Question - write an essay on the main aspect of ecological approach.

Discuss its decline

and resurgence with the help of the five illustrations.

Answer- Ulf Hannerz in his essay “Chicago Ethnographers” highlights ecological

perspectives to understand the city. Hannerz draws upon the urban perspectives of other
disciplines as well, such as history, sociology, and geography, to bring intellectual unity
to the history and development of urban anthropology. This branch was heavily
influenced by the Chicago school and Hannerz tries to trace through his study on urban
anthropology. He describes that people from eastern states and Europe migrated to
Chicago to get a share of money in the meat-packing industry, steel works, wheat
exchanges etc. Hannerz says that this volatile chicago was also a point of entry to
the west, but towards the end of the 19th century, the attraction faded.

The first department of sociology opened in The University of Chicago in 1892 where
William Issac Thomas attempted to wage the gap between Grand philosophical theories
and the Social Survey approach. He proposed the theoretical orientation of the
“participants’ perspective” and a complementary method of analyzing the personal
documents that reflect personal experiences of the people being studied/researched. In the
University of Chicago, Robert Park wrote extensively on issues of immigration, race and
urbanism and his background helped him see Urbanism both from a grand perspective
and from a micro level. He conceived the idea of a city as a liberate force and tried to
understand the real essence of it from his own experiences. A certain superficiality in
urban interactions and urban relationships was a core concern of many scholars of the
Chicago School. The diversity in city allowed different types of collectivities to sustain
and flourish enabling to them to form moral collectives. These were called “social
worlds” or “moral regions” in the city. Based on these observations, the idea of “human
ecology” emerged and the key notion of the ecological thesis was that different spatial
zones have a characteristic social composition and a moral quality to themselves.
Park also reflected the changing patterns in a series of paper of “Human Ecology”, in
which he showed the stratum of human life in which people tended to behave like other
living things, a ‘subsocial’ or ‘biotic’ stratus where competition was the basic form of co-
existence, and also for space. The strongest inhabitants of the urban environment world
occupy the most advantageous locations.
Hannerz highlights the model of the city given by Burgess The zones are believed to
“compete” with each other for dominance. The most powerful zones occupies the most
advantageous locations while the less powerful ones adjust. Ernst Burgess took this thesis
to the next level by giving the theory of ideal-type conception of city space as represented
in spiral of “concentric circles”.
as a series of concentric circles. Inside the first circle was the central business district in
Chicago and “the loop”- with the highest land values. The second circle contained a
“zone in transition” which was invaded from the centre by business and light industry.
Burgess work has also faced a lot of criticism because of the interpretation, whether they
were true only for Chicago or for any other industrial city. A separation between work
and residence, also ignored that travel in the city would be much more inconvenient.
Burgess in particular devoted classes in
‘Social pathology” for such map making. Park had doubts about neglecting qualitative
data. Hannerz draws attention to fivr best known studies.

Spatiality remains a special focus in the Chicago school of urbanism. It emphasises upon
the adjustment and cultural communication that is involved in any urban setting with its
power dynamics of domination/displacement/belonging and marginalisation. The socio-
psychological dimensions of this adjustment and of conflicts are always noted by the
Chicago scholars.

1. Nel Andersons’ --- The Hobo (1923): Anderson undertook an extensive study of the
hoboes in Chicago, a category of migrant transitory workers. Chicago was known as
the ‘hobo capital’ for it was the space where thousands of migrant workers passed
through and was a major transitional zone for the hoboes. Chicago was also the
central terminal for many trains and thus the areas around these track junctions were
inhabited by the hoboes. Anderson focused on a more settled space – the hobohemia
– where squatter settlements as well as cheap lodging houses engaged in interactions.
However out of the large number of migrant workers some were seasonal farm
workers, some hobo, some tramp—lived through begging and stealing, some home
guards—ill paid workers and some were called the Bum— who neither worked nor
migrated. Some of the reasons for this migration was: a search for new experience,
forced unemployment, physical and mental disability, and alcoholism and drug abuse.
Most of the women in these areas, alhtough few in numbers were unmarried. The
hoboes engaged with the local economy through -- cheap eateries, hotels,
pawnbrokers and employment agents of the area and spent time by strolling or
window shopping. The prevalence of a special vocabulary common among the
hoboes helps them find stability in this life of constant flux and deal with the fast
changing component of community. For example: “jungle buzzard” (lives by begging
and doing small chores for food). There also existed some organisation which were
 made for or by the hoboes for their rights and rehabilitation. Eg: The Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW). However the overall account of the hobo life in this
ethnography is felt to be romanticized.

2. Frederic M. Thrasher’s --- The Gang (1927): This study focused on the gangs
proliferating in Chicago during the1920s. This was based on primary and secondary data
– newspapers, documents shared by the gang members, and some first-hand observations
by Thrasher in a quantitative manner. The group sizes ranged from 3 members to others
having thousands members. The spatiality plays an important role in this study, with the
zone of transition being the land where these gangs originated. As people moved out of
these gang-zones the impact of gangs reduced or ‘evaporated’. Along with the force of
spatial qualities, the group characters played a parallel role in creation of the gang-zone.
For example, Poles, Italians had more gangs compared to Jews and Germans. The
economic competition and organizational qualities (tendency for homogeneity) of an
ethnic group also have an impact on the probability of it participating in gang culture.
Neighbourhoods with ethic diversity combined with competition were a fertile ground for
gang conflicts. A social engineering existed in the creation and perpetuation of gangs
through the situation of these gangs combined with machine politics and prevalence of
organised crime. Gangs could be classified depending upon the degrees of violence
displayed and loyalty to the gang. Overall, the gangs represent a sections coming to
terms with the failed support systems – family, school, state, other social systems.

3. Louis Wirth’s --- The Ghetto (1928): Wirth analyses the spatial aspects of a
neighborhood of Chicago through the lens of immigration and broader politico-social
history of a community. The ghetto is an exposition of the life of immigrant Jewish
community which moved to America to escape from the oppressive and exploitative
circumstances. It was both a sanctuary as well as a marker of discrimination with its
internal mechanism of operation. The others perceived it to be a corporate community
having its own religious, legal, social institution with a sense of comfort and keeping a
check on its member’s conduct. The European ghettos of the Jews had two variations –
the Western Ghetto(more attached to mainstream society) and the Eastern Ghetto.(Self
contained community with mysticism as central discourse). The American ghetto reflects
both these traits in a peculiar way. Some Jewish immigrants who were better placed
moved straight to the established, flourishing neighbourhoods while others stayed
initially in the ghetto and eventually moved to the mainstream neighbourhoods. Wirth
sees an ecological dimension in this pattern of settlement. The ghetto community saw
those who preferred to stay out of the ghetto as disengaged from the Jewish roots. Terms
like Menschen was for Jews who were successful and yet didn’t compromise their
Jewishness. Yet, the ghetto community and the non-ghetto groups had a certain affinity
through Humanitarian ideals of the Jewish Community, Ethnic commonality and
community, and their attention to their identity as a community. The ghetto represented –
accommodation and when inhabitants felt inspired to move out of the ghetto – it was a
sign of assimilation. Etzioni however critiqued the emphasis on the spatial dimension of a
situated community as for him, community is the prime source of assimilation.

4. Harvey W. Zorbaugh’s – The Gold Coast and the Slum (1929): This study focuses
on urban communities of Lower North side Chicago. He identifies 6 distinct areas in this
zone which comprise of an eclectic spectrum of urban communities and calls them
‘natural areas.’ He unlike the other ethnographers includes one of the most privileged
urban communities of Chicago. The 6 areas were: a) Gold Coast: inhabited by the “self-
conscious upper class of the city, they had a very guarded community with a caste like
stringency placed on practices and reputations. b)The Rooming House Zone: It was
residence to the service providers to the Gold Coast having a transient quality. c) The
Bohemian Quarter: This was a zone with a inhabitants who had an intellectual and often a
radical bent of mind. It consisted of bookstores, artists’ studios, cafes, restaurants. This
was also a transient community. d) The business and entertainment area: It was lined with
bars, dance halls, cabarets, cheap lodging houses, pawn shops and restaurants and the
visitors were the singles of the rooming zone, panhandlers, criminals, etc. e) The slum:
Most of the inhabitants were economically, physically and mentally downtrodden who
were either permanent or transient. It also included working class people from ethnic
minority community. f) The little Sicily: This Italian community organised its community
life along the practices followed back in the home city such as control over women, close
family ties. It also had links with political machine and organised crime.

5. Paul G. Cressey’s --- The Taxi Dance Hall (1932): The taxi-dance halls and dance
schools were emergent locations in urban America from early 1900s mostly in low rent
areas. These halls were seen as places for hired female companions for dancing – the
customers being mostly working-class men. The owners were mostly Greek-Americans
who associated their entrepreneurial interest with their high geographical mobility and
aptitude for business opportunities even it didn’t carry much prestige. The taxi dance girls
were mostly young girls who liked the monetary benefits and social thrill that dancing
provided. They came from broken families, were immigrants and changed their names to
camouflage their identity. The customers included hoboes, workers, small businessmen,
sometimes from higher strata as well, immigrants, and there were several who were
suffering from some form of deformity. They treated this hall as a convent place to find
feminine companions.

The ethnographic works, however, have not missed out on the developments across the
field and have only focused on Chicago because of their relatively recent dates. The
ethnographies were abundant, but they lacked analytical evaluation, except from this.
Robert Park was an exception to this, although the succeeding Chicago School
ethnographers did not successfully adopt his views. He accepted the ecological viewpoint
while also advancing to a broader sociological comprehension. Hannerz claims that the
majority of Chicago researchers placed more emphasis on the practical side of urban
living and viewed unconventionality as a sign of disorganisation. Responses to the
ecological perspective were conflicting. As it restricted the spatial dynamics, it was
viewed as a poor analogy.
The ethnographic works by Chicago school may have faced some criticisms as discussed
above, but it still remains a good body of work that provides a ground reality perspective
on urban phenomena