Doin the Hustle by Venkatesh and Personal Safety in Dangerous Places by Williams - Literature review Example

Order 186727 Topic: Reaction Essay - Comparing and contrasting the articles “Doin the Hustle” by Venkatesh and “Personal Safety in Dangerous Places” by Williams This paper seeks to write an academic critique, comparing and contrasting the articles “Doin the Hustle” by Venkatesh and “Personal Safety in Dangerous Places” by Williams. Two additional articles are also compared and contrasted with the said articles. In discussing the article “‘Doin’ the hustle’ Constructing the ethnographer in the American ghetto”, Sudhir Venkatesh (2002) narrates about his completion of an ethnographic study of a poor public housing development in Chicago which provided him the empirical frame for an examination of the social production of the ethnographer from the informants’ point of view. He argues that reconstructing the informants’ perceptions of the fieldworker as, variously, academic hustler, ‘nigger just like us’ and ‘Arab’ – can aid the researcher in determining patterns of structure and meaning among the individual, group, and/or community under study. He intended his article therefore to reflect on informants’ construction of his subsumption within a field of social relations in which the ‘hustle’ was an overriding organizing standard. To compare this article now with another article entitled “Personal Safety in Dangerous Places” by Terry Williams is to see first what the latter author is saying about. Williams introduced his work by saying that personal safety during fieldwork is seldom addressed directly in the literature. He narrated a fact drawn from his many prior yeas of ethnographic research and from field experience while studying crack distributors in New York City, where the authors provided a variety of strategies by which ethnographic research can be safely conducted in dangerous settings. He explained that by protecting an appropriated demeanor, ethnographers can seek others for protector and locator roles, routinely create a safety zone in the field, and establish compatible field roles with potential subjects. Terry Williams (1992) therefore intended of his article to provide strategies for avoiding or handling sexual approaches, common law crimes, fights, drive-by shootings, and contacts with the police. He found out that when integrated with other standard qualitative methods, ethnographic strategies help to ensure that no physical harm comes to the field-worker and staff members. He added that the presence of researchers may actually reduce (and not increase) potential and actual violence among crack distributors/abusers or others present in the field setting (Williams, 1992). In short what he was saying was there is a need for an integration of ethnographic strategies with standard qualitative methods for field-workers and staff members to have greater safety. It is now obvious to see the difference between two. The first one it talking about reconstructing the informant’s point of view while the second is about safety during field work by ethnographic researches. The first talks about reconstructing the informant’s point of view can aid the researcher in determining the patters of structure and meaning among the individual, group and/or community under study. The second is concern about personal safety of ethnographers and fieldworkers during fieldwork which is seldom addressed directly in the literature and the related strategies by which ethnographic research can be safely conducted in dangerous settings. Although each article is discussing separate topics, they are still similar in one respect, that is, both of them are interested in promoting ethnographic research. Since ethnography is a science which requires scientists, researchers and other workers, the same can only be attained their objectives if the they have materials to conduct their studies and that they are physically safe and secured while these people do their work. The first requirement is met by the topic in the first articles while the second requirement is met by the second article. It could be argued before there could be ethnography there must be people who need it. Since it is accepted that is a need, people who must study the subject must reason to do it, that it, they are still alive after the activity to see the fruits if their labor. William in his effort to dramatize his article mentioned about the concrete experiences with a wide range of dangerous situations and subjects h encountered in conducting field research. He was therefore able to described the approaches that have evolved over more than 25 years of his ethnographic research successfully that was conducted by him and others among users and sellers of heroin and crack in some of America’s dangerous social settings. He found out however that after spending 2 years involved in direct research among crack distributors and many other years of research with robbers, burglars, murderers, and heroin sellers, none of our professional ethnographers or assisting staff (ex-dealers, ex-drug users) has ever been physically injured. There are however few who have been robbed or burglarized while performing their research roles. In presenting his work, he was not however, saying that the profession is inherently safe to absence of physical injuries. What he was saying is that like any other profession there are the potential dangers, that that he still advised ethnographers to still choose their field of study with a clear awareness, preparation for and avoidance of the risks involved. (Sudhir Venkatesh, 2002) There is basis to believe the author as it could be easily viewed that it is not easy to talk about robbers or drug addicts in trying to get information for the purpose of arriving with scholarly conclusion in ethnography that that humanity may benefit from. Sudhir Venkatesh (2002) expectedly concluded about the fact that all cultural facts are interpretations that is true both for the anthropologist and for his informant. The informant has interest in ethnography and this interest matter much in generating information that is valuable to the ethnographer and Venkatesh (2002) must be very correct in stating for the informant must interpret his own culture and that of the anthropologist. He emphasized the fact of his argument that how the informant interprets and represents the persona of the anthropologist (or sociologist) is revealing of the interpretive properties and resources available to the informant. He thus explained that the informant’s’ world is presented and transmitted to the researcher via the informants’ images of the fieldworker and the research study. On the other hand, William concluded the fact of his having drawn on concrete experiences with a wide range of dangerous situations and subjects which he encountered in conducting field research. That based on his experience he was attributing wise choice by ethnographers as far as the latter’s nature of work is concerned due to absence of physical injuries to these worker after a careful decision of what field of ethnography they pursue with due diligence. Having compared the two, this paper could now make further comparison with the other articles. To compare the first two articles with ‘Hustlers in Drug-Related Aid Prevention: Ethnographers, Outreach Workers, Injection Drug Users’, there is need to understand what its author Robert Broadhead (2001) was trying to say. In this context, Broadhead (2001) explained that the research literature is stuffed with discussion of ethnography as a tactic involving deception, especially the conduct of participant observation. He mentioned the case of forged trusting relationships with active drug users. These people develop many skills in deception during their ‘careers in dope’ which they in dealing with researchers in the same way that it is used by researchers in dealing with subjects. He noted about the increase in the element of deception as found in ethnographic studies of AIDS prevention efforts for injection drug users (IDUs). The author took pains in discussing some deceptions basic to participant observation in virtually all social settings, with examples taken from my research of outreach workers and their dealings with IDUs working to combat HIV. He also discussed some common deceptions run by outreach against the projects in which they work, and in their dealings with ethnographers. (Broadhead, 2001) In making now the comparison, it could now be stated the article is also interested in attaining the objectives of ethnographic research and in his candidness, he was telling what was happening in the conduct of the study that is deception as a necessary element. With his candidness, it could be deduced that the attainment of the purpose of the study is paramount. Simply said, ethnographers love their work because they value their learning that they will get. In the pursuit of the truth they were ready to put many things on the line even their capacity to have fake relationships. Another article is “Ten Lies of Ethnography: Moral Dilemmas of Field Research” by Gary Alan Fine. In his work, the author talked about what is ‘undesirable’ to all work, but must still is done if objectives of research are to me. Fine (1993) has argued that images of ethnographers – personal and public- are based on partial truths or self-deceptions. He concluded that all trades develop a body of conceits that they wish to hide from those outside the boundaries of their domain; so it is with ethnographers. As a result to talk about the inevitability of criticism about the work of the profession due to these compromises being made and he declared that protecting one’s self from harsh critique is central to one’s professional standing. Compared with the preceding article on “Hustlers in Drug-Related Aid Prevention: Ethnographers, Outreach Workers, Injection Drug Users”|, this article would seem to talk also about the dirty part of work. While the former talked of faking relationship, this one talked to making lies as a necessary in the practice of ethnography. Compared however with the first two articles, this also emphasizes the importance of accomplishing the purpose of research in ethnography no matter what it cost. It may therefore be concluded that based on four articles, there is an implied meaning that in the pursuit of truth, no stones shall be left unturned. References: Broadhead, R. (2001) Hustlers in Drug-Related Aid Prevention: Ethnographers, Outreach Workers, Injection Drug Users , Addiction Research Theory, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 545-556, Overseas Publishers Association, N.V. Fine, Gary Alan (1993) Ten Lies of Ethnography: Moral Dilemmas of Field Research, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol 22, No.3 , October 1993 267-294 Sage Publications, Inc. (London ) Sudhir Venkatesh (2002) ‘Doin’ the hustle’ Constructing the ethnographer in the American ghetto, SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) Vol 3(1): 91–111[1466–1381(200203)3:1;91–111;021725] Williams, Terry (1992)Personal Safety in dangerous Places, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, vol 21, No.3 , October 1992 373-374, Sage Publications, Inc. (London) Read More