In this course we will explore a number of key strands in contemporary anthropological approaches to the city and urban life. Lectures will be based around topics including: global cities, ghettos and ethnic enclaves, cosmopolitan spaces and translocalities, urban consumer cultures, transnational migrant workers, monuments and the memorialisation of the past, the gendered city, the postcolonial city, and the city in war.

The course will engage with some challenging and exciting cultural theory, and will focus primarily on cities in Southeast and East Asia, as well as Asian Diasporas in Australian and North American cities. We will look at ethnographic and historical case studies based in locations including Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Los Angeles and New York.

By negotiation: 6,000 words

Two hours of lectures and one hour of tutorial per week

*Forbes, D.K. Asian Metropolis: Urbanisation and the Southeast Asian City, Oxford University Press, 1995.
*Low, S.M. and Lawrence-Zuniga, D. The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture, Blackwell Pub, 2003.