The Righteous Dopefiend• purpose of the book: to clarify the relationship between large-scale power forces and intimate ways of beingIntroduction: A Thoery of Abuse• The Edgewater Homeless• November 1994 - December 2006 Philippe Bourgois & Jeff Schonberg became part of the daily lives of several dozen homeless heroin injectors whosought shelter in Edgewater Boulevard (not its real name) in San Francisco• at any given moment, the core social network they befriended usually consisted of 20 individuals - fewer than a half dozen were women• they usually divided themselves up into 4 or 5 encampments, which frequently shifted locations to escape the police• all but 2 of the injectors were over 40 years old• they also smoked crack and drank large quantities of alcohol• The Edgewater homeless embrace the popular terminology of addiction and, with ambivalent pride, refer to themselves as “righteous dopefiends”• Hustled in the Moral Economy• Edgewater homeless = a community of addicted bodies that is held together by a moral economy of sharing• the practice of reciprocal heroin sharing among the Edgewater homeless• most homeless heroin injectors cannot survive as solo operators on the street• they are constantly seeking one another out to exchange tastes of heroin, sips of wine, and loans of spare change• the gift-giving envelops them in a web of mutual obligations and also establishes the boundaries of their community• homeless heroin users hustle everyone with whom they interact, fooling even themselves and betraying even their own bodies and desires• Cultural Relativism, Confidentiality, and Respect• cultural relativism strategically suspends moral judgments in order to understand and appreciate the diverse logics of social and cultural practices that, atfirst sight, often evoke righteous responses and prevent analytical self-reflection• approach used by Philippe & Jeff• Collaborative Photo-Ethnography• ethnography: the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures• Philippe & Jeff conducted fieldwork together and wrote the book sitting side by side• Jeff = “my photographer”• Philippe = “my professor”• Theoretical Approaches to Social Suffering• symbolic power• concept introduced by Pierre Bourdieu• the implied almost unconscious modes of cultural/social domination occurring within the every-day social habits maintained over conscious subjects• accounts for the discipline used against another to confirm that individual’s placement in a social hierarchy• includes actions that have discriminatory or injurious meaning or implications, such as gender dominance and racism• Structural Violence• the way that the political/economic organization of society often harms vulnerable categories of people• Symbolic Violence• the misrecognition of inequality as the natural order of things; it leads people to blame themselves for their location in the social hierarchy• lumpen abuse• Karl Marx• lumpen proletariat - lowest of the low as far as social classes• displaced people who have been cut off from the socioeconomic class with which they would ordinarily be identified• describes the multiple abusive relationships and structural violence experienced uniquely by the homeless• habitus• concept developed by Bourdieu• refers to our deepest likes, dislikes, and personal dispositions, including those of our preconscious bodies• likes, dislikes, and intimate ways of being formed through prolonged exposure to social structural conditions• Fieldwork in Gray Zone• addiction under conditions of extreme poverty and concerned police repression creates a morally ambiguous space that blurs the lines between victimsand perpetrators Chapter 1: Intimate Apartheid - addresses ethnic polarization and introduces most of the core members of the social network on the street• lull in law enforcement allowed a larger central camp to emerge• Max was the first to settle the spot, followed by running partners Felix and Frank• running partner - a person with whom an individual shares work, space, money, and drugs; the relationship relies on mutual reciprocity • Petey and Scotty were the next to move in (“the island boys” - spent most of their time selling heroin on the surrounding traffic islands)• Al and his “girlfriend” Rosie moved in soon after• Hank was the last to establish himself as a regular inhabitant of the camp• Ethnic Hierarchies on the Street• during their first year, all the homeless in the central encampment were white except for Felix who was Latino• whites claimed they were the victims of black violence and theft, but really they weren’t• The Arrival of African-Americans• during their second year of fieldwork, an African-American heroin injector named Carter became a regular in their homeless scene• Racial Disequilibrium• within a week, Carter went from being an employed, housed, and high-status giver in the moral economy to a quarrelsome taker• his permanent presence in the main encampment attracted 3 additional African-Americans: Stretch, Sonny, and Tina• White Flight• ethnic tensions mounted• Hogan was the first to move out of the encampment to escape from the blacks• Felix and Frank ended up being the only 2 remaining original members of what had been the mostly white encampment • A Latino Interlude• formerly, Felix had been the only Latino in the scene and had been treated as an “honorary white”. The arrival of the African-Americans allowed him toestablish a new ethnic space for himself, and he began referring to his former companions as “lame whites”.• Felix befriended a Puerto Rican injector named Victor• Victor’s son Little Vic came to visit - bonded with his father through crack smoking and aggression against the whites• Little Vic was arrested which led his father to reduce his presence in the encampment - this left Felix feeling isolated • The one other Latino on the scene was Sal who lived with his girlfriend Carmen• Ethnicity and Habitus• African-Americans, whites, and Latinos shared and competed for the same limited resources - public space, income, and drugs• the homeless on Edgewater Boulevard were deeply divided along racialized lines, and their hostility was exacerbated by their physical proximity • intimate apartheid• the involuntary and predictable manner in which sharply delineated