Abstract
Prato looks at how the problematic of incommensurability has affected the debate in urban anthropology. She advocates a rethinking of the city in terms of ‘urban community’ in the Weberian sense; that is, as an ideal-type that embraces the meanings of urbs, polis and civitas. This is a community that promotes political and civic participation and provides an environment functional to good government. She argues that, taken together, these three analytical categories would bring out the complexity of contemporary cities. Although such an ideal-type may be possible only in free democratic society, she adds, its comparative potential may well provide the basis for a theoretically relevant ethnographic analysis that makes commensurable the apparently incommensurable. She addresses the significance of political programmes and grassroots action to urban socio-economic life, looking at two urban realities that were affected by the changes occurring in Europe between the late 1980s and early 1990s; they are, respectively, Brindisi in Italy and the Durrës–Tirana metropolitan region in Albania. These ethnographies bring out the democratic role that local administrations can play in facilitating the participation of citizens in decision-making. They also highlight how ethnographic research can contribute significantly to our understanding of how abstract models are negotiated at the local level.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In brief, I collected my ethnography through participant observation and the construction of case studies of relevant people and events.
- 2.
I did six months of preliminary fieldwork between 1987 and 1988; 15 months extended fieldwork in 1989–1991, several updating field trips at regular intervals, and undertook new extended field research in 2012.
- 3.
Following the judicial enquires of the 1990s into tangentopoli (bribesville), most established parties fell apart. Only the Communists and Movimento Sociale (Social Movement) remained unscathed; they were renamed respectively Democratic Party of the Left and National Alliance. Since then the names and compositions of political coalitions have continuously changed. The names of political groups used in this chapter refer to the pre-tangentopoli parties, unless otherwise specified.
- 4.
ENEL was privatized in 1999, following the liberalization of the electricity market in Italy . It is now a multinational and, as of 2015, the Italian government owns 25.5 per cent of shares.
- 5.
Brindisi has been an important commercial and military port since Roman times. This is reflected in the city’s emblem, which reproduces the Roman column and the antlers of a stag. The name of Brindisi is said to derive from the Messapic word brunda for deer; the stag’s antlers reflect the natural shape of the port.
- 6.
For example, the Brindisi city council was not consulted in the decision-making process regarding the construction of the new power station. Moreover, the outcome of a popular consultation on this matter was disregarded by the regional and national governments.
- 7.
The Italian word cornuto/a (horned head) is a metaphor for cuckold.
- 8.
At the previous election of 1985, the Communists had won six seats in the town council. In 1990, the IpC List managed to elect five town councillors, of whom only two were from the Communist component.
- 9.
Tellingly, on this occasion, the logos of IpC (for the town council election) and of the PCI (for the election of the province council and the regional assembly) were branded together under the motto, ‘Vote the new PCI’.
- 10.
I carried out preliminary fieldwork in Albania in 1999 and more extended fieldwork in 2000, 2003 and 2006, followed by several updating field trips.
- 11.
Administrative decentralization is a key aspect of the distribution of power (Prato 2011).
- 12.
Thirty-five per cent of Albania’s enterprises are located in the Durrës –Tirana region, 60 per cent of foreign investments are made in this area, and it is estimated that 1 million people live there.
References
Bardhoshi, Nebi. 2011. An Ethnography of Land Market in Albania’s Post-socialist Informal Areas. Urbanities 1 (1): 11–20.
CLC (Cattolici e Laici per il Cambiamento). 1985. Electoral Programme.
IpC (Insieme per la Citta). 1990. Electoral Programme.
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pardo, Italo. 1993. Socialist Visions, Naples and the Neapolitans: Value Control and Representation in the Agency/Structure Relationship. Journal of Mediterranean Studies 3 (1): 77–98.
———. 1996. Managing Existence in Naples: Morality, Action and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2000. When Power Lacks Legitimacy: Relations of Politics and Law to Society in Italy. In Morals of Legitimacy: Between Agency and System, ed. I. Pardo, 83–106. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
———. 2012. Exercising Power without Authority: Powerful Elite Implode in Urban Italy. In Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory, ed. Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato, 53–78. Farnham: Ashgate.
Polanyi, Michael. 1958. Personal Knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Prato, Giuliana B. 1993. Political Decision-Making: Environmentalisms, Ethics and Popular Participation in Italy. In Environmentalism: The View from Anthropology, ed. Kay Milton, 174–188. London: Routledge.
———. 1995. Political Representation and New Forms of Political Action in Italy: The Case of Brindisi. University of London. Available at: Ethos.bl.uk
———. 2000. The Cherries of the Mayor: Degrees of Morality and Responsibility in Local Italian Administration. In Morals of Legitimacy: Between Agency and System, ed. Italo Pardo, 57–82. Oxford: Berghahn.
———. 2011. The ‘Costs’ of European Citizenship: Governance and Relations of Trust in Albania. In Citizenship and the Legitimacy of Governance. Anthropology in the Mediterranean Region, ed. I. Pardo and G.B. Prato, 133–151. Farnham: Ashgate.
———. 2012. Anthropological Research in Brindisi and Durrës: Methodological Reflections. In Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory, ed. I. Pardo and G.B. Prato, 79–100. London: Routledge.
———. 2014. From Nation-State to European Integration: Ideological Constructions of Border Cooperation. In The New European Frontiers, ed. M. Bufon, J. Minghi, and A. Paasi, 24–42. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars.
———. 2015. Polis, Urbs et Civitas. Un regard d’anthropologue. Diogène 251–252: 12–27.
———. 2016. View of Migrants and Foreign Residents: A Comparative European Perspective. In Migration of Rich Immigrants, ed. C. Rial and A. Vailati, 179–198. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2017. Changing Urban Landscape in Albania. In Diversity and Local Contexts: Urban Space, Borders and Migration, ed. Jerome Krase and Zdenek Uherek, 17–37. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Prato, Giuliana B., and Italo Pardo. 2013. Urban Anthropology. Urbanities 3 (2): 79–110.
Weber, Max. 1958 [1921]. The City (Don Martindale and Gertrud Neuwirth, Trans. and Ed.). Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Prato, G.B. (2018). Rethinking the City as Urban Community: Views from South Europe. In: Pardo, I., Prato, G. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Ethnography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64289-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64289-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64288-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64289-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)