ABSTRACT
This chapter answers the question "what is a cultural anthropological approach to the city?" by tracing the methodology, history, and substance of urban anthropology. It traces the death and rebirth of urban anthropology by highlighting an important change in theory and method. The chapter introduces key methodological approaches in urban anthropology. It derives a definition of the urban as it emerges from the rich scholarly tradition of urban anthropology. Research strategies focused on participant observation as a method of uncovering and explaining the movement, adaptations, and accommodations of urban populations to these microenvironments. New areas of research have flourished, including studies of racialization and segregation, violence and terror, contestation and resistance, and global, transnational, and translocal processes. Ethnographic approaches to urban space are an important strategy for studying contestation and resistance in the city. Studies of migration and translocality emphasize the role of diaspora communities within the new geography of globalization.
