New Lives in Anand

Social and cultural anthropology;Social classes;Isla

New Lives in Anand

Social and cultural anthropology;Social classes;Isla

Empty homes: filming homeownership in rapidly urbanising China

With 22 per cent of its housing stock vacant, China has the highest vacancy rate in the world. Yet Chinese cities are marked by constant expansion and the construction of high-rise buildings. Why are all these ‘empty homes’ being built? And what moves people to buy homes in which they cannot live? In this article, we explore these questions through a filmmaking project embedded in long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Wuhan. The film Empty Home, included in this article, focuses on the social and symbolic aspects of home- and city-making, revealing the importance of homeownership for mobile Chinese families in a rapidly transforming society. This article views the real-estate market as an important site for constructing citizen-state relations and argues that the symbolic and social significance of empty homes is crucial for understanding the deep meanings of the Chinese state’s drive for urban expansion and Chinese citizens’ desire to become homeowners. In addition to contributing to knowledge about Chinese homemaking, the article shows how using filmmaking in ethnographic fieldwork can strengthen the research process

Worlding cycling: an anthropological agenda for urban cycling research

ABSTRACTThis article carves out a role for anthropologists in cycling research and develops the outlines of a research agenda for urban cycling in the discipline of anthropology. Recently, scholars of urban cycling have questioned the predominant focus on renowned European cycling cities, cautioning against the danger of universalising European experiences in cycling research, and proposing to instead start worlding cycling research. The term worlding is used to describe the aim of theorizing from the global South as an alternative to the idea that European theories are universal. I respond to this call from the perspective of anthropology; a discipline that has developed frameworks, methods, and findings that challenge Eurocentric universalism and centralise the experiences of the global South. I suggest that anthropologists can support the project of worlding cycling research and in its turn, that cycling research may be an original pathway for conducting fundamental research in anthropology. To realise this mutual potential, what is needed is a transformation of both cycling research and anthropology: on the one hand the critical rethinking of some of the hierarchies of expertise presumed in cycling research, and on the other hand a transformation of some long-established methodological practices in anthropology

Middling migration: Contradictory mobility experiences of Indian youth in London

In this paper we examine the contradictory migration experiences of Indian youth who recently moved to Britain on a student or temporary work visa and discuss the perspectives of their middle-class families in Gujarat. Like many young people in developing countries, our informants dreamed of going to the West to earn money and improve their prospects at home but ended up in low-status, semi-skilled jobs to cover their expenses, living in small guesthouses crammed with newly arrived migrants. Why did these young people leave India and go to London and what do they get by moving abroad? Based on research in London and Gujarat, our findings show that the decision to migrate is shaped by a combination of individual and social motivations. These young people moved to London not only to earn money and gain new experiences but also to escape family pressures by living away from their parents. Their parents encourage them, though they are aware of the difficulties their children face in London. They regard the migration as a requisite precautionary strategy to maintain their status as middle-class families in India, thereby safeguarding the next generation’s future prospects