On the ropes (Goffman review)
I would be happy to see the volume come down in this discussion. But I do have some complaints. Continue reading →
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/on-the-ropes-goffman-review/
On the ropes (Goffman review) | FI
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To me a valuable line in Cohen's review is when he says that there is a difference between what an ethnographer knows to be true and what they were told. I think the latter is sometimes really important, because it clues the researcher into rumors and innuendo, and some of the unverified information may motivate behavior. Just because somebody says something doesn't mean it's true, but it is true that they said it, and that in itself may be worth including in an analysis. But the trick is to be absolutely clear about what you know and what you were told. What's surprising to me in this whole thing is that Duneier, in the Methods Appendix of Sidewalk, goes on in convincing length about the importance of fact-checking and I would have thought this would be drilled into AG. So, when I read for example the counts of police breaking-in doors, police beatings, etc, I saw Duneier's fingerprints all over that, thinking he encouraged her to be meticulous in her data collection. Now I'm less sure about what's occurred here. I really want to hear from AG.
As an ethnographer whose also an AP, I really want to defend AG. At first, with all the hoopla surrounding her Authors Meets Critics at the ASA, I saw a young sociologist with a target on her back and a lot of her colleagues jealously throwing darts at her. To me the criticisms around ethics and accuracy are more serious. The other serious issue to me is the apparent admission of a felony conspiracy charge. Ethnographers see illegal stuff happen all the time and report it in our research, but nobody gives a damn in most cases because we merely see illegal stuff happen. In this case, the difference seems to be willful participation, rather than participant-observation. It is convention for qual researchers in books or articles to include some vignette to establish ethnographic authority - that the researcher was treated as "one of them." Recall when Geertz flees from the police when the Balinese cockfight gets raide
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I'll go smoke crack, run from the cops, and help my dealer protect his turf by roughing up tweenage pushers. Plus, it won't take me six years to get great material. I bet $100 bills win trust faster than some white chick who gives out murder-patrol rides. Once I write that up I'll be sociology gold.
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Drip drip drip
Yep. Makes for an interesting read. Can we see the outlines of how the officially non-loony "adults" are going to put this to bed? We have the distancing - PC says OTR isn't really "social science." Nah, bra, it is a "sociological memoir." OK. And when it comes to the social sciencey, non-memoiry bits - the "survey" - that wasn't good "social science" anyways. OK. Bring it on home now, PC:
"In the end, besides what we learn from On the Run itself, I hope we learn from the debate over it how we can better balance the need for protecting research subjects — while learning a lot from them — with the imperative to conduct research that is transparent, verifiable, and (as much as possible) reproducible."
Did you all get the memo? There are edifying "lessons to be learned," but, hey, not our problem! But wait, hole up, remind us what we "learn from OTR itself?" Well, PC sez, it is "sometimes insightful and useful." Who knew poor black people were hounded by the law? And PC "mostly agree[s] with Goffman’s political description and conclusions about the injustices" Yes, of course. OK.
Sorry, but this is downright brutal. More brutal than anything dished out by the animals at SJMR. I was on the fence about the "AG controversy." This has pushed me over to GP's side (hai GP). Vicious.
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To be fair, there's not really a good reason to pay attention to Yuropean sociology
That's right, who needs to pay attention to Bourdieu, Goldthorpe, Castells, Willis, and Weber?I like how don't really cite anyone whose important work has come in the last two decades. There are some dope Europeans (Gambetta, Hedstrom and other Oxfordites are popular with an America set, but there are even interesting continentals, mainly people working in immigration like Jens Schneider and Maurice Crul), but there's good reason most people don't pay much attention to the Yuros.
Like Janet Jackson sang, what have you done for me lately? Who are the Yuros at the height for their career that we should be reading (beside the "integration"/immigration people, who are often as good as their American counterparts)?
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For demographers, Billari is big.
To be fair, there's not really a good reason to pay attention to Yuropean sociology
That's right, who needs to pay attention to Bourdieu, Goldthorpe, Castells, Willis, and Weber?
I like how don't really cite anyone whose important work has come in the last two decades. There are some dope Europeans (Gambetta, Hedstrom and other Oxfordites are popular with an America set, but there are even interesting continentals, mainly people working in immigration like Jens Schneider and Maurice Crul), but there's good reason most people don't pay much attention to the Yuros.
Like Janet Jackson sang, what have you done for me lately? Who are the Yuros at the height for their career that we should be reading (beside the "integration"/immigration people, who are often as good as their American counterparts)? -
Drip drip drip
Yep. Makes for an interesting read. Can we see the outlines of how the officially non-loony "adults" are going to put this to bed? We have the distancing - PC says OTR isn't really "social science." Nah, bra, it is a "sociological memoir." OK. And when it comes to the social sciencey, non-memoiry bits - the "survey" - that wasn't good "social science" anyways. OK. Bring it on home now, PC:
"In the end, besides what we learn from On the Run itself, I hope we learn from the debate over it how we can better balance the need for protecting research subjects � while learning a lot from them � with the imperative to conduct research that is transparent, verifiable, and (as much as possible) reproducible."
Did you all get the memo? There are edifying "lessons to be learned," but, hey, not our problem! But wait, hole up, remind us what we "learn from OTR itself?" Well, PC sez, it is "sometimes insightful and useful." Who knew poor black people were hounded by the law? And PC "mostly agree[s] with Goffman�s political description and conclusions about the injustices" Yes, of course. OK.
Sorry, but this is downright brutal. More brutal than anything dished out by the animals at SJMR. I was on the fence about the "AG controversy." This has pushed me over to GP's side (hai GP). Vicious.I have no idea what point you are trying to get across.
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17b8: Too meta for me - I actually don't understand your point. If you care, could you restate like I was new to it?
It didn't seem that confusing to me, but I just read PNC's post. 17b8 is saying PNC's bottom line is that 1) he dosen't consider OTR social science, 2) when it claims to be it is really bad social science, 3) OTR has no real insights but is useful for confirming PNC's politics, and 4) social scientists, even those "down with the struggle" like PNC, can wash their hands of it. Coming from a senior professor in a public forum, that is like shiv to the rib...or so says 17b8.
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17b8: Too meta for me - I actually don't understand your point. If you care, could you restate like I was new to it?
It didn't seem that confusing to me, but I just read PNC's post. 17b8 is saying PNC's bottom line is that 1) he dosen't consider OTR social science, 2) when it claims to be it is really bad social science, 3) OTR has no real insights but is useful for confirming PNC's politics, and 4) social scientists, even those "down with the struggle" like PNC, can wash their hands of it. Coming from a senior professor in a public forum, that is like shiv to the rib...or so says 17b8.
17b8 here. That is a fair tl;dr. This different from earlier attacks on AG coming from the loonytoons SJW fringe. Nobody but the bros at SJMR take those people seriously. This is gross.