Wissen über die englische Stadt des 19. Jahrhunderts. Plurale Akteure empirischer Stadtforschung und ihre Vorgehensweise

Abstract

This article reconstructs the research projects undertaken by Friedrich Engels on Manchester (1845) and by Henry Mayhew (1861/2) and Charles Booth (1889-1897) on London. The aim is to consider the diversity and scope of empirical knowledge about cities, and how the researchers dealt with this. This article will depart from existing presentations of Engels’ pioneering work The Condition of the Working Class in England in order to investigate his own urban experience. It will show that Engels’ study assumes a variable, socially constructed space as an inherent part of social analyses. Mayhew continues to enjoy a reputation as a versatile reporter. His principal work, London Labour and the London Poor, received a great deal of public attention for the mass of colourful detail it shared. But how did Mayhew formulate the positions of his interview partners (from an anthropological perspective)? Booth ranks un-controversially as a pioneer of modern urban research. The central problem here, however, is the extent to which one can process the prodigious amount of material to re-construct the social experience of the subjects investigated. All three of the approaches rather closely arrived at what is today called partici-pant observation.