Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg
Righteous Dopefiend
$65.00, £44.95 hardcover
9780520230880
Available Now
$24.95, £16.95 paperback
9780520254985
Available Now
392 pages, 7 x 9-1/2 inches, 64 duotones
May 2009, Available worldwide
Also in: California & The West: Urban Studies; Social Problems
May 2009, Available worldwide
Also in: California & The West: Urban Studies; Social Problems
This powerful study immerses the reader in the world of homelessness and drug addiction in the contemporary United States. For over a decade Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg followed a social network of two dozen heroin injectors and crack smokers on the streets of San Francisco, accompanying them as they scrambled to generate income through burglary, panhandling, recycling, and day labor. Righteous Dopefiend interweaves stunning black-and-white photographs with vivid dialogue, detailed field notes, and critical theoretical analysis. Its gripping narrative develops a cast of characters around the themes of violence, race relations, sexuality, family trauma, embodied suffering, social inequality, and power relations. The result is a dispassionate chronicle of survival, loss, caring, and hope rooted in the addicts' determination to hang on for one more day and one more "fix" through a "moral economy of sharing" that precariously balances mutual solidarity and interpersonal betrayal.
"Righteous Dopefiend is quite simply one of the most original and important works of its kind. . . . It is a pathbreaking photo-ethnography, powerful in presentation, content and scope. . . . A must-read, Righteous Dopefiend will rock the world of the sheltered middle class and shed new light on the pervasive structural inequalities plaguing contemporary society."—Philadelphia Inquirer (by Elijah Anderson, author of Streetwise:Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community.)
"Get this book and read it. If you're interested in homelessness, addiction, or in the public health issues surrounding IV drug use, this is an excellent source of information. The authors treat their subject brilliantly and with great compassion. It is also a hell of a story, and it's local. These people walk by you every day and should not remain invisible."—San Francisco Bay Guardian
"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
"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
"Powerfully candid."—Zocalo (the Public Square Blog)
"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
"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
"Get this book and read it. If you're interested in homelessness, addiction, or in the public health issues surrounding IV drug use, this is an excellent source of information. The authors treat their subject brilliantly and with great compassion. It is also a hell of a story, and it's local. These people walk by you every day and should not remain invisible."—San Francisco Bay Guardian
"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
"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
"Powerfully candid."—Zocalo (the Public Square Blog)
"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
"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
"Calling this book ethnography would be like calling The Wire a cop show: what comes roaring out of its pages is almost as visceral and devastating as spending a night in 'the hole' itself."—Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums
"Plunge beneath the surface of America's no-man's lands. Find in the dead-end alleyways, storage lots, and overgrown embankments the terrifying but strangely ordered world of homeless heroin injectors. This book will test your cultural relativism to destruction, but along the way you will learn a great deal about destitution, about homelessness, about addiction, and about violence at all levels. These dopefiends are 'made in America'."—Paul Willis, author of Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, and co-founding editor of Ethnography
"Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg provide a riveting narrative of the daily struggles for survival of homeless people with a physical and emotional addiction to heroin. The authors' poignant account of these experiences features sophisticated analytic themes that enable them insightfully to integrate discussions of agency and moral responsibility on the part of homeless addicts with an analysis of the powerful structural forces that shape the addicts' lives. Righteous Dopefiend is a must-read."—William Julius Wilson, author of More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City
"Bourgois and Schonberg deliver luminous images and intimate portraits of unforgettable Dickensian characters—a host of late-modern hobos, hustlers, dumpster divers, and sweet-talking jivers—whose addiction consigns them to lives of public ignominy and private pleasures transacted under the concrete freeway overpasses of a totally indifferent San Francisco. This tough book is a must-read for all."—Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of Death Without Weeping
"If Pierre Bourdieu, George Orwell, and Walker Evans had met in a homeless encampment under a San Francisco highway, they could not have produced a more penetrating portrait of America's urban outcasts than Righteous Dopefiend. Fusing ethnography, photography, and social theory, Bourgois and Schonberg take the reader on the frantic roller coaster ride of daily subsistence among a clique of indigent heroin addicts. This searing anthropology of everyday violence in the underbelly of the American metropolis will challenge social scientists and public health experts, stun lay readers, and shame public officials oblivious to the social dereliction their failed policies are spawning."—Loïc Wacquant, author of Urban Outcasts and Punishing the Poor
"Plunge beneath the surface of America's no-man's lands. Find in the dead-end alleyways, storage lots, and overgrown embankments the terrifying but strangely ordered world of homeless heroin injectors. This book will test your cultural relativism to destruction, but along the way you will learn a great deal about destitution, about homelessness, about addiction, and about violence at all levels. These dopefiends are 'made in America'."—Paul Willis, author of Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, and co-founding editor of Ethnography
"Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg provide a riveting narrative of the daily struggles for survival of homeless people with a physical and emotional addiction to heroin. The authors' poignant account of these experiences features sophisticated analytic themes that enable them insightfully to integrate discussions of agency and moral responsibility on the part of homeless addicts with an analysis of the powerful structural forces that shape the addicts' lives. Righteous Dopefiend is a must-read."—William Julius Wilson, author of More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City
"Bourgois and Schonberg deliver luminous images and intimate portraits of unforgettable Dickensian characters—a host of late-modern hobos, hustlers, dumpster divers, and sweet-talking jivers—whose addiction consigns them to lives of public ignominy and private pleasures transacted under the concrete freeway overpasses of a totally indifferent San Francisco. This tough book is a must-read for all."—Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of Death Without Weeping
"If Pierre Bourdieu, George Orwell, and Walker Evans had met in a homeless encampment under a San Francisco highway, they could not have produced a more penetrating portrait of America's urban outcasts than Righteous Dopefiend. Fusing ethnography, photography, and social theory, Bourgois and Schonberg take the reader on the frantic roller coaster ride of daily subsistence among a clique of indigent heroin addicts. This searing anthropology of everyday violence in the underbelly of the American metropolis will challenge social scientists and public health experts, stun lay readers, and shame public officials oblivious to the social dereliction their failed policies are spawning."—Loïc Wacquant, author of Urban Outcasts and Punishing the Poor
Introduction: A Theory of Lumpen Abuse
1. Intimate Apartheid
2. Falling in Love
3. A Community of Addicted Bodies
4. Childhoods
5. Making Money
6. Parenting
7. Male Love
8. Everyday Addicts
9. Treatment
Conclusion: Critically Applied Public Anthropology
References
Notes on the Photographs
Acknowledgments
1. Intimate Apartheid
2. Falling in Love
3. A Community of Addicted Bodies
4. Childhoods
5. Making Money
6. Parenting
7. Male Love
8. Everyday Addicts
9. Treatment
Conclusion: Critically Applied Public Anthropology
References
Notes on the Photographs
Acknowledgments
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