In:
Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, PERSEE Program, Vol. 94, No. 1 ( 1992), p. 59-78
Abstract:
A night in a shooting gallery This ethnographic account presents the details of how heroin, cocaine and crack are bought, injected/smoked, and "enjoyed" on New York City's most dangerous streets. Although the narrative spans only one, intense ten-hour session, it builds upon the author's five years of participant-observation research among drug dealers. The details of the ethnographic observations and conversations during the course of the night evoke the structural contradictions of US society in the inner city and reveal the human cost -in the form of immediate personal suffering- of extreme levels of social marginalization. Furthermore, by situating himself as a white researcher violating apartheid and challenging the taboos around class and sobriety, the author documents the polarization of ethnic relations in the United States. The vacuum created by the breakdown of both the public and private sectors in inner- city communities has been filled by dynamic under ground drug economy This expanding illegal industry has spawned street culture of resistance or an ideology of opposition that contradictorily is central force in the devastation
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0335-5322
DOI:
10.3406/arss.1992.3026
Language:
French
Publisher:
PERSEE Program
Publication Date:
1992
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2207873-3
SSG:
3,4
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