In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio

Almost everyone I know who has read this book agrees that it is a very well-written, as the author uses a plain, easy-to-read and understand style. This is a break with the usual, post-modern jargon that is common among anthropologists today. By the way, Bourgois is NOT a sociologist. He is an anthropologist. Sociologists typically do not engage in five years of participant observation among their informants, but prefer instead to rely on quantitative data. Philippe Bourgois is a medical anthropologist at UC-San Francisco. A lot of those who have reviewed this book do not understand Bourgois's main argument. He is arguing that answers to society's most pressing issues are a lot more than mere blame-the-system or blame-the-victim approaches. It is far too common for liberals and conservatives, respectively, to blame society or to blame pathological, flawed individuals for social problems. As Bourgois shows in this book, the truth is often a combination of the two. Even his informants admit that they blame no one else but themselves for the situations they are in. Because Bourgois holds both individuals and larger social structures responsible for the epidemic drug crisis in America, he is bound to piss off both the left and the right with this book. Liberals will claim he is blaming the victim, portraying inner-city people as fundamentally flawed, and tarnishing the image of people living in poverty. Conservatives, on the other hand, will do a complete 180 - and claim that the author is making excuses for criminal behavior, drug abuse, and other social ills. Both the left and the right will accuse Bourgois of glorifying drug abuse and crime - which I strongly DO NOT believe he is doing. He presents his informants in THEIR OWN WORDS --- which is exactly what a good anthropologist SHOULD DO in their writings. If you think Bourgois is glorifying drug abuse, crime, or gang rapes, then you've obviously not been reading his analysis that opens and concludes each chapter. Personally, I feel that the averse, kneejerk reactions that people get when reading this book ultimately reveals much more about the reader themselves than about the book. In Search of Respect is one of my favorite ethnographies, if for nothing else, for the fact that the author has written it in a fashion than even non-anthropologists can understand.

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.

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.

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.

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.