Ethnography: In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio by Philippe Bourgois
In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio by Philippe Bourgois is a remarkable ethnographic research which impresses readers with its frankness. The first edition of this book was published in 1995 and it tells the story of Puerto Rican population residing in the East Harlem neighborhood which is commonly called El Barrio. The main advantage of this book is that it represents an example of ethnographic field research and offers insiders impressions of the life in the district governed by economic marginalization, racial segregation and criminalization of its residents.
The book starts with the introduction in which the author indicates that his main aim was researching underground economy and “the political economy of inner-city street culture” (Bourgois 1). In order to make an unbiased research the author together with his family moved to El Barrio in 1985 and the analyzed work is a summary of various events taking place in the mentioned neighborhood. By moving to El Barrio, the author became able to observe almost all aspects of life typical for any marginalized ethnical community residing in big cities of the United States. Very soon Philippe Bourgois understood that the people living in such neighborhoods as El Barrio had a very limited amount of choices in terms of employment. As a result, most of them got involved into illegal drug dealing. Bourgois came to the conclusion that retail drug sale became the foundation of the underground economy of El Barrio and crack influenced the lives of all its residents in one way or another.
A huge impact of crack on the community forced Philippe Bourgois to change the main focus of his book and he put forth several important questions. First of all, he wanted to understand in what way growing up in the community based on drug dealing affects one’s ability to function in the mainstream society. Secondly, by researching the history of Puerto Ricans residing in New York, Bourgois makes an attempt to define specific feature as well as perspectives of this ethnical community.
In Search of Respect tells the story of the community that has to survive in extremely difficult conditions created by racial segregation and economic discrimination. An average resident of El Barrio is a person representing national minority, in most cases this is a person having a Puerto Rican origin who has a very low level of education and who can hardly earn enough money to sustain his or her existence. The author indicates that a wide number of scientific researches created a whole culture of poverty that is commonly associated with Puerto Ricans living in inner-city districts. The author points out that “In the particular case of the United States, the concentration of socially marginalized populations into politically and ecologically isolated inner-city enclaves has fomented an especially explosive cultural creativity that is in defiance of racism …
