The Urban Ethnography Reader

Urban ethnography is the firsthand study of city life by investigators who immerse themselves in the worlds of the people about whom they write. Since its inception in the early twentieth century, this great tradition has helped define how we think about cities and city dwellers.The past few decades have seen an extraordinary revival in the field, as scholars and the public at large grapple with the increasingly complex and pressing issues that affect the ever-changing American city-from poverty to the immigrant experience, the changing nature of social bonds to mass incarceration, hyper-segregation to gentrification. As both a method of research and a form of literature, urban ethnography has seen a notable and important resurgence.This renewed interest demands a clear and comprehensive understanding of the history and development of the field to which this volume contributes by presenting a selection of past and present contributions to American urban ethnographic writing. Beginning with an original introduction highlighting the origins, practices, and significance of the field, editors Mitchell Duneier, Philip Kasinitz, and Alexandra Murphy guide the reader through the major and fascinating topics on which it has focused -- from the community, public spaces, family, education, work, and recreation, to social policy, and the relationship between ethnographers and their subjects.An indispensable guide, The Urban Ethnography Reader provides an overview of how the discipline has grown and developed while offering students and scholars a selection of some of the finest social scientific writing on the life of the modern city.

Table of Contents:
AN INTRODUCTION TO URBAN ETHNOGRAPHY Mitchell Duneier, Philip Kasinitz and Alexandra K. Murphy PART 1. FINDING COMMUNITY IN THE MODERN CITY INTRODUCTION 1 CHINATOWN Jacob Riis 2 SOCIAL CLASSES AND AMUSEMENTS W.E.B. Du Bois 3 LOWER CLASS: SEX AND FAMILY St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton 4 LIFE STYLES Ulf Hannerz 5 PATTERNS OF BLACK-WHITE INTERACTION Harvey Molotch 6 NO FRIENDS John Jackson 7 IN TUCUANI, HE GOES CRAZY Robert Smith 8 GRIT AND GLAMOUR Richard Lloyd 9 NEIGHBORHOOD SYMBIOSIS Andrew Deener PART 2. SOCIAL WORLDS, PUBLIC SPACES INTRODUCTION 10 PATTERNS OF COLLECTIVE ACTION Laud Humphreys 11 THE TERRITORIAL IMPERATIVE James Spradley and Brenda Mann 12 THE BLACK MALE IN PUBLIC Elijah Anderson 13 EMPOWERING THE 'GAZE:' PERSONAL STEREOS AND THE HIDDEN LOOK Michael Bull 14 PISSED OFF IN L.A. Jack Katz 15 FEEDING THE PIGEONS: SIDEWALK SOCIABILITY IN GREENWICH VILLAGE Colin Jerolmack PART 3. RAISING A FAMILY INTRODUCTION 16 KINSHIP AND COMMUNITY Michael Young and Peter Willmott 17 SWAPPING Carol Stack 18 GROWING UP IN GROVELAND Mary Patillo-McCoy 19 TOWANDA: MAKING SENSE OF EARLY MOTHERHOOD IN WEST BALTIMORE Patricia Fernandez-Kelly 20 CHILDREN AND POWER DURING SEPARATION Joanna Dreby PART 4. SCHOOLING AND THE CULTURE OF CONTROL INTRODUCTION 21 ELEMENTS OF A CULTURE Paul Willis 22 LEVELED ASPIRATIONS: SOCIAL REPRODUCTION TAKES ITS TOLL Jay MacLeod 23 INSTITUTING THE CULTURE OF CONTROL: DISCIPLINARY PRACTICES AND ORDER MAINTENANCE Kathleen Nolan 24 THE LABELLING HYPE: COMING OF AGE IN THE ERA OF MASS INCARCERATION Victor Rios PART 5. GETTING PAID INTRODUCTION 25 'GETTING BY' IN HOBOHEMIA Nels Anderson 26 THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE TAXI-DANCER Paul Cressey 27 THE LAUNDRYMAN's SOCIAL WORLD Paul Siu 28 MEN AND JOBS Elliott Liebow 29 NO SHAME IN (THIS) GAME Katherine Newman 30 SERVING TIME Peter Bearman 31 MOBILITY FOR THE NONMOBILE: CELL PHONE, TECHNOLOGY, AND CHILDCARE Tamara Mose Brown 32 GETTING THE SHIT Randol Contreras PART 6. PLAYING TOGETHER: THE SERIOUS SIDE OF RECREATION AND LEISURE INTRODUCTION 33 BOWLING AND SOCIAL RANKING William Foote Whyte 34 THE PROFESSIONAL DANCE MUSICIAN AND HIS AUDIENCE Howard Becker 35 WELCOME TO STUDIO 104 & PITIFUL PRELIMINARIES Loïc Wacquant 36 THE CLUBHOUSE AND CLASS CULTURES Sherri Grasmuck 37 RACE-ING MEN: BOYS, RISK, AND THE POLITICS OF RACE Amy Best 38 CRACKING THE CODE: RACE, CLASS, AND ACCESS TO NIGHTCLUBS IN URBAN AMERICA Reuben Buford May and Kenneth Sean Chaplin 39 WINNING THE BAR: NIGHTLIFE AS A SPORTING RITUAL David Grazian 40 BATTLIN' ON THE CORNER: TECHNIQUES FOR SUSTAINING PLAY Jooyoung Lee PART 7. 'BUT DOES IT HAVE A POINT?' ETHNOGRAPHY & SOCIAL POLICY INTRODUCTION 41 THE DESTRUCTION OF BOSTON'S WEST END Herbert Gans 42 WORKING THE DEUCE William Kornblum 43 LETTER FROM A CRACKHOUSE Terry Williams 44 WELFARE Kathryn Edin and Christopher Jencks 45 MISSING THE CONNECTION: SOCIAL ISOLATION AND EMPLOYMENT ON THE BROOKLYN WATERFRONT Philip Kasinitz and Jan Rosenberg 46 ON THE RUN: WANTED MEN IN A PHILADELPHIA GHETTO Alice Goffman PART 8. ETHNOGRAPHERS & THEIR SUBJECTS INTRODUCTION 47 SO WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US HERE? Barbara Myerhoff 48 VIOLATING APARTHEID IN THE UNITED STATES Philippe Bourgois 49 AFTERWORD Hakim Hasan 50 THE HUSTLER AND THE HUSTLED Sudhir Venkatesh 51 REFLECTIONS ON LONGITUDINAL ETHNOGRAPHY AND THE FAMILIES Annette Lareau CREDITS INDEX

About the Author :
Mitchell Duneier is Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and a regular visiting professor at the City University of New York. He is the author of Sidewalk and Slim's Table, recipient of the American Sociological Association's Distinguished Publication Award. Philip Kasinitz is Presidential Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of Caribbean New York and co-author of Inheriting the City, also the recipient of the American Sociological Association's Distinguished Publication Award. Alexandra K. Murphy, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, received her doctorate in sociology from Princeton in 2012. She is the author of Where the Sidewalk Ends: Poverty in an American Suburb, to be published by Oxford.