The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and the City provides a comprehensive study of current and future urban issues on a global and local scale. Premised on an ‘engaged’ approach to urban anthropology, the volume adopts a thematic approach that covers a wide range of modern urban issues, with a particular focus on those of high public interest. Topics covered include security, displacement, social justice, privatisation, sustainability, and preservation. Offering valuable insight into how anthropologists investigate, make sense of, and then address a variety of urban issues, each chapter covers key theoretical and methodological concerns alongside rich ethnographic case study material. The volume is an essential reference for students and researchers in urban anthropology, as well as of interest for those in related disciplines, such as urban studies, sociology, and geography.

Like an ecosystem, cities develop, change, thrive, adapt, expand, and contract through the interaction of myriad components. Religion is one of those living parts, shaping and being shaped by urban contexts. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Cities is an outstanding interdisciplinary reference source to the key topics, problems, and methodologies of this cutting-edge subject. Representing a diverse array of cities and religions, the common analytical approach is ecological and spatial. It is the first collection of its kind and reflects state-of-the-art research focusing on the interaction of religions and their urban contexts. Comprising 29 chapters, by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into three parts: Research methodologies Religious frameworks and ideologies in urban contexts Contemporary issues in religion and cities Within these sections, emerging research and analysis of current dynamics of urban religions are examined, including: housing, economics, and gentrification; sacred ritual and public space; immigration and the refugee crisis; political conflicts and social change; ethnic and religious diversity; urban policy and religion; racial justice; architecture and the built environment; religious art and symbology; religion and urban violence; technology and smart cities; the challenge of climate change for global cities; and religious meaning-making of the city. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Cities is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and urban studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as sociology, history, architecture, urban planning, theology, social work, and cultural studies.

Increasing urbanization and increasing urban density put enormous pressure on the relationships between people and place in cities. Built environment professionals must pay attention to the impact of people–place relationships in small- to large-scale urban initiatives. A small playground in a neighborhood pocket park is an example of a small-scale urban development; a national environmental policy that influences energy sources is an example of a large-scale initiative. All scales of decision-making have implications for the people–place relationships present in cities. This book presents new research in contemporary, interdisciplinary urban challenges, and opportunities, and aims to keep the people–place relationship debate in focus in the policies and practices of built environment professionals and city managers. Most urban planning and design decisions, even those on a small scale, will remain in the urban built form for many decades, conditioning people’s experience of their city. It is important that these decisions are made using the best available knowledge. This book contains an interdisciplinary discussion of contemporary urban movements and issues influencing the relationship between people and place in urban environments around the world which have major implications for both the processes and products of urban planning, design, and management. The main purpose of the book is to consolidate contemporary thinking among experts from a range of disciplines including anthropology, environmental psychology, cultural geography, urban design and planning, architecture and landscape architecture, and the arts, on how to conceptualize and promote healthy people and place relationships in the 21st-century city. Within each of the chapters, the authors focus on their specific areas of expertise which enable readers to understand key issues for urban environments, urban populations, and the links between them.

The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor offers a cross-cultural examination of labor around the world and presents the breadth of a growing and vital subfield of anthropology. As we enter a new crisis-ridden age, some laboring people are protected, while others face impoverishment and death, as they work in unsafe conditions, migrate to gain livelihoods, languish in the unwaged sector, and become targets of law enforcement. The contributions to this volume address questions surrounding the categorization and visibility of work, the relationship of labor to the state, and how divisions of labor map onto racial, gendered, sexual, and national inequalities. In addition to the emotional dimensions and subjectivities of labor, the book also examines how laborers can articulate common experiences and identities, build organizational forms, and claim power together. Bringing together the work of an impressive group of international scholars, this Handbook is essential for anthropologists with an interest in labor and political economy, as well as useful for scholars and students in related fields such as sociology and geography.

The handbook presents a compendium of the diverse and growing approaches to place from leading authors as well as less widely known scholars, providing a comprehensive yet cutting-edge overview of theories, concepts and creative engagements with place that resonate with contemporary concerns and debates. The volume moves away from purely western-based conceptions and discussions about place to include perspectives from across the world. It includes an introductory chapter, which outlines key definitions, draws out influential historical and contemporary approaches to the theorisation of place and sketches out the structure of the book, explaining the logic of the seven clearly themed sections. Each section begins with a short introductory essay that provides identifying key ideas and contextualises the essays that follow. The original and distinctive contributions from both new and leading authorities from across the discipline provide a wide, rich and comprehensive collection that chimes with current critical thinking in geography. The book captures the dynamism and multiplicity of current geographical thinking about place by including both state-of-the-art, in-depth, critical overviews of theoretical approaches to place and new explorations and cases that chart a framework for future research. It charts the multiple ways in which place might be conceived, situated and practised. This unique, comprehensive and rich collection will be an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate teaching, for experienced academics across a wide range of disciplines and for policymakers and place-marketers. It will provide an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current thinking across the range of disciplines, such as Geography, Sociology and Politics, and interdisciplinary fields such as Urban Studies, Environmental Studies and Planning.

Discussions of street culture exist in a variety of academic disciplines, yet a handbook that brings together the diversity of scholarship on this subject has yet to be produced. The Routledge Handbook of Street Culture integrates and reviews current scholarship regarding the history, types, and contexts of the concept of street culture. It is comprehensive and international in its treatment of the subject of street culture. Street culture includes many subtypes, situations, locations, and participants, and these are explored in the various chapters included in this book. Street culture varies based on numerous factors including capitalism, market societies, policing, ethnicity, and race but also advances in technology. The book is divided into four major sections: Actors and street culture, Activities connected to street culture, The centrality of crime to street culture, and Representations of street culture. Contributors are well respected and recognized international scholars in their fields. They draw upon contemporary scholarship produced in the social sciences, arts, and humanities in order to communicate their understanding of street culture. The book provides a comprehensive and accessible approach to the subject of street culture through the lens of an inter- and/or multidisciplinary perspective. It is also intersectional in its approach and consideration of the subject and phenomenon of street culture.

The Routledge Handbook of Medical Anthropology provides a contemporary overview of the key themes in medical anthropology. In this exciting departure from conventional handbooks, compendia and encyclopedias, the three editors have written the core chapters of the volume, and in so doing, invite the reader to reflect on the ethnographic richness and theoretical contributions of research on the clinic and the field, bioscience and medical research, infectious and non-communicable diseases, biomedicine, complementary and alternative modalities, structural violence and vulnerability, gender and ageing, reproduction and sexuality. As a way of illustrating the themes, a rich variety of case studies are included, presented by over 60 authors from around the world, reflecting the diverse cultural contexts in which people experience health, illness, and healing. Each chapter and its case studies are introduced by a photograph, reflecting medical and visual anthropological responses to inequality and vulnerability. An indispensible reference in this fastest growing area of anthropological study, The Routledge Handbook of Medical Anthropology is a unique and innovative contribution to the field.