Righteous Dopefiend

by Bourgois, Philippe

• ISBN13: 9780520254985
• ISBN10: 0520254988
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780520943315
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-29
• Publisher: Ingram Publisher Services, Inc.
• More Book Details

Summary

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 Dopefiendinterweaves 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.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Theory of Lumpen Abuse

Intimate Apartheid

Falling in Love

A Community of Addicted Bodies

Childhoods

Making Money

Parenting

Male Love

Everyday Addicts

Treatment

Conclusion: Critically Applied Public Anthropology

References

Notes on the Photographs

Acknowledgments

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.