>So, I'm wondering if anyone can recommend works
>(theory, telling anecdotes, what have you) by sharp
>thinkers and 'ground level' workers that deal with
>these issues in a comprehensive and thoughtful way.
>
Eli Anderson, _STreetwise: RAce, Class, and Change in an Urban an Urban Community_
This is a marvelous ethnographic account of a Philly neighborhood. Anderson is mostly following the larger class-based analysis of Wm J Wilson, only giving life to it with real people and their lives. He doesn't hide the dirty laundry. He writes about women who have children without marrying and leave them with their mothers after they become less than adorable. He writes about "The GAme" played by young men who try to date as many women as possible, all the while promising them marriage. He writes about the Sunday Baby Parades and men who come knocking on "mother's day" (when AFDC checks arrive). He also discussed "street behavior" and the underpinnings of respect/disrespect games that are played in urban communities. BUT, he situates all of this within an analysis of a community ravaged by racism and deindustrialization.
Eli Anderson, _Code of the Street_
Haven't read this, but I imagine it's very good. I heard him talk about the book, though, and I was very impressed. Also, by now, Anderson's probably spent 30 years in these Philly neighborhoods.
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/ba990818.htm (interview at The Atlantic == click around, an excerpt from the book is there to, I believe)
http://www.wright.edu/news_events/dialogue/feb97/10.html
Jay MacLeod, _Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low Income neighborhood_ MacLeod's book grew out of his work as a soc major at Yale, IMS. It is a u.s. extension of the work of Paul Willis, etc. (British Cultural Studies). MacLeod hangs out with and interviews two groups of kids who live in a low income housing project, one white and one black. As I've mentioned before, the black kids, inspired by CR struggles and claims of opportunity, do the right thing and end up barely getting by. Their white counterparts, who've shunned school, dropped out, and turned to dealing are either dead, addicted, or in jail.
I'm going to send along an exerpt that would be a great piece to discuss re: broader issues of class.
Wm Julius Wilson, _When Work Disappears_ Wilson was widely denounced for his books, _The Declining Significance of Race_ and _The Truly Disadvantaged_. I think those criticisms were unfair because they turn on the claim that Wilson says race doesn't matter. He doesn't. He's trying to say that, underneath it all, you will still have _structural inequality_ that is built into the system. Was a critique of liberal views of the race issue.
He followed up with WWD and it was pretty good, albeit a bit boring because it's written by a person trained in number crunching but he's tried to do more of an ethnography. Uncomfortable with the genre, it is stiff. He tries too damn hard to present interview material as if they were charts and graphs. Anyway, I remember having some problems with what he says but for the life of me I can't remember what they were. Have to dig out lecture notes.
Kathryn Edin, _Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work_ An ethnography, not as good as Anderson, but ok. Edin explains some of these behaviors, including welfare "cheating" by showing how you _have_ to cheat to survive.
There's plenty more, but I consider those the classics.
Kelley
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'