about 1.1

Metropolis 347 started in January 2006 as the media outlet for an urban anthropology class taught by Joshua Barker at the University of Toronto. As a group blog dedicated to thoughtful, playful, and informative reflection on city cultures and urban life, the blog was expanded to include graduate students, community activists, and others interested in sharing knowledge about cities in general. In January of 2007, students from another metropolis class at the University of Washington in Seattle began contributing their perspectives. The Metropolis blog gets even more cosmopolitan.

editors/admin

Joshua Barker
Barker is an urban anthropologist who has conducted research on policing, urban planning, and techno-subcultures in Bandung and Jakarta, Indonesia. This blog first emerged from a course he teaches at the University of Toronto.

Sharon Kelly
Sharon is a graduate student at the University of Toronto. She is examining the redevelopment of two sites in Toronto to determine how current planning discourses attempt to integrate stigmatized populations into the urban environment through a "normalization" of their relation to public space.

Chris Brown
Chris is an anthropologist who works with people who make a living on the streets of Surabaya. He has conducted research about streets, children, and practices of visibility and mediation. He also works with people living on the streets of Surabaya's sister city, Seattle.

Frequent Contributors

Graham
Graham is in his final year at the University of Toronto, studying social-cultural anthropology. He is interested in the emerging field of video game studies. Other important interests are Guinness and hockey.

Anthony
Anthony was raised on the suckle of wolves along with his twin brother, and is destined to become leader of the next great empire. But for now he is a third-year political science and anthropology student trying to find his place in the suburban environment that he has called home his whole life.

Han
Born in Vietnam and raised primarily in Brampton, Han holds a Bsc degree from the University of Toronto and is currently pursuing a BA. He intends to pursue graduate studies after the completion of his second degree, most likely in the field of medicine.

More bios coming soon