Abstract
Urban anthropology is a discipline that has struggled to become alive. Its origin, within the Sociology department of the Chicago School, places the discipline in a position of dependence on urban sociology. However, the ethnographic approach of the Chicago School was short-lived and was swallowed up by statistical and quantitative sociology, which was to become dominant for a long time. For their part, anthropologists arrived late to the city, in the 1960s, and when they arrived, they hesitated between doing anthropology in the city or urban anthropology. It was in the 1970s and 1980s that an attempt was made to draw up an epistemological framework for urban anthropology, which entered the 21st century without a clear object of study. This is the diagnosis of the problem on which urban philosopher Henri Lefebvre can shed some light. Using excerpts from my own ethnographies as an example, the present text makes an anthropological re-reading of some Lefebvrian concepts such as "lived space" and "everyday life", highlighting their socially transformative character; likewise, through a series of epistemological reflections, the intention is to advance in the formulation of some relevant methodological conclusions for the sake of construction of an urban ethnography with a critical perspective.
Key words:
Urban anthropology; Henri Lefebvre; urban ethnography; lived space; ethnographic theory