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Researching City Life
An Urban Field Methods Text Reader
Edited by:
- Tyler Schafer - California State University, Stanislaus
- Michael Ian Borer - University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA
May 2023 | 392 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
Researching City Life: An Urban Field Methods Text-Reader examines the city from a street level perspective and provides readers with tools to conduct research on urbanism—the everyday experiences of people in cities. Contending that culture is central to understanding urbanism, editors Tyler Schafer and Michael Ian Borer address qualitative research in cities and how it provides insights unable to be captured via quantitative methods. Carefully selected and edited readings cover participant observation, interviewing, narrative analysis, visual and sensory methods, and methods for (re)presenting the city. Each section includes an introduction from the editors, an original Reflection Essay from one of the authors included in the section, and exercises that prompt hands-on experience.
Tyler S. Schafer and Michael Ian Borer
Introduction: Researching Urban People and Places
Introduction: Part I: Being with Others in the City
Douglas M. Robins, Clinton R. Sanders, and Spencer E. Cahill
“Pet-Facilitated Interaction in a Public Setting.”
David A. Snow, Cherylon Robinson, and Patricia L. McCall
“‘Cooling Out’ Men in Singles Bars and Nightclubs: Observations on the Interpersonal Survival Strategies of Women in Public Places.”
Ranita Ray
“Exchange and Intimacy in the Inner City.”
Reuben A. Buford May and Mary Pattillo-McCoy
“Do You See What I See? Examining a Collaborative Ethnography.”
Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut
“Among the Colony: Ethnographic Fieldwork, Urban Bees and Intra-species Mindfulness.”
Ranita Ray
“Exchange and Intimacy in the Inner City: Rethinking Kinship Ties of the Urban Poor”
Introduction: Part II: Talking with Others in the City
Margarethe Kusenbach
“The Go-Along as Ethnographic Research Tool.”
Jason Patrick De Leon and Jeffrey H. Cohen
“Object and Walking Probes in Ethnographic Interviewing.”
Jamie Suki Chang
“The Docent Method: A Grounded Theory Approach for Researching Place and Health.”
Phil Jones and James Evans
“Rescue Geography: Place making, Affect and Regeneration.”
Stefano Bloch
“Place-Based Elicitation: Interviewing Graffiti Writers at the Scene of the Crime."
Margarethe Kusenbach
“On the Heels of the Go-Along”
Introduction Part III: Stories from the City
Jaber F. Gubrium
“Local Culture”
Elijah Anderson
“Going Straight: The Story of a Young Inner-City Ex-Convict.”
Timothy A. Simpson
“Streets, Sidewalks, Stores, and Stories: Narrative and Uses of Urban Space.”
Robin Patric Clair
“Narratives in the Old Neighborhood: An Ethnographic Study of an Urban Neighborhood’s Stories.”
Richard E. Ocejo
“From Apple to Orange: Narratives of Small City Migration and Settlement Among the Urban Middle Class.”
Jonathan R. Wynn
“The Hobo to Doormen: The Characters of Qualitative Analysis, Past and Present.”
Jonathan R. Wynn
“Thoughts on “The Hobo to Doormen: The Characters of Qualitative Analysis, Past and Present”
Introduction Part IV: Visualizing the City
Sarah Pink
“Ways of Seeing, Knowing, and Showing”
Nikki Jones and Geoffrey Raymond
“ ‘The Camera Rolls’: Using Third-Party Video in Field Research.”
Michael Ian Borer
“Visualizing Gendered Sports Fandom.”
Anne M. Cronin
“Researching Urban Space, Reflecting on Advertising: A Photo Essay.”
Introduction Part V: Sensing the City
Kelvin E.Y. Low
“The Sensuous City: Sensory Methodologies in Urban Ethnographic Research.”
Sarah Pink
“An Urban Tour: The Sensory Sociality of Ethnographic Place-Making.”
Elizabeth L. Sweet and Sara Ortiz Escalante
“Bringing Bodies Into Planning: Visceral Methods, Fear and Gender Violence.”
Walter S. Gershon
“Vibrational Affect: Sound Theory and Practice in Qualitative Research.”
Miriam Simun
“My Music, My World: Using the MP3 Player to Shape Experience in London.”
Sarah Pink
“Reflections on an Urban Tour”
Introduction Part VI: Representing the City
Stephanie Coontz
“Putting on a Public Face.”
Nirmal Puwar
“Social Cinema Scenes.”
Johnny Saldaña
“Dramatizing Data: A Primer.”
LeighAnna Hidalgo
“Augmented Fotonovelas: Creating New Media as Pedagogical and Social Justice Tools.”
Michael J. Cermak
“Teaching a Hip-Hop Ecology.”
Nirmal Puwar
“Reflections on ‘Social Cinema Scenes’”