In Search of Respect : Selling Crack in El Barrio (Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences)

Rating:
Summary: Experienced-
Review: Buy this book ! Want to live on crack street for a couple of days? I have been to crack street and back. This book brings you right into El Barrio. Philippe the author moves into Harlem to study the crack culture. In reading his book, I felt as if I have met these people on the street before. The story is very sad - but oh so true.

Rating:
Summary: Perspective on Gang life
Review: I found this book disturbing because the Author loses any chance of being objective. Instead of writing in a more realistic manner he chooses to glorify gang life. he compromises the information because before long he is caaught up in trying to fit into this particular group. The authors objective when writing this type of an anthropological look at this group is to try to live among this group and observe their way of life. I think most people are aware that poverty has a way of making people lose all hope for any future outside the barrio. This is not to say that it"s impossible but looking at it realistically one has to know that it extremely difficult, and that few are able to make it out to a "normal life". I expected more from this book. I think the author had a chance to observe in a objective manner, without allowing personal feelings to get in the way. Somehow the author was unable to this.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Ethnography
Review: I found this book to be one of the best I have ever read at exploring the tensions and struggles with living among, working with, and writing about poor, inner-city minorities. The book is relevant to, and I believe would be helpful to, social workers, educators, ethnographers/researchers, policy makers, and more. The author does an EXCELLENT job at making clear that there are not easy answers. In ways, of course, the people in the book are victims of poverty, of disenfranchisement, of racism.... But, as other reviewers have pointed out, they are also often violent people who take part in such awful acts as gang rape. How does that come together? As people who work in or write about such communities (or make laws that apply to those who live there) how can we understand these contradictions? What role can we play in that? What responsibility to the privileged of the US have to those who are severely underprivileged?
This book explores both the technical aspects of the underground economy, specifically crack, as well as the moral and ethical questions that surround it.
I did find that the book has shortcomings-- as other reviewers have expressed, I'm not sure how comfortable I was with some of the "takes" Bourgois has on some of the people and situations in the book. However, I believe that there is no perfect book out there, especially on such a difficult and complex topic, and that over all the book is very important in exploring and addressing the issues that surround inner-city life and, in particular, the drug trade.

Rating:
Summary: Perspective on Gang life
Review: In the spirit of Bourgois, let me introduce myself. I'm a suburban white woman with a background in history. I was assigned to read this book for an "Aspects of Deviance" Sociology class. Bourgois' approach to his research makes a lot of sense to me since I was taught (as a would-be historian) to take into account all backgrounds and prejudices of the author, the reader, and the characters (if applicable). Perhaps something that makes the read so easy is that the author so willingly points out his own thoughts and biases. This is not to say that our job as readers becomes only to sit back and enjoy the story, but it makes it easier to filter through the author's analyses in order to modify the conclusion for yourself. Importantly, he liberally uses transcriptions of actual dialogues with the East Harlem crack dealers whom he befriends over three-plus years. Having that kind of access to the source of his research is invaluable in judging the situation for yourself.

As for the content, I can think of no better way for me to get a glimpse into that kind of life and neighborhood. One of the only other books that comes close is an autobiography by Nathan McCall called Makes Me Wanna Holler. This book covers his experience going from a gang member in the 1970's to "goin' legit" as a journalist and often revisiting the demons of his past.

Because the author discusses the idea of objectivity and various definitions of it, I want to mention one movie for anyone interested in better understanding how biases affect otherwise factual accounts. Courage Under Fire is a good example of understanding how various views, motives, and biases color different people's accounts. As much as we would like it, we can never practically obtain the kind of completely unbiased, third-person view of a situation as we are given at the end of the movie, but, with practice, you can come close. This is not to say that you should be completely detached from what you read or see, but that you don't have to get bogged down in the views of others.

Rating:
Summary: Telling
Review: Striking, horrific at times and ultimately enlightening, this book rips away the facade we'd like to see and gets to what is. It gets to the heart of the struggles those in El Barrio of New York must face. Their viable options are few, their solutions repellent, but these are real people who've been marginalized by mainstream society. For a look inside the El Barrio of the nineties, read this book!

Rating:
Summary: not meant to be objective.
Review: The author, an anthropologist specializing in Latin American culture, studied a poor and suffering Puerto Rican neighborhood in New York city for five years, living in it with his wife and infant for three, in order to write this book. For that alone he deserves our respect. But he has also produced a fascinating story about drug dealers and a penetrating analysis of poverty, the drug trade, and street culture. His method was "simply" (in concept but not in execution) to live in the community and hang out with dealers, taping their conversations (with their consent). This approach not only gives us information and insight that cannot be obtained in surveys and other techniques, it also gives the community and its problems a human face that allows the reader to understand "the anguish of growing up poor in the richest city in the world" (p. 8). It is a sympathetic portrayal of a self-destructive subculture and a forceful critique of the "structural" (political, economic, bureaucratic) forces that created and perpetuate it. I recommend it to anthropologists, as a fine example of ethnographic writing and research, but more importantly to those who can make a difference to the residents of El Barrios all across America-to mayors, city councilors, journalists, city planners, social workers, police officers, politicians, and teachers-as well as to all Americans, who should be concerned not only about crime, drugs, and urban decay, but most of all about the senseless albeit practically invisible destruction of so many lives.

I assigned this book for a college course in Ethnography, and the students simply loved it. It got the highest rating of any book I have every used. They called it interesting, easy to read, insightful, fantastic, important, mind-boggling, wonderful, disturbing, engaging and exciting, and remarked that it deals with tough questions, could be offensive to some, and should be read by everyone.

Rating:
Summary: In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in Elbario
Review: This was one of the books I had to read for my anthropology class, everyone in my class loved this book.
This is one of the best books I have ever read, and it is by far the best ethnography ever written. Bourgois explains Puerto Rican culture in the context of American life. He helps us to understand why there is such disparity in (New York) one of the richest cities in the world. Bourgois examines the American Dream and the idea of apartheid in New York City between the rich, educated Manhattan populace and the illiterate Puerto Ricans living in El Bario; quit possibly the poorest region in America. Respect is one of the central themes in this ethnography for it is essentially what all human beings desire. However, the Puerto Ricans of El Bario struggle to find respect amongst the high-powered industries of Manhattan and are in a way forced to incorporate a culture of crime and male-dominance into their lives.
Bourgois is an excellent anthropologist who isn't afraid to include his own experiences and opinions on living amongst crack dealers and prostitutes in his ethnographic research. By including his own reactions to this unfamiliar world, he adds a more human touch to the study of anthropology.


Rating:
Summary: An excellent journey into El Barrio
Review: This was one of the first books I read for a college course that I actually enjoyed. The lives of Primo, Caesar, Candy, etc., jumped from the pages. This book is useful to the everyday reader who would just like to gain insight into the lives of inner city youth. It is equally useful to the student who wishes to tie the inner city drug problem to greater social conditions. Either way, this book leaves the reader with a great sense of understanding and the inability to ignore the problems or blame the victims of inner city crime.