Urban ethnography, an interdisciplinary field of knowledge?

Abstract

Urban Ethnography is a method and a scientific approach, used by social and human scientists from diverse areas. Anthropologists practice ethnography, and tend to maintain it as a specific skill, but it is also practiced by other researchers, often trained by anthropologists. This article presents the case of Portuguese Urban Ethnography. The History of this methodology is international, since it grew under strong relations between Portugal, Spain and Brasil, and to a less extent, with the United States and France. It is also interdisciplinary – linked mostly with Anthropology, Sociology, and History, but also with Geography, Architecture, and Political Science. On the other hand, Urban Ethnography as a methodological field is not self-assured. To what extent is Urban Ethnography interdisciplinary? And what about its practitioners? Who are they and what links them together? The paper will contribute to answering these questions, following recent results from qualitative research based on interviews and Curricula analysis about Portuguese Urban Ethnography.