From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this gritty ethnography exploring the world of San Francisco's homeless heroin addicts, Bourgois, anthropology and community medicine professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Schonberg, a photographer and graduate student in medical anthropology, draw on a decade immersed in this subculture to eloquently elaborate on the survival techniques and intimate lives of black and white addicts who live in self-made communities and work the economic fringes for survival. The authors explore racial boundaries and crossings, love stories, family relations, parenting, histories of childhood abuse, as well as the constant work of navigating hostile police enforcement, exploitative and helpful business owners, overburdened medical services and social service bureaucracies. The book details the gruesome material toll of addiction, infection and homelessness and the risks of ongoing personal and institutional violence. Bourgois and Schonberg create a deeply nuanced picture of a population that cannot escape social reprobation, but deserves social inclusion. Schonberg's photographs capture the scars of addiction, the social bonds between romantic pairs and drug-running partners and the concerted efforts at domesticity without a domicile. The collage of case studies, field notes, personal narratives and photography is nothing short of enthralling.
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Review
“A deeply nuanced picture of a population that cannot escape social reprobation, but deserves social inclusion. . . . The collage of case studies, field notes, personal narratives and photography is nothing short of enthralling.” - Starred Review
(
Publishers Weekly 2009-04-13)
“Get this book and read it. . . . A hell of a story. . . . These people walk by you every day and should not remain invisible.”
(
San Francisco Bay Guardian 2009-08-19)
“Leaders and readers alike should pay attention to - and heed its warnings and advice. . . . Unflinching and objective. . . . Must be read - and seen.”
(
San Francisco Chronicle 2009-06-21)
“The authors dare you to ignore the subculture in their field notes and arresting black-and-white images, urging that our failed social systems need repairing and we cannot continue to let these outliers remain invisible.”
(
Utne 2009-07-01)
“Recommended.”
(
Choice 2010-07-08)
“One of the most original and important works of its kind. . . . A pathbreaking photo-ethnography, powerful in presentation, content and scope. . . . A must-read, [it] will rock the world of the sheltered middle class and shed new light on the pervasive structural inequalities plaguing contemporary society.”
(Elijah Anderson, author of
Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community. Philadelphia Inquirer 2009-10-04)
“Truly remarkable book.”
(Grazyna Zajdow
Arena Magazine 2011-06-17)
“Powerfully candid.”
(
Zocalo (The Public Square Blog) 2009-06-01)
“With a combination of photographs, dialogue, field notes and critical theory, the book provides a detailed analysis of the social structure of an underground society in contemporary America.”
(
Roof Magazine 2009-05-01)
“This book offers as complete and disturbing a view as can be had of just how awful and intractable street life in San Francisco can get.”
(
San Francisco Chronicle 2009-12-10)
