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Righteous Dopefiend (Volume 21) (California Series in Public Anthropology) First Edition
Purchase options and add-ons
- ISBN-100520254988
- ISBN-13978-0520254985
- EditionFirst Edition
- PublisherUniversity of California Press
- Publication dateMay 29, 2009
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
- Print length392 pages
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“A deeply nuanced picture of a population that cannot escape social reprobation, but deserves social inclusion. . . . The collage of case studies, field notes, personal narratives and photography is nothing short of enthralling.” - Starred Review ― Publishers Weekly
“Leaders and readers alike should pay attention to - and heed its warnings and advice. . . . Unflinching and objective. . . . Must be read - and seen.” ― San Francisco Chronicle
“The authors dare you to ignore the subculture in their field notes and arresting black-and-white images, urging that our failed social systems need repairing and we cannot continue to let these outliers remain invisible.” ― Utne Reader
“Powerfully candid.” ― Zocalo Public Square
“One of the most original and important works of its kind. . . . A pathbreaking photo-ethnography, powerful in presentation, content and scope. . . . A must-read, [it] will rock the world of the sheltered middle class and shed new light on the pervasive structural inequalities plaguing contemporary society.” ― Philadelphia Inquirer
“Get this book and read it. If you're interested in homelessness, addiction, or in the public health issues surrounding IV drug use, this is an excellent source of information. The authors treat their subject brilliantly and with great compassion. . . . These people walk by you every day and should not remain invisible.” ― San Francisco Bay Guardian
“Truly remarkable.” ― Arena Magazine
“Recommended.” ― Choice
“With a combination of photographs, dialogue, field notes and critical theory, the book provides a detailed analysis of the social structure of an underground society in contemporary America.” ― Roof Magazine
From the Inside Flap
"Calling this book ethnography would be like calling The Wire a cop show: what comes roaring out of its pages is almost as visceral and devastating as spending a night in 'the hole' itself." Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums
"Plunge beneath the surface of America's no-man's lands. Find in the dead-end alleyways, storage lots, and overgrown embankments the terrifying but strangely ordered world of homeless heroin injectors. This book will test your cultural relativism to destruction, but along the way you will learn a great deal about destitution, about homelessness, about addiction, and about violence at all levels. These dopefiends are 'made in America'." Paul Willis, author of Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, and co-founding editor of Ethnography
"Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg provide a riveting narrative of the daily struggles for survival of homeless people with a physical and emotional addiction to heroin. The authors' poignant account of these experiences features sophisticated analytic themes that enable them insightfully to integrate discussions of agency and moral responsibility on the part of homeless addicts with an analysis of the powerful structural forces that shape the addicts' lives. Righteous Dopefiend is a must-read." William Julius Wilson, author of More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City
Bourgois and Schonberg deliver luminous images and intimate portraits of unforgettable Dickensian characters a host of late-modern hobos, hustlers, dumpster divers, and sweet-talking jivers whose addiction consigns them to lives of public ignominy and private pleasures transacted under the concrete freeway overpasses of a totally indifferent San Francisco. This tough book is a must-read for all. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of Death Without Weeping
If Pierre Bourdieu, George Orwell, and Walker Evans had met in a homeless encampment under a San Francisco highway, they could not have produced a more penetrating portrait of America's urban outcasts than Righteous Dopefiend. Fusing ethnography, photography, and social theory, Bourgois and Schonberg take the reader on the frantic roller coaster ride of daily subsistence among a clique of indigent heroin addicts. This searing anthropology of everyday violence in the underbelly of the American metropolis will challenge social scientists and public health experts, stun lay readers, and shame public officials oblivious to the social dereliction their failed policies are spawning. Loïc Wacquant, author of Urban Outcasts and Punishing the Poor
From the Back Cover
"Calling this book ethnography would be like calling The Wire a cop show: what comes roaring out of its pages is almost as visceral and devastating as spending a night in 'the hole' itself."―Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums
"Plunge beneath the surface of America's no-man's lands. Find in the dead-end alleyways, storage lots, and overgrown embankments the terrifying but strangely ordered world of homeless heroin injectors. This book will test your cultural relativism to destruction, but along the way you will learn a great deal about destitution, about homelessness, about addiction, and about violence at all levels. These dopefiends are 'made in America'."―Paul Willis, author of Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, and co-founding editor of Ethnography
"Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg provide a riveting narrative of the daily struggles for survival of homeless people with a physical and emotional addiction to heroin. The authors' poignant account of these experiences features sophisticated analytic themes that enable them insightfully to integrate discussions of agency and moral responsibility on the part of homeless addicts with an analysis of the powerful structural forces that shape the addicts' lives. Righteous Dopefiend is a must-read."―William Julius Wilson, author of More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City
“Bourgois and Schonberg deliver luminous images and intimate portraits of unforgettable Dickensian characters―a host of late-modern hobos, hustlers, dumpster divers, and sweet-talking jivers―whose addiction consigns them to lives of public ignominy and private pleasures transacted under the concrete freeway overpasses of a totally indifferent San Francisco. This tough book is a must-read for all.”―Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of Death Without Weeping
“If Pierre Bourdieu, George Orwell, and Walker Evans had met in a homeless encampment under a San Francisco highway, they could not have produced a more penetrating portrait of America's urban outcasts than Righteous Dopefiend. Fusing ethnography, photography, and social theory, Bourgois and Schonberg take the reader on the frantic roller coaster ride of daily subsistence among a clique of indigent heroin addicts. This searing anthropology of everyday violence in the underbelly of the American metropolis will challenge social scientists and public health experts, stun lay readers, and shame public officials oblivious to the social dereliction their failed policies are spawning.”―Loïc Wacquant, author of Urban Outcasts and Punishing the Poor
About the Author
Jeff Schonberg is a photographer and a graduate student in medical anthropology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Product details
- Publisher : University of California Press; First Edition (May 29, 2009)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 392 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0520254988
- ISBN-13 : 978-0520254985
- Item Weight : 2.2 pounds
- Dimensions : 7 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #347,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #344 in Sociology of Urban Areas
- #1,068 in Criminology (Books)
- #1,117 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Methodologically,the use of collaborative photo-ethnography is a strategic choice by the authors to expose the distress of the socially vulnerable who remain invisible to the larger society.As the authors argue that photo-ethnography has the potential to effectively portray unacceptable social phenomena because it draws aesthetics ,emotion and documentation into the social science analysis and theory and tries to link intellect with politics but at the same time it is important to remain critically reflexive because as post modern theory inform us that social truth is an artifact of power and our categorization and conception of reality are historical constructs and therefore, as representational practices both photography and ethnography are torn between representing and humanizing and thus there can not be any transcendental solution or reality.But as far as this photo-ethnography is concerned ,they were successful in portraying the immediate environment of the homeless people and at the same time humanizing the 'subjects' who almost always loses them selves in the written ethnographies. The photos,interview's text and analysis complement each other in the representation of the lives of homeless addicts.
The conventional theoretical academic binary distinction between structure and agency is more of a ideological debate which does not offer any significant insight into complex historical and contemporary outcomes.The concept of 'lumpen abuse' sets the theorization of abuse of individual experience of suffering in the context of structural forces .As the authors points out explicitly that the suffering of homeless heroine injectors is chronic and cumulative phenomena that can be best understood as a politically structured phenomena.The combination of Marx's class theory,Bourdieu's symbolic violence and Foucault's concept of power have contributed to the building of the concept of 'lumpen abuse'.Lumpen abuse highlights the way structurally imposed everyday suffering generates violent and destructive subjectivities.The corporate neoliberalism as a dominant mode of production is producing growing numbers of lumpenized populations.The biopower governamentality have been internalized by the citizens but the violent coercion increasingly characterize neoliberal forms of governmentality and therefore,the term lumpen' can best be understood as adjective rather than as a bounded class category.
The linkage of theory and practice is an imperative for anthropologist who studies people in extreme distress to operate at policy level and specific local level intervention.But applied work is never political rather policy debates become the part of the problem by shifting political issues into a technocratic register.The authors emphasize the need for humility and self-reflection when building theory to inform urgent public debates.At the immediate policy level the authors suggest that simple prescription can lessen the suffering of the addicts.The availability of good enough treatment combined with harm reduction and strategic support after detox is an important steps in lessing the suffering of the homeless heroine injectors and reintegrating them in the community. These immediate intervention can help to certain extent but can not overturn the structural violence of the globalized Neoliberalism
This book focuses on a group of homeless heroine addicts (though many smoke crack and drink as well). This study/story shows a parallel of survival and social structure similar to that of 'normal' life, but, of course, with a bias of illegal dependency and the carelessness for others; the root of the human soul in some (maybe many) cases. Through a constant circus ride of highs and lows, this group of lost individuals will tear your heart out as they make blind, selfish choices, cleanse themselves of addiction and fall back into the arms of homeless hopelessness, scavenge for opportunities to make good to fix, and many other awful reasons that will hopefully deter any sane member of the human race from ever touching a drug that has been repeatedly proven as B.A.D. since 1918 (after its discovery in 1889... hm). That was a long sentence. :/
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All of the homeless were addicted. They used heroin, crack, and alcohol in various combinations. The ethnographers describe how they get the money for their drugs, and how they live in the open,under highways, etc. It describes their social relations, including between races and between sexes. It shows how the homeless interact with the local business owners, with medical personnel, and treatment center personnel.
It's a long book and full of details and observations. The photographs weren't good. Many were poorly lit and out of focus, but perhaps that's inevitable given the environment and situation.
it's a realistic book. I felt resentment at the authors' attempts to infantalize the homeless by insisting they had no part in their own homelessness. It's clear that addiction propagated the homelessness, but few of the homeless persistently sought help for addiction, though admittedly, it can be difficult in this country for addicts to access treatment. It's especially hard for the poor and homeless.