AN241 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Roman Empire, Sub-Saharan Africa, Harappa
Document Summary
Week #1: introduction to the city january 5, 2016. City and urban are virtual synonyms: city is finite, urban a term that denotes equality of existence and space. Space" refers to the material physicality involved. Life" represents the sociality of anthropological emphasis. The term urban" is, of course, a synonym for the city". The two other terms in the title refer to primary anthropological concerns, place" standing in for the physicality involved, and life" representing the essentially social aspect with which we are concerned as anthropologists. Other disciplines, many current practitioners refer to it as the built environment". It is always good to begin with simple definition before complicating the picture. On a historical basis, the evolution of ideas of what a city means has much to do with a particular dichotomy, or separation: A list of dichotomies presents us with a definite set of assumptions as much as perspectives .
