Ethnography At The Edge: Crime, Deviance, and Field Research

by Mark S. Hamm (Editor), Peter Adler (Foreword), Patricia A. Adler (Foreword) (Foreword)

The candid, first-person accounts of their experiences, especially in illegal, immoral, and dangerous situations, reveal the horrors, perils, and joys of ethnographic research. The methodological, theoretical, and political implications of field work are also thoroughly discussed. Describing their deep involvement with such diverse groups as skinheads, phone sex workers, drug dealers, graffiti artists, and the homeless, many of the authors confess to their own episodes of illegal drug use, drunk driving, weapons violations, assault at gunpoint, obstruction of justice, and arrest while engaged in ethnographic studies. Although field research is seldom safe, convenient, or above professional criticism, this volume demonstrates that it is vital for providing a fuller understanding of deviant and criminal populations.

336 pages, Paperback

First published April 9, 1998

Reviews

[Archenon · Rating 2 out of 5]

A interesting book I would have liked to like more than I did. I read it because I too agree that understanding gained by using ethnographical methods would benefit criminology greatly. They would be especially helpful to avoid misconceptions when reading and extracting statistical data, and they would help to understand actual functioning of the criminal world. The book basically did what it promised - it told us about the lives and experiences of the criminological ethnographers and about the dangers they are facing. Some of the writers were good and seemed to know what they are doing - also in scientific sense. However some of the writers utterly failed to reflect their observations with their own backgrounds and ideologies, letting all their bias, wild imagination and even paranoia loose. This failure to exercise analytical thinking made it sound like some of the individuals choose the ethnography instead of the statistics because they lacked what it takes.

[Sophon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work provides excellent insight on how daring the ethnographers featured in the book were in order to conduct their research. You definitely learn quite a bit about each of the topics. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ethnography at the Edge because of the variety of subjects that were addressed. It was interesting to see such a variety of studies conducted presented in the book. With many of the subjects discussed, it is easy to see how a stigma could be attached to many of these field researchers. There are many who might have pre-conceived notions about a woman studying phone sex operators or a sociologist studying marijuana growers. These types of taboos in our society definitely need to be exposed and researched in order to address these issues. This is an excellent resource for anyone interested in practical field research and the situations and emotions that can arise during the process.