Since the 1980s, the field of ethnography has enjoyed a return to favour in the social sciences. Richard E. Ocejo’s...

An American in Marseille

Episodes from the Social Life of the Delhi Metro

(Re)Constructing Inequality: Community Development in Public and Private

Social Housing in Postcolonial Contexts

Why School Securitization Fails. Lessons from Morrill and Musheno’s Navigating Conflict

Masculine Sports and “Respectable” Men in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Beneath the Surface of Chinese Cities: Abandoned Places and Contemporary Ruins

Nature’s Worth: Using Human Markets to Value Ecosystems’ Contributions

Snowbirds’ Gift Economy in the Arizona Desert

Liberty, Community and Religion: A Hispano-Moroccan Family in Andalusia

Evictions and Poverty

On Being Black and Poor in a Small City

Neighborhood Change and the Right to the City

The Other Side of Austin, Texas

How journalists see “the suburbs”: lifting the veil on a cliché

Urban Ethnography: A Handbook

Series

Featured

Covid-19 Transformed New York’s Destination Food Markets

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Filming Ethnic Diversity in New York

Looking Inward, Across the Border

The Political Aesthetics of Drag

Disarm the Police

Other resources online

“Our hallway’s big enough to play football in!” The council housing...

Saudi Arabia: How is Mobility Being Transformed in the Oil Kingdom?

Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age (Paul Mees)

Geopolitics and Electric Vehicles: The Rise of Climate Protectionism

One Way to Fight Rising Food Prices: Public Grocery Stores

The Quiet Power of Car-Free Neighborhoods

Partners