In Search Of Respect

Question 1

What is habitus?

Answer 1

Introduced by Marcel Mauss and developed by Pierre Bourdieu, it’s a system of structuring dispositions which is constituted in practice.

Part of Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory

Question 2

What is Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory?

Answer 2

The idea that social identity is produced by agents according to difference or distinction from the ‘other’.

First observed in how poor children resisted school, were then channel led into marginal roles in society, and those that saw success has to reject their ethnic identity. Documents how teachers unconsciously give out subliminal class and cultural messages to hierarchise their students.

Can be applied to how violence that plagued the inner city is resistance to mainstream white culture, which pushes them into marginalisation.

Question 3

What is structural/institutional violence?

Answer 3

When social structures or institutions deny people of their basic needs, and this causes suffering

Question 4

What is cultural capital?

What is social capital?

Answer 4

Cultural - the accepted knowledge which helps to navigate a specific social environment

Social - the relationships and connections an individual has to increase status

Question 5

Weapons of the weak?

Answer 5

Part of James Scott’s resistance theory, describes the mundane, unnoticeable ways in which oppressed people resist and carve agency in their lives (i.e. Stealing at work, poaching, sabotage)

Question 6

Internalisation?

Quote example?

Answer 6

The process of embedding a certain belief into one’s mind

Primo: ‘I don’t blame where I’m at right now on nobody else but myself’

Question 7

Historical context?

Answer 7

Decade after Nixon introduced the ‘war on drugs’, initiating politics of fear

Reagan privatised huge parts of the economy from 1982-86

Question 8

What is the “culture of terror”?

Answer 8

Term coined by Michael Taussig, explains how fear is created both inside and out of the neighbourhood, born out of occasions of extreme violence, racist stereotypes, and media

Question 9

What is culture of poverty? Criticisms?

Answer 9

Oscar Lewis has declared in ‘La Vida’ that these Puerto Rican migrants are victims of a ‘culture of poverty’ (1966).

Bourgois is part of the scholars who put focus on structures to avoid ‘blame the victim’ tendencies.

Furthermore, he rejects the notion that the poor have been badly socialised and do not share mainstream values, arguing that they still pursue the ‘American Dream’

Question 10

What does he explain in the first chapter about his theoretical approach?

Answer 10

Takes both the structurally centred Political Economy Theory and the actor centres Cultural Production Theory

Question 11

What is a Jibaro?

Answer 11

Low class Puerto Ricans who farm the land. By up keeping this identity, and the power structures associated with it, migrants are rejecting mainstream Western culture, but can then be vulnerable to alienation and isolation.

Question 12

What is Max Weber known for?

Relevance? What theory acknowledged this?

Answer 12

Theorist known for stressing the agency of individuals, “Weberian social action” refers to an act which considers the actions and reactions of individuals

Informants are not completely powerless! They’re not merely chess pieces, as political economy might suggest

This is why Bourgois uses cultural production theory

Question 13

What other theorists use agency in their arguments?

Answer 13

Frederik Barth

Question 14

History of drug selling?

Answer 14

The kilo price of coccaine dropped fivefold during the 1980s from $80,000 to $15,000

Question 15

How many Puerto Ricans in US?

How many in east Harlem?

Answer 15

36% of island-born Puerto Ricans lived in mainland USA in the 1990s

One third of east Harlem is Puerto Rican

Question 16

Quote informant on social capital?

Answer 16

“The only way you can survive in this world is to be connected, or to be connected dirty” -Caeser

Question 17

What shows Candy as strong? Is she characteristic of the Puerto Rican archetypes?

Answer 17

She shot Felix, husband and previous owner of the day room, sold it to Ray for $3000

No, she challenges Jibaro masculinity. When her husband was in jail she took control, was one of two women working for Ray, reversed patriarchy, boyfriend Primo not happy -> beat her

Question 18

How do informants try to ‘go legit’?

Answer 18

Ray tried to open up a legitimate ‘bodega’. Caeser and Primo were very enthusiastic, cleaned the building, killed rats. Eventually closed down due to failed health inspections. Ray doesn’t have a driver’s license or ID.

Primo has an office job but is called ‘illiterate’ by his ‘prejudiced’ boss Gloria. He is not allowed to answer the phone because of his Puerto Rican Accent.
“I really wanna work legal”

Question 19

Why is there violence towards women? Example?

Answer 19

Candy was beaten at least three times a night, every day from 13 to 21

Attempt to reassert their grandfathers autocratic control, as now some women are earning the money. E.g. Candy works weekend nights, earns more than Primo, results in physical violence

Question 20

What is significant of mafia

Answer 20

Legacy of the Italian mafia is a reminder that violence and crime are profitable, and reject capitalism

Question 21

Why do Bourgois’ informants find it hard to pursue the ‘immigrants dream’?

Answer 21

Structure: Between 1950 and 1990 factory jobs in New York decreases threefold, woke FIRE (Finance, Real Estate, and Insurance) sectors have increased. This office work is feminised.
Recession in 1990.

Question 22

Caeser speaks of physically abusing a boy with cerebral palsy, how does Bourgois respond?

Answer 22

Difficult situation. Thinks about the structures that make this violence necessary.

Question 23

How are dealers socialised?

Answer 23

Most blame their peer group at school. For example Primo was an apprentice of an older peer group, stealing a radio from a car was seen as a rite of passage, Primo then belonged to the group.

Question 24

Gang rapes…

Answer 24

Considered “training” for the girl, show of masculinity, Bourgois worried about his representation of the poor and powerless

Question 25

Effect of 1980s coccaine-crack epidemic on children?

Answer 25

Increased neglect, just under half of addicts were women, mothers thought to have lost their sense of familial duty,

Question 26

Ethnography details

Answer 26

Philippe Bourgois
In Search Of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
East Harlem, New York, USA
1985-1990, during “war on drugs” policy in US, after globalisation + migration in Puerto Rico