{"id":4917,"date":"2014-05-22T12:24:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T17:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/?p=4917"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:33:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T18:33:29","slug":"extreme-ethnography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2014\/05\/22\/extreme-ethnography\/","title":{"rendered":"Alice Goffman: Telling the Tale of Extreme Ethnography"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by Greger Ravik via Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alice Goffman\u2019s On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City<\/a><\/em> shares the stories of young men evading arrest for crimes ranging from unpaid fines to murder. In describing their day-to-day maneuvers under heavy surveillance, she brings to life the impact of the U.S. prison boom on members of a low-income African American neighborhood in Philadelphia. But her work was not without risk. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer<\/i><\/a>,<\/p>\n

By the time Goffman left Sixth Street, she was displaying symptoms reminiscent of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as panicking at sudden noises.<\/p>\n

In fact, so compelling is Goffman\u2019s ethnography–and the great lengths she goes to in getting it–that the Inquirer<\/i> is not alone in its eagerness to share her<\/i> story. The New York Times<\/i><\/a> writes:<\/p>\n

Though written in a sober, scholarly style, \u201cOn the Run\u201d contains enough street-level detail to fill a season of \u201cThe Wire,\u201d along with plenty of screen-ready moments involving the author herself, who describes, among other ordeals, being thrown to the floor and handcuffed during a police raid, enduring a harrowing precinct house interrogation and watching a man be shot to death after exiting her car.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the attention lavished on Goffman\u2019s work has been mixed. On the one hand, her extreme ethnography is technically demanding and dangerous. She gives us a sympathetic and sociological glimpse of a world that\u2019s usually off-limits to outsiders. On the other, she is \u201chardly the first middle-class white observer to venture into black urban America and emerge with a marketable story to tell,\u201d as the New York Times<\/i> puts it. Given this bipolar public gaze, Goffman may find it every bit as dicey to take a position in the spotlight as in the field.<\/p>\n

Goffman acknowledges this awkwardness to the Times<\/i>: \u201cIt just feels morally strange to talk about my own experiences when a whole community is dealing with violence and getting arrested\u2026. I could always just leave.\u201d To the Inquirer<\/i>, she insists, \u201cFor the residents…there\u2019s no \u2018post\u2019: \u2018It’s just traumatic. This is everyday life: a series of ongoing and acute traumas.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It appears she\u2019s already working on her next professional challenge: coaxing the spotlight back onto the the 47,000 fugitives living in fear in Philadelphia in 2009, avoiding hospitals and skipping friends\u2019 funerals to avoid surveillance, worrying about eviction and losing custody of their children.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

According to the Editor\u2019s Desk, ethnography sells. Here\u2019s one example of how it\u2019s used in corporate America: https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/2013\/05\/07\/corporate-anthropology\/<\/a><\/p>\n

SociologyLens caught Gang Leader for a Day, Sudhir Venkatesh, explaining extreme ethnography:\u00a0https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologylens\/tag\/sudhir-venkatesh\/<\/a><\/p>\n