Re-examining Mary Douglas’ work on pollution and concepts of purity, this volume explores modern expressions of these themes in urban areas, examining the intersections of material and cultural pollution. It presents ethnographic case studies from a range of cities affected by globalization processes such as neoliberal urban policies, privatization of urban space, continued migration and spatialized ethnic tension. What has changed since the appearance of Purity and Danger? How have anthropological views on pollution changed accordingly? This volume focuses on cultural meanings and values that are attached to conceptions of ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’, purity and impurity, healthy and unhealthy environments, and addresses the implications of pollution with regard to discrimination, class, urban poverty, social hierarchies and ethnic segregation in cities.
Contents :
Introduction: Cultural and Material Forms of Urban Pollution - Rivke Jaffe and Eveline Dürr
‘Tidy Kiwis/Dirty Asians’: Cultural Pollution and Migration in Auckland, New Zealand - Eveline Dürr
Private Cleanliness, Public Mess: Purity, Pollution and Space in Kottar, South India - Damaris Lüthi
The Jungle and the City: Perceptions of the Urban among Indo-Fijians in Suva, Fiji - Susanna Trnka
Gendered Fears of Pollution: Traversing Public Space in Neoliberal Cairo - Anouk de Koning
The Choice between Clean and Dirty: Discourses of Aesthetics, Morality and Progress in Post-Revolutionary Asmari, Eritrea - Magnus Treiber
Using Pollution to Frame Collective Action: Urban Grassroots Mobilisations in Budapest - Szabina Kerényi
Cleanness, Order and Security: The Re-emergence of Restrictive Definitions of Urbanity in Europe - Johanna Rolshoven
Social Equity and Social Housing Densification in Glen Innes, New Zealand: A Political Ecology Approach - Kathryn Scott, Angela Shaw and Christina Bava
Afterword: Impure Thoughts on Messy Cities - Aidan Davison
Eveline Dürr is Professor at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Ludwig- Maximilians-University, Munich. Rivke Jaffe is Lecturer at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University.
