In this subject you will closely read an ethnography: Bourgois & Schonbergs' Righteous Dopefiend (2009); a gritty urban monograph dealing with a community of marginalized and disenfranchised homeless addicts in San Francisco. Bourgois & Schonberg take the particular insights of their ethnographic field and use them to illuminate the larger issues of race, class, gender, femininity, masculinity, violence, humour, sadness, criminality and morality. Their work is also an example of a critically applied social science, in that the authors sought to influence policy in relation to health service delivery for homeless addicts. In exploring such themes Bourgois & Schonberg's work dissolves the putative divide between anthropology, sociology and development studies, and gives us concrete examples of some of the big-ticket concepts that you will be tackling throughout your Honours year.

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