ABSTRACT

In her review of anthropological writing on cities, Setha Low (1996) lists a number of metaphors or images that correspond to certain concepts and frameworks in approaching the city. Two of these are ‘the ethnic city’ and ‘the divided city’. One stream of research within the former is ‘studies of the ethnic city as a mosaic of enclaves economically, linguistically and socially selfcontained as a strategy of political and economic survival’ (Low 1996: 388). The boundaries containing these enclaves are, more often than not, changing, flexible and permeable. On the other hand, the latter – the divided city – points to a city where segregation has divided the city in two (most often unequal) parts. Crossing the border that divides this kind of city is often difficult, since segregation is often maintained by one of the sides (upscale versus ghetto, black versus white, poor versus rich etc.).