Philippe Bourgois

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Philippe Bourgois (b. 1956) is an American-born anthropologist and sociologist. He is a Richard Perry University Professor of Anthropology & Family and Community Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He has conducted research in Central America on ethnicity and social unrest and is the author of Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation (1989). He also did fieldwork in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City. His book In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio was the winner of the 1996 C. Wright Mills Award and the 1997 Margaret Mead Award. His most recent fieldwork has been among homeless heroin injectors and crack smokers in San Francisco, which is the subject of a forthcoming book co-authored with Jeff Schonberg, "Righteous Dopefiend." He is considered an important proponent of neo-Marxist theory. [1]

Contents

[edit] Early Views of Anthropology

In an interview with Eric Haanstad[2], Bourgois talked about his early aspirations and his views on anthropology. Bourgois staes that at first he didn’t want to be apart of the world on anthropology as an academic so he began to work as a professor at San Francisco State, a school that didn’t have highly selective admission requirements that he viewed would result in a more “democratic working class environment.” He believed that the world of academia trained people to be disengaged in pertinent social events.

Due to his belief that anthropology should be used to engage people with current events, Bourgios became involved with public anthropology. As he stated in the interview, “I think that's one of the things that's interesting with the category "public anthropology," the way I see it, is it allows for political engagement that's relevant to burning social issues without getting tied into a bureaucratic framework where you're not allowed to debate issues of racism, for example, if you’re doing an economic development project in inner-city neighborhood.” Bourgios believed that there wasn’t an understanding that issues such as how the history of racism or the culture of poverty could be applied to redevelopment programs in slums.

In the interview with Haanstad, Bourgois also expressed fears about the next generation of anthropologist. He is concerned that the “new generations will stop going to places where they are going to be confronted face to face with those levels of social suffering that are so spread out in the world” so they can “escape the personal engagement with it.” He also spoke about his frusturations with the lack of discussion in the U.S. about some of these issues and the American sentiment that the poor are simply a collection of individuals with social pathologies who have made a series of bad decisions. He states that before the door can be opened to this type of discussion people need to recognize the presence and effects of the politics of race.

[edit] Training

Philippe received as B.A. in 1978 in Social Studies from Harvard College. He then went on to received two M.A. degrees from Stanford University in 1980 in Anthropology and Development Economics. He continued at Stanford for five more years until he was awarded a Ph. D. in Anthropology. He received a Post-Doctorate in 1985 from École Normale Supérieure in Paris. [3]

Philippe has done field research in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Canada, Bolivia, Panama and Belize as well as in many cities throughout the U.S. He is fluent in both Spanish and French and has a conversational skill level in Portuguese.

[edit] Postions and Awards

Throughout his career, Philippe has been the recipient of many prestigious awards including the Margaret Mead award in 1997, the C. Wright Mills Prize in 1996, the Victor Turner Award for Ethnographical Writing in 1996.

He has held positions as a professor and the Vice-Chair of the Anthropology Department at University of California-San Francisco. He was Chief of the Division of Medical Anthropology at UCSF and professor in the Department of Anthropology at San Francisco State University.

[edit] Publications

[edit] Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation

Bougois’s first book entitled Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation was published in 1989. Based on a year of field work in 1983, this work explores issues of ethnicity within the United Fruit Company’s banana plantation which straddles the border between Costa Rica and Panama on the Caribbean Coast. It focuses on the transnational changing patterns of interactions with respective ethnic groups the company has employed over the years. Bourgois documents the company’s ethnic discrimination and exploitation by using field data and company records. Bourgois divides the book into chapters based on the different ethnic groups. He focused on acts of discrimination such as how people from some ethnic groups are assigned the majority of heavy labor while others are able to unionize and participate in political activism. He gives accounts of the company’s exploitation of Bri Bri Indians of their land and the practice of importing Guaymi Indians to use as a cheap labor source. He also notes the company’s tactics to maintain power from the counties’ governments by their fruequent threats to shift operations from one country to the other.

[edit] In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in "El Barrio"

Bourgois’ second book is called In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio and was published in 1995 with a second U.S. edition being released in 2003. In Search of Respect is a product of many years of field work which began when in 1985 the newlywed Bourgois and his wife moved from Manhattan into a tenement building located in a section of East Harlem known as El Barrio, a section of Harlem that consist of predominantly Puerto Rican inhabitants. What started out as an exploration of untaxed economy led to a book that explores drug trade and the culture of poverty. In Search of Respect provides an in-depth exploration of the social marginalization and alienation experienced by drug dealers who, according to Charles Shannon, act in their particular way in an attempt to establish an “alternative personal dignity denied them by mainstream culture”[4]. In order to conduct his research Bourgois befriended two residents of El Barrio named Primo and Caesar who worked selling crack in a shop called The Game Room which used the selling of video games as a cover.

Through his research, Bourgois was able to study the drug market and it’s effects on the people who sold and used as well as it’s mark on the community at large at a very close distance. As Bourgois states in the introduction of the book, “Substance abuse in the inner city is merely a symptom-and a vivid symbol-of deeper dynamics of social marginalization and alienation"[5] In the book, he also explores the effects of street culture which he claims emerge from attempts at autonomy and efforts to reject racist constructs and subjugation but only leads to the degradation of community and personal ruin. In this dedicated attempt at “writing culture,” Bourgois is very conscious in his attempts to resist reinforcing popular racist and socioeconomic stereotypes.

[edit] Righteous Dopefiend

Bourgois’ third book entitled Righteous Dopefiend is currently in press and is part of the “Public Anthropology” series.

[edit] Articles

Philippe Bourgois is also the author of many articles that have been published in a variety of magazines. Topics of his articles include U.S. inner city apartied, gang rape, and the culture of poverty. Philippe does not only work with topics surrounding poverty and drugs but also with broader historical events for example his 2005 article entitled “Missing the Holocaust: My Father’s Account of Auschwitz from August 1943 to June 1944” which was published in Anthropology Quarterly. His latest publication is an article entitled “The Mystery of Marijuana: Science and the U.S. War on Drugs” which can be found in Substance Use and Misuse.

[edit] Current Work

As of May 2008, Bourgois is working on a HIV-prevention study funded by the National Institute for Drug Addiction in which he is conducting field studies in encampments of homeless heroine users. The study explores how emotional survival and material limitations of people experiencing homelessness result in the sharing of syringes and ancillary paraphernalia. The study aims to demonstrate how macro—power structures influence individual behavior and choices. The goal of the project is to increase health care opportunities and create effective preventative programs.

Bourgois is also conducting follow-up interviews with acquaintances he made during the research for his book In Search of Respect. And as an extension of the work he did in the 1980’s during the Salvadorian Civil War, he is conducting oral interviews of guerilla fighters of that war that have since immigrated to San Francisco to work as day-laborers.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Public Anthropology
  2. ^ Being a Public Anthropologist: An interview with Philippe Bourgois, http://www.publicanthropology.org/Journals/Grad-j/Wisconsin/Bourgint.htm
  3. ^ Bourgios' professional resume, http://philippebourgois.net/
  4. ^ Charles Shannon, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, December 1996
  5. ^ Introduction to In Search of Respect, page 2
  • McGee, R.J. and R.L. Warms, Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. McGraw Hill, Boston, 2004. (ISBN 0-07-284046-3)
  • Conniff, Michael L. Review of Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation. The American Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 1 (Feb., 1991), pp. 297-298.


[edit] External links