[URBANTH-L]Reader on the Anthropology of Homelessness
AWaterston at aol.com
AWaterston at aol.com
Tue Feb 17 11:43:35 EST 2009
In the spirit of sharing information, below is information about my
ethnography on women and homelessness in NYC:
_http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1462_reg.html_
(http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1462_reg.html)
Love, Sorrow, and Rage: Destitute Women in a Manhattan Residence
Alisse Waterston
"A brilliant ethnography of women on the edge.... Waterston is one of our
best urban ethnographers, mixing intelligent fieldwork and sheer novelistic
splendor in a masterful work. A must-read. This book should be standard for
every ethnographic methods and theory course on urban life, women, poverty, and
race."
—Terry Williams, New School for Social Research
Love, Sorrow, and Rage gives powerful voice to women like Nora Gaines and
Dixie Register, who tell us what it's like to live on the streets of New York,
how it feels to lose your mind, about the taste of crack cocaine, and the
sweetness of friendship. In this novel-like narrative of homelessness and hope,
poor women share a table, their meals, and their intimacies with author
Alisse Waterston. On the pages of this impassioned ethnography, Waterston puts
mythic, demonized bag-ladies to rest, and in so doing, brings ordinary women to
life.
>From drug addiction and the spread of AIDS to the growing gap between rich
and poor in the U.S., the topics in this book get front-page coverage in daily
newspapers across the country. Waterston seeks to understand, to explain,
and to solve the human crisis that surrounds us. Towards this end, she
challenges us to look at the ways in which our society and the workings of our
political, economic, and popular culture contribute to the suffering experienced by
our most vulnerable citizens.
An important corrective to popular depictions of the urban poor, Love,
Sorrow, and Rage provides a penetrating analysis of the causes and consequences of
poverty. It offers a deeper understanding of what leads to and perpetuates
poverty and of the human complex of love, sorrow, and rage felt by those who
experience it.
Love, Sorrow, and Rage will engage readers interested in urban studies,
women's studies, social issues and policies, anthropology, sociology, political
economy, and New York City life.
Reviews
"Love, Sorrow, and Rage tells us something powerful and intimate about a
group of poor women living in the wealthiest city on the face of the earth. In
the process, Alisse Waterston demolishes a series of myths about the 'urban
underclass' that have perverted both social theories and social policies.
Indeed, Waterston has succeeded where an entire generation of anthropologists,
sociologists, and psychologists has failed: she renders in vivid detail, and
with a towering passion of her own, the ways in which ostensibly impersonal
forces—racism, gender inequality, ill-conceived social policies—come to have
their effect in poor women's lives. Accountable to a large literature but
unshackled from the constraints of jargon, Love, Sorrow, and Rage takes flight as
bitter and persuasive poetry. It should be required reading for physicians,
social workers, policy-makers—indeed, for all those fortunate enough to meet
women whose lives have been damaged by the structural forces that come alive in
this remarkable and harrowing book."
—Paul Farmer, Harvard Medical School
"A moving and beautiful book. In so much of what is written about 'the
homeless' and 'the mentally ill,' the people themselves are missing. Alisse
Waterston brings out their humanity. Nothing can replace an experience, but reading
a book like this is the next best thing."
—Ezra Susser, Columbia University
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue: An Urban Ethnography for Our Times
1. Home, Some Place
2. Some Kind of Nobody
3. Drinkin' and Druggin'
4. Sorrow and Melancholia
5. Abuses of the Spirit
6. Love and Other Intimacies
7. Odd Women Out
8. Pistachio Nuts
9. A Madness in Me
10. Rage
11. Difference and Other Infections of the Day
12. The Road to Clarity
Notes
References
Index
About the Author(s)
Alisse Waterston is Professor of Anthropology at John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, City University of New York. She is editor of An Anthropology of
War: Views from the Frontline (Berghahn Books), co-editor of Anthropology off
the Shelf: Anthropologists on Writing (Wiley-Blackwell) and author of _Street
Addicts in the Political Economy_
(http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/885_reg.html) (Temple).
In a message dated 2/15/2009 9:17:49 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
Calliope77 at aol.com writes:
Hi David,
I sent this out yesterday but wasn't sure if I copied to listserve, so I am
resending. Sorry, if everyone got a duplicate:
I don't know if this is exactly what you are looking for in terms of
research on the homeless, but I published a book a few years ago based on
ethnographic research I conducted among homeless, nomadic street youth in
New York
City. The book is called, With No Direction Home: Homeless Youth on the
Road and
in the Streets. There is not much in terms of cross-cultural comparisons.
However, in my concluding chapters, I do discuss homeless street kids in a
global context. Take care.
Marni Finkelstein, Ph.D.
In a message dated 2/11/2009 3:33:29 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
wintam at ucdavis.edu writes:
Dear David,
If you haven't received these suggestions already, I'd like to also add
Mitchell Durnier's Sidewalks about unhoused men in NY and Mike Davis'
Fortress LA (in City of Quartz) and Planet of Slums, which takes a look at
neoliberal globalism changes city landscapes into privatized spaces of
capital accumulation. Also Neil Smith's books on gentrification in cities
across the world talk about displacement of working-class people from urban
spaces.
Good luck on your class,
Winnie
On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 6:01 AM, Glasser, Irene <iglasser at rwu.edu> wrote:
> Here are some of my contributions to works (first three are books, the
rest
> articles) on vulnerable and homeless populations:
>
> Glasser, Irene and Rae Bridgman (1999) Braving the Street: Anthropological
> Perspectives on Homelessness, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
>
> Glasser, Irene Homelessness in Global Perspective (1994) New York: G.K.
> Hall Reference, A Division of MacMillan, Inc.
>
> Glasser, Irene More Than Bread: Ethnography of a Soup Kitchen (1988)
> Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press.
>
> Glasser, Irene and William Zywiak (2003) "Homelessness and Substance Use:
A
> Tale of Two Cities" Substance Use and Misuse Volume 38, number 3-6, March
> 2003, 553-578.
>
> Glasser, Irene (2003) "Homeless Families" International Encyclopedia of
> Marriage and Family, second edition, 816-822.
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Irene Glasser [GlasserI at crtct.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 8:50 AM
> To: Glasser, Irene
> Subject: FW: [URBANTH-L]Reader on the Anthropology of Homelessness
>
> ________________________________________
> From: urbanth-l-bounces at lists.ysu.edu [urbanth-l-bounces at lists.ysu.edu]
On
> Behalf Of Jahmeilah Roberson [jahmeilah.richardson at gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 12:23 PM
> To: kflan at mindspring.com
> Cc: David Slater; URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
> Subject: Re: [URBANTH-L]Reader on the Anthropology of Homelessness
>
> I am also interested in the same issues. Over the past month I have
> begun to undertake an ethnographic study of homeless populations in
> Southern California's Los Angeles and Orange Counties. I'm really
> interested in issues of ownership as it spans across the spaces they
> inhabit as well as the digital and non-digital material artifacts they
> carry. In general, being that I'm in an Informatics department, I am
> interested in the relationship between technology and social inclusion
> for marginalized communities with an emphasis on the homeless.
>
> I have begun to collect some papers and books but could always use
> more. Here are some of the best I've found:
> David Snow (he's a professor in Sociology at my university, UCI,
and
> has done extensive research on homelessness in the US)
> - Down on their Luck (book)
> - The Outcomes of Homeless Mobilization: The Influence of
> Organization, Disruption, Political Mediation, and Framing.
> - Identity Work Among the Homeless: The Verbal Construction
> and Avowal of Personal Identities.
>
> Tim Cresswell (he's a professor in Geography at the University of
> London and has done extensive research on mobility sometimes relating
> to tramps)
> - Embodiment, Power and the Politics of Mobility: The Case of
> Female Tramps and Hobos
> - Night discourse: producing/ consuming meaning on the street
> - The Tramp in America (book)
>
> Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos (she's a professor of design at
> the University of Sao Paulo. Most of her writing is in Portuguese but
> she has a really interesting paper where she studied the homeless in
> Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo so there may be some good references
> in there especially related to homelessness in Tokyo (or Japan in
> general). She studies the way the homeless recycle and reuse materials
> and the artifacts they create in this process.
> - The Vital Package Living on the Streets in Global Cities:
> Sao
> Paulo, Los Angeles and Tokyo
>
> I also have a few papers related to consumption practices of the
> homeless that have come out of economics departments and what not.
> Feel free to ping me separately if you have questions. I have spoken
> with both David and Maria and can say that in my experiences David is
> slightly harder to get in touch with via email and Maria is really
> quick to respond.
>
> Best,
> jam
>
> --
> Jahmeilah Richardson Roberson
> PhD Student
> Department of Informatics
> University of California, Irvine
>
> On Feb 9, 2009, at 4:49 PM, kflan at mindspring.com wrote:
>
> > You might be interested in the work of Louisa Stark. She's an urban
> > anthropologist (was teaching as an adjunct anthropology professor at
> > Arizona State University, but I'm not sure if that's still the case
> > with all the recent budget woes and staff cuts at ASU) and is the
> > executive director for the Community Housing Partnership in Phoenix,
> > Arizona (a nonprofit concerned with helping very low-income families
> > find and secure affordable housing).
> >
> > A good portion of her anthropological research, professional work,
> > and activism has centered on various homelessness issues (mostly in
> > the United States), so you might want to do Web and online library
> > searches for her articles, books, etc.
> >
> > --Kerri Flanagan
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >> From: David Slater <d-slater at sophia.ac.jp>
> >> Sent: Jan 21, 2009 2:50 AM
> >> To: URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
> >> Subject: [URBANTH-L]Reader on the Anthropology of Homelessness
> >>
> >> Hello Everyone,
> >> I am teaching a fieldwork course on Tokyo Homeless--which a
> >> large and
> >> growing problem in neoliberal Japan. I am looking for a reader on the
> >> cross-cultural issues, including research, of homelessness. Has
> >> anyone used
> >> one with any particular success?
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> David
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> David H. Slater
> >> Faculty of Liberal Arts
> >> Sophia University, Tokyo
> >>
> >> The Sophia server rejects emails at times. Should your mail to me get
> >> returned, please resend to: dhslater at gmail.com. Sorry for the
> >> inconvenience.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> URBANTH-L mailing list
> >> URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
> >> http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > URBANTH-L mailing list
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>
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--
Winnie Tam Hung
AAUW American Dissertation Fellow 2008-9
PhD Candidate, Graduate Group in Cultural Studies
wintam at ucdavis.edu
http://www.asianloop.com/article/90/Winnie_Tam_Hung_on_the_Status_of_New_Yorks
_Chinatown
http://www.aaari.info/08-09-12Tam.htm
http://protectchinatownandles.org/english/home.html
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Alisse Waterston
Professor, Department of Anthropology
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue, Room 433
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