Ethnography In Alice Goffman's On The Run

Alice Goffman’s ethnography, On the Run, details the lives of young black men and their families on “6th street” - a neighborhood in Philadelphia. An ethnography aims to produce an account that conveys a culture and its functions. Goffman’s position as an ethnographer is to be a fly on the wall. “On 6th Street I often felt like an idiot, an outsider, and at times a powerless young woman.” (231) She notes that her job was not easy - especially due to the fact that she was surrounded by people that came from very different backgrounds than her. Goffman had to adapt to the language and actions of the people in the community, and this was one of the first barriers of the study. She was aware that she must maintain distance in order to limit her influence on events. “The most consistent technique I adopted to reduce the impact of my difference was social shrinkage - to become as small a presence as possible.” (237) This proved difficult with things like violence. She learned that to influence people out of going through with violent threats was not only expected, but necessary. Her position as an educated, middle-class, white female set her apart from the men in her study, an ode to her aims to be an outsider. However, she experienced that rather than elevating her status, her diversity became an obstacle to overcome. (233) She attempted …show more content…
He makes the claim that, “all three authors put forth truncated and distorted accounts of their object due to their abiding wish to articulate and even celebrate the fundamental goodness of America’s urban poor.” (1469) Wacquant critiques sentimental analysis, and concludes that these authors exploited their subjects by painting untruthful pictures for the sake of profiting off social phenomena. He ended his article with 5 “cardinal rules” that authors in this genre follow when “writing about the (black) poor.”

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