The Everyday Life of Urban Inequality explores how steadily increasing inequality and the spectacular pace of urbanization frame daily life for city residents around the world. Ethnographic case studies from five continents highlight the impact of place, the tools of memory, and the power of collective action as communities interact with centralized processes of policy and capital. By focusing on situated experiences of displacement, belonging, and difference, the contributors to this collection illustrate the many ways urban inequalities take shape, combine, and are perpetuated.
Jessica Bodoh-Creed is lecturer in anthropology at California State University, Los Angeles. Megan Sheehan is assistant professor of anthropology at the College of St Benedict/St John's University. Angela Storey is assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Louisville.
Acknowledgments List of Figures Introduction Megan Sheehan and Angela D. Storey Section 1: Development and Displacement Chapter 1: Losing or Gaining Home? Experiences of Resettlement from Casablanca's Slums Raffael Beier and Cristiana Strava Chapter 2: Kuala Lumpur: World Class City Formation and Urban (In)Equities Seng-Guan Yeoh Chapter 3: Full of My Love: Notoriously Dangerous Informal Mass Transit in Maputo Joel Christian Reed Section 2: Belonging and Contestation Chapter 4: Part and Parcel of Urbanization: Contested Claims to Land Access and Urban Indigenous Spaces in Hermosillo Lucero Radonic Chapter 5: Traditions of the Oppressed: Popular Aesthetics and Layered Barrio Space Against the Erasure of Gentrification in Austin Ben Chappell Chapter 6: They Always Promise Toilets: Electoral Politics and Infrastructural Inequality in Post-Apartheid Cape Town Angela D. Storey Section 3: Difference and Proximity Chapter 7: Spaces of Migration and the Production of Inequalities in Santiago, Chile Megan Sheehan Chapter 8: Privilege and Space: An Analysis of Spatial Relations and Social Inequality in Mexico City Through the Lens of Golf Hugo Ceron-Anaya Chapter 9: New Cityscapes: Redesigning Urban Cartographies Through Creative Practices and Critical Pedagogies in London Chiara Minestrelli Conclusion: The Power of Breadth and Depth: Urban Ethnography Across Geographies Angela D. Storey and Jessica Bodoh-Creed Index About the Contributors
Ethnographically based and cross-culturally comparative, this volume of articles provides students of anthropology with first-hand portrayals of urban life in different cities. Authors in this volume demonstrate that urban inequality is a multifaceted phenomenon: public policy, institutional arrangement, space, infrastructure, and even personal hygiene. Jointly, they made it clear that urban inequality is not merely a local story but a global reality with shared roots with various ramifications. -- Anru Lee, John Jay College, CUNY A comprehensive compilation of ethnographic studies carried out in cities around the Global South, this book offers a brilliant insight into how excluded populations make sense, experience, and struggle with social inequality in an era of planetary urbanization. Covering a wide range of topics like gentrification, urban informality, citizenship participation, place making, and migration, The Everyday Life of Urban Inequality helps us understand the diversity of ways in which urban residents deal creatively with contemporary forms of exclusion while making the city. A must-read for anyone interested in reflecting anthropologically on the relationship between urban space and everyday life. -- Miguel Perez, Alberto Hurtado University & Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies, Chile
