Introduction: The Political Materiality of Cities

Abstract

ow can urban anthropology understand rule and belonging in the city? Where is urban politics located and how do we recognize it? In this special issue, we suggest that a focus on materiality might help us understand the relation between cities and political processes in new ways. Anthropologists have long understood cities as important political arenas and as key sites in the formation of political communities (e.g. Holston 1999). Such ethnographic work has shown how urban politics is located across diverse social spaces, from official government buildings to the space of the street, and in a range of everyday practices and more spectacular events. Urban anthropologists frequently study the role of elected officials and bureaucrats (e.g. Lazar 2007; Anjaria 2011), and increasingly also study the role of non-state actors-from social movements and corporations to churches and criminal organizationsin urban governance and negotiations of citizenship (e.g. Jaffe 2013; Lanz and Oosterbaan 2016).