Ethnography at the Edge : Crime, Deviance, and Field Research

The candid, first-person accounts of their experiences, especially in illegal, immoral, and dangerous situations, reveal the horrors, perils, and joys of ethnographic research. The methodological, theoretical, and political implications of field work are also thoroughly discussed. Describing their deep involvement with such diverse groups as skinheads, phone sex workers, drug dealers, graffiti artists, and the homeless, many of the authors confess to their own episodes of illegal drug use, drunk driving, weapons violations, assault at gunpoint, obstruction of justice, and arrest while engaged in ethnographic studies.

Although field research is seldom safe, convenient, or above professional criticism, this volume demonstrates that it is vital for providing a fuller understanding of deviant and criminal populations.

JEFF FERRELL is Professor of Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University. He is the author of Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality and co-editor (with Clinton R. Sanders) of Cultural Criminology, both published by Northeastern University Press. MARK S. HAMM is Professor of Criminology at Indiana State University. He is the author of The Abandoned Ones: The Imprisonment and Uprising of the Mariel Boat People and Apocalypse in Oklahoma: Waco and Ruby Ridge Revenged, also published by Northeastern University Press.