Studying the American City : Urban Ethnography, Race and Marginality

ECTS : 6

Description du contenu de l'enseignement :

The course aims to introduce the Chicago school of sociology and qualitative field studies to students. More specifically, the course focuses on the emergence of sociology in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century and explores its legacies. Furthermore, the course shows the way urban ethnographers conceived the city of Chicago as of utmost value as a laboratory for exploring social interactions. The first weeks of the course will be devoted to a survey of the conceptual and methodological contributions of urban sociologists in Chicago from the 1920s and 1930s such as Ernest Burgess, Robert Ezra Park, Louis Wirth, and Paul Cressey. Secondly, the course will deal with the development of sociology as a scientific field and the evolution of key concepts that are still used in the social sciences today such as the notions of ethnicity, race, assimilation and segregation. The course will also aim to introduce to students current debates in the social sciences regarding the use of these terms in other national contexts, in France for example, notably the term ‘ghetto’ to depict stigmatised territories in the post-keynesian State.  The last part of the course will explore the many legacies of the Chicago school of sociology throughout the twentieth and 21st centuries with the works of sociologists such as Erving Goffman and Howard Becker. Thus, students will get the opportunity to familiarize themselves with symbolic interactionism and the sociology of deviance, in the light of the traditions established by the Chicago school of sociology. Students will also immerse themselves in contemporary ethnographies to explore the issues of urban marginality, race, gender and public space in the US today. Finally, students will also be presented with recent debates relating to the methods of ethnography and ethics. Overall, the course aims to present the methodologies and qualitative field study techniques that were pioneered by urban ethnographers in Chicago in the early 20th century, while providing students with a better historical and sociological understanding of key notions that are still in use today in the social sciences.

Course structure
 
Session Topic
1AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CHICAGO SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY
2URBAN ECOLOGY IN CHICAGO: CONCENTRIC ZONES IN THE CITY
3THEORIZING ASSIMILATION, RACE RELATIONS AND THE MARGINAL MAN
4CITY LIFE AND IMMIGRANTS’ NEIGHBORHOODS
5THE GHETTO AND ITS LEGACIES
6SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM AND ETHNOMETHODOLOGY
7AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVIANCE: SEX, GENDER AND SOCIAL NORMS IN NEIGHBORHOODS
8THE AMERICAN CITY TODAY: MAKING A PLACE FOR ONESELF
9ETHNOGRAPHIES OF GENTRIFICATION AND SOCIAL CLASS IN THE CITY
10SOCIOLOGY OF POLICE WORK: GOVERNING RACE AND PUBLIC SPACE
11METHODOLOGICAL COUNTERPOINTS: THE LIMITS OF ETHNOGRAPHY
12Final Exam

Compétence à acquérir :

The course is structured as an advanced reading seminar in English: students will be able to improve their oral and writing skills in English and acquire specialised vocabulary in English pertaining to the social sciences. Students will also learn about the methods of qualitative field study, their history as developed by researchers in the Chicago school of sociology.

Mode de contrôle des connaissances :

• Posting comments (20%). Students will post a short position paper about the assigned readings each week on the online forum on MyCourse dedicated to the course. Each week, students will be responsible for reading and taking notes on the assigned readings before coming to class. Students are asked to post their comments on the readings (3-4 lines) no later than 24 hours before the start of the course session. The comments are designed to provide students with the opportunity to raise any questions they might have on the readings before class. Students may criticize the texts, answer their fellow students (and thus bounce back on previous comments) or draw parallels with personal readings in the social sciences. The comments may also provide a short, detailed analysis of any section of the assigned readings.
• Curating the seminar (30%). A group of students will be required to present the assigned readings and to introduce the discussion. Students will be required to: 1. Present the document to the whole class 2. Analyze it carefully and provide some historical context and/or discuss the arguments 3. Wrap up their thoughts and ideas in a conclusion 4. Lead the discussion. The presentation should last around 20 minutes. It is recommended that presenters consult the online forum postings and engage with them as a way to start the discussion.
• Final exam (during week 12). Students will sit a written exam based on the readings and notions acquired during the class. (50%)

Bibliographie, lectures recommandées :

• Achilles, Nancy, “The Development of the Homosexual Bar as an Institution,” in Gagnon John H. and Simon William (dir.), Sexual Deviance, Harper & Row, 1967, p. 228-244.
• Anderson, Elijah. A Place on the Corner, University of Chicago Press, Second Edition, 2003.
• Becker, Howard. “Becoming a Marihuana User and Marihuana Use and Social Control, Chapters 3 and 4,” in Outsiders, The Sociology of Deviance, The Free Press, 1963, p.41-79.
• Bonilla, Yarimar and Jonathan Rosa. “#Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States,” American Ethnologist, vol. 42, n° 1, 2017, p. 4-17.
• Bourgois, Philippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Burgess, Ernest. “Th Growth of the City: an Introduction to a Research Project,” in Robert Ezra Park, Ernest Burgess and Roderick McKenzie, the City, University of Chicago Press, 1925.
• Cressey, Paul. The Taxi-Dance Hall, A Sociological Study in Commercialized Recreation and City Life, University of Chicago Press, Second Edition, 2008.
• Deener, Andrew. “Neighborhood Symbiosis,” in Mitchell Duneier, Philip Kasinitz and Alexandra K. Murphy (dir.), The Urban Ethnography Reader, Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 135-149.
• Duneier, Mitchell.  “Introduction,” in Sidewalk, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
• Duneier, Mitchell. Slim's Table: Race, Respectability and Masculinity, University of Chicago Press, 1994.
• Duneier, Mitchell. “How Not to Lie with Ethnography,” Methodological Sociology, vol. 41, n°1, 2011, p. 1-11.
• Garfinkel, Harold. Studies of the routine grounds of everyday activities, Prentice Hall, 1967.
• Foote Whyte, William. Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum, University of Chicago Press, 1943.
• Goffman, Alice, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, University of Chicago Press, 2014.
• Goffman Erving, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Prentice-Hall, 1963.
• Grazian, David. On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife. The University of Chicago Press, 2008.
• Hooker Evelyn, “The Homosexual Community,” in Gagnon John H. and Simon, William (dir.), Sexual Deviance, Harper & Row, 1967, p. 167-184.
• Joseph, Isaac. « Drames et Rituels », in Erving Goffman et la microsociologie, PUF, p. 51-69.
• Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. “The Trials of Alice Goffman,” The New York Times, Jan. 12, 2016, p. 23-31.
• Liebow, Elliot, Tally's Corner, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1967.
• Manalansan, Martin. “The Empire of Food: Place, Memory, and Asian ‘Ethnic' Cuisines,” in Gastropolis: Food and New York City, Columbia University Press, 2008, p. 93-107.
• Park, Robert Ezra. “The City as a Social Laboratory,” in Smith and White, An Experiment in Social Science Research, University of Chicago Press, 1929.
• Pattillo, Mary. Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City, The University of Chicago Press, 2007.
• Simmel, Georg. “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” in Richard Sennett (dir.), Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities, Prentice-Hall, pp. 47-60.
• Small, Mario. Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio and Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life, University of Chicago Press, 2004.
• Stuart, Forrest. Ballad of the Bullet: Gangs, Drill Music, and the Power of Online Infamy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020.
• Venkatesh, Sudhir. “Doin’ the Hustle’: Constructi