What’s in a word? Contextual diversity, urban ethnography and the linguistic limits of the street

This article takes to task a common assumption within Anglophone scholarship that conceives the street as a preeminent site of urban life, arguing that this sociological truism has worked to obscure the role of other spaces, terms and experiences across different historical, geographical and linguistic contexts. In response, and building on recent reappraisals in sociology of the work of Raymond Williams, the aim of this article is to analyse the street as a particular keyword and reflect on how a cultural materialist approach to lexical change can be incorporated into the practices of urban ethnography and translation. To develop its methodological argument, the article draws on the author’s research on Italian cities, where rather than the strada (street), the piazza and the vicolo (alleyway) have typically commanded a more prominent place in ideas about the public realm. At the same time, the disparate meanings of these two spatial forms attest to the uneven and disputed positions of different Italian cities within national urban culture. In conclusion, the article argues for greater attention to be paid to variations in language use vis-a-vis urban spatial forms as the prerequisite for a more incisive sociology of the street.