ABU-LUGHOD, JANET

b. 3 August 1928, Newark, New Jersey

Key works
(1989) Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D., New York: Oxford University Press.
(1999) New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America’s Global Cities, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

   Abu-Lughod’s distinguished career as academic, author and practitioner devoted to processes of social change has spanned fifty years and has included positions in both the United States and the Middle East. Upon receiving her BA from the University of Chicago, Janet held positions as director of research for the American Society of Planning Officials (1950–52), research associate at the University of Pennsylvania, consultant and author for the American Council to Improve Our Neighborhoods (1954–57), and assistant professor at the American University in Cairo. Returning to the United States, Janet completed her Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts and assumed a position as professor of sociology at Northwestern University. Upon retirement from Northwestern, she moved to New York to direct REALM, Urban Research Center at the New School for Social Research. She retired again and has held visiting and short-term teaching appointments at Bosphorous University in Istanbul and on the International Honors Program at the University of Cairo.

   Abu-Lughod has received over a dozen prestigious national government and philanthropic fellowships and grants to write and practice in the areas of demography, urban planning, urban sociology, economic and social development, world systems, and urbanization in the United States, the Middle East and the Third World. Her numerous publications include books, several hundred reviews, short pieces, limited circulation reports and monographs. Many of her articles have been reprinted in various collections of readings.

   Abu-Lughod approaches the economic and social development of global cities not only with a scholarly understanding of the patterns and developments but also with a commitment to seeing and acting on possibilities for constructive social change. The span of her work goes from historical studies of medieval cities, to the analysis of the diffusion of global economies to cities in both the Western and the Arab world, to micro-level studies of territoriality and social change.

Further reading
(1991) Changing Cities: Urban Sociology, New York: HarperCollins.
(1994) From Urban Village to East Village: The Battle for New York’s Lower East Side, Oxford: Blackwell.
(1999) Sociology for the 21st Century: Continuities and Cutting Edges, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

✍️ DAVID C PROSPERI