COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN OAK PARK: COMPETING AGENDAS ...

Chapter 2
THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
“Social scientists use theories and concepts to help them grasp, order, analyze,
and understand the nature of the societies, cultures, and sociocultural formations with
which they are confronted” (Bond 1981:228). In contemporary anthropology
“ethnographers grapple with the issues of reflexivity and the incorporation of voices, the
hierarchies of ‘otherness,’” and suggest that with “the imposition and creation of
identities of color, gender, nation, and foreignness, certain messages emerge clearly”
(Susser 1996:428). Urban ethnographers typically embed themselves in a local setting or
community with the purpose of learning about the people residing there. While
participating in the daily routine of a group of people, they observe and detail daily
activities. From these observations, “ethnographers attempt to tease from the tangled
threads of social life, insights that will make a contribution to social theory” (Stoller
1994:354).
Contemporary anthropological studies of the inner-city employ participant
observation as a method of uncovering and explaining the adaptations and
accommodations of urban populations to microenvironments (Low 2002:2). Many of
these studies focus predominantly on the center, producing ethnographies of culturally
significant places such as markets (Bestor 2001), housing projects (MacLeod 1987),
gardens (Rotenburg 1995), plazas (Low 1996a), convention centers (Lindquist 2006),
waterfront developments (Williams 2001), and homeless shelters (Lyon-Callo 2000) that
articulate macro- and micro- urban processes (Low 2001:45). The “otherness” of people
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