Synopses & Reviews
Philippe Bourgois's ethnographic study of social marginalization in inner-city America, won critical acclaim when it was first published in 1995. For the first time, an anthropologist had managed to gain the trust and long-term friendship of street-level drug dealers in one of the roughest ghetto neighborhoods East Harlem. This new edition adds a prologue describing the major dynamics that have altered life on the streets of East Harlem in the seven years since the first edition. In a new epilogue Bourgois brings up to date the stories of the people Primo, Caesat, Luis, Tony, Candy who readers come to know in this remarkable window onto the world of the inner city drug trade.
Review
"[R]ich interview and observational data is used to tell the stories of the residents....It is clear that Bourgois is a very skilled ethnographer and the book is testimony to that." Sociology
Synopsis
This new edition of Bourgois's ethnographic study of social marginalization in inner-city America adds a prologue describing changes in the 1990s that have altered life on the streets of East Harlem. A new epilogue brings up to date the stories of the dealers and denizens who readers come to know.
About the Author
Philippe Bourgois is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He has conducted fieldwork in Central America on ethnicity and social unrest and is the author of Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). He is writing a book on homeless heroin addicts in San Francisco.
Table of Contents
Preface to the 2001 second edition
Introduction
1. Violating apartheid in the United States
2. A street history of El Barrio
3. Crackhouse management: addiction, discipline, and dignity
4. 'Goin' legit': disrespect and resistance at work
5. School days: learning to be a better criminal
6. Redrawing the gender line on the street
7. Families and children in pain
8. Vulnerable fathers
9. Conclusion