CSER W3943x or y Urban Ethnography 4 pts. This advanced seminar will focus on urban ethnography, examining the significance of place to daily practices, social relations, and broader social norms. Students will explore the processes of urban life, the ways in which individuals and places shape one another, by reading contemporary urban ethnographies and conducting their own fieldwork projects. Focusing on the global moment, the readings will underscore the urban as a process that brings together�and redefines�diverse groups of people. The course will also emphasize knowledge production, how the ways we study the city inform its shape, categorizing its different populations and affecting how they relate to another. Urban ethnography began in an attempt to understand the pathologies of city life, often honing in on marginalized and minority groups. These assumptions of pathology endured, influencing not just whom ethnographers studied, but the questions they asked, and in fact, their conclusions. Including an important fieldwork component, this course allows students firsthand experience in the process of knowledge production and underscores the importance of these processes to the ways we see and understand social life.