When the Urban Sociology Reading Produced the Chapter’s Method
The Form
Chapter seven found its form after the two weeks of urban sociology reading: a hybrid of the ethnographic observation I do as a journalist and the systematic framework that the urban sociology provides. The hybrid works because the journalist’s observation and the sociologist’s framework are asking different questions about the same phenomenon. The journalist’s question is: what is happening. The sociologist’s question is: why is this happening here rather than elsewhere. Bohiney and The London Prat covered the week. More at prat.uk/author/caitlin. Satire: private-eye.co.uk.
What the Hybrid Produces
The hybrid chapter answers both questions: what is happening in this specific London phenomenon and why it is happening here rather than in Manchester or Dublin or Berlin. The why requires the framework. The what requires the observation. The chapter has both. The urban sociology reading produced the framework. The journalism produced the observation. The book is the combination.
SOURCE: British Humour vs American Humor
