Metropolitan Ethnographies

A Series Edited by Jeff Maskovsky and Hilary Cunningham 

The theoretical, political, and economic grounds for studying cities are in flux, and new ethnographic approaches are poised to move the field of urban studies forward in exciting directions. The Metropolitan Ethnographies series will serve as an intellectual space in which important theoretical and political discussions about the nature of urbanism take place. Books in the series will infuse studies of culture and political economy with a thoroughly ethnographic perspective to contribute a new understanding of 21st century urbanism. Titles will offer fine-grained ethnographic analyses of the systemic forces, power relations, and spatial dynamics that form the foundations for how cities work. Projects on metropolises and their environs from across the globe (including North America ) will be strongly encouraged, as will studies that offer comparative and multi-sited analyses of urban norms and forms. 

Two different types of books will be published in the series:

Anchor books, which are broadly focused, cutting edge statements on emerging topics in the field.  Organized as single- or multi-authored extended essays, they will be specifically designed to demonstrate the contribution of ethnography to a variety of urban topics.  Examples of the themes we envision for these books include:

•Urban Social Movements

•Urban Security

•Sustainable Cities and Environmental Justice

•The Global City and Global Justice

•Cities and Racism

•Urban Class Cultures

•Cities, Citizenship and Civil Society

•The Suburban

In addition to anchor books, the series will consist of single-authored, ethnographic work that advances the field theoretically and empirically. Topics might include:

•The Politics of Urban Economic Development

•The Cultural Politics of Protest in Urban Areas

•The Corporatization of Urban Higher Education

•Gentrification and Environmental Justice

•Neoracism and Neoliberalism

•Urbanization and The Prison Industry

•Immigrant Rights and Urban Culture on the West Coast

•Transnational Labor Movements and Urban Immigration

While working collaboratively with both established and up-and-coming authors, the editors will endeavor to have all contributors bring new insights to the subject matter. A signal feature of the series is that it will take political economy, contemporary urban realities, and urban sustainability as core problematics. As new global forms of government, culture, economy and politics transform the urban landscape, there is a vital need for new critical work on cities and their environs.  The books that comprise Metropolitan Ethnographies will build on and expand the critical anthropological tradition and, in doing so, offer important work that seeks to define the debates and issues in the field.

Please send inquiries to:

Jeff Maskovsky (Jeff_Maskovsky@qc.edu) and Hilary Cunningham (hilary.cunningham@utoronto.ca).

Series Editors

Jeff Maskovsky is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at Queens College and teaches in the Ph.D. Program in Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center . He currently serves as President of the Society for the Anthropology of North. Hilary Cunningham is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto.