Introduction
On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City by Alice Goffman, a sociologist, who had an ethnography assignment for an undergraduate class at the University of Pennsylvania, which turned into a book. This ethnography is a study of an African American neighborhood in Philadelphia, labeled as “6th street” where residents live in a constant on-edge police state. They are constantly in fear of being arrested, chased or searched, sent to jail or prison. Goffman started working in a cafeteria, with an older African-American food service worker, Miss Deena, and then started tutoring her grandchildren in the neighborhood. She moved into an apartment in a mainly poor African American neighborhood in Philadelphia, she had a roommate; …show more content…
There she came to know the locals intimately, not only the young men, but also their girlfriends and families by interviewing and personally living within the neighborhood. She became so embedded in the community that she witnessed many police raids, including one in which she herself was handcuffed, face first flat on the ground, with a knee to her back. She describes how “a climate of fear and suspicion saturates everyday life,” with the result that “a new social taboo is emerging under the threat of confinement: one woven in suspicion, distrust and the paranoia practices of secrecy, evasion and impulsiveness” that sets these individuals up for failure. Goffman - didn’t set out with this concept; rather, it’s where she landed after six years of up-close observation, and embedding herself within the mainly African American poor community of Philadelphia. Her techniques for gathering data were by interview, by observation, by being (directly) imbedded in the community, and by being witness to the events that are discussed in detail in the book. Goffman tried to blend in as much as she could, but also “being a participant observer” by cutting off her prior life and diving into this one. The purpose of this ethnographic study is to provide a descriptive account and analysis of a form of human pathway that we all find difficult to imagine in a mainly poor African American run-down community. The book delivers an intense understanding of why they selected the route they followed, and how the justice system has failed to help or support the young men onto a better path. This ethnography exemplifies how young, African American men are maltreated by police within the framework of the American criminal justice system, and how this alters the
On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City by Alice Goffman, a sociologist, who had an ethnography assignment for an undergraduate class at the University of Pennsylvania, which turned into a book. This ethnography is a study of an African American neighborhood in Philadelphia, labeled as “6th street” where residents live in a constant on-edge police state. They are constantly in fear of being arrested, chased or searched, sent to jail or prison. Goffman started working in a cafeteria, with an older African-American food service worker, Miss Deena, and then started tutoring her grandchildren in the neighborhood. She moved into an apartment in a mainly poor African American neighborhood in Philadelphia, she had a roommate; …show more content…
There she came to know the locals intimately, not only the young men, but also their girlfriends and families by interviewing and personally living within the neighborhood. She became so embedded in the community that she witnessed many police raids, including one in which she herself was handcuffed, face first flat on the ground, with a knee to her back. She describes how “a climate of fear and suspicion saturates everyday life,” with the result that “a new social taboo is emerging under the threat of confinement: one woven in suspicion, distrust and the paranoia practices of secrecy, evasion and impulsiveness” that sets these individuals up for failure. Goffman - didn’t set out with this concept; rather, it’s where she landed after six years of up-close observation, and embedding herself within the mainly African American poor community of Philadelphia. Her techniques for gathering data were by interview, by observation, by being (directly) imbedded in the community, and by being witness to the events that are discussed in detail in the book. Goffman tried to blend in as much as she could, but also “being a participant observer” by cutting off her prior life and diving into this one. The purpose of this ethnographic study is to provide a descriptive account and analysis of a form of human pathway that we all find difficult to imagine in a mainly poor African American run-down community. The book delivers an intense understanding of why they selected the route they followed, and how the justice system has failed to help or support the young men onto a better path. This ethnography exemplifies how young, African American men are maltreated by police within the framework of the American criminal justice system, and how this alters the