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(More customer reviews)Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders is one of the more innovative ethnographies released recently. Whether you are reading for academic reasons or for fun, I highly recommend you read this book! Dr. Gowan conducts a discourse analysis to her rich ethnographic data--i.e. she reads actions as text--in a way that enables her to discuss being homeless from the broad systemic perspective of policy directed toward homelessness in addition to the individual level understandings and experiences of people who are homeless. She does so by demonstrating how homelessness is consistently expressed through three forms of talk: sin, system, and sick. Doing so enables her drastically reduce the use of jargon in the text while enabling her to smoothly transition back and forth between discussions of policy and presentations of detailed individual accounts. The result is a well-executed and written study providing a holistic understanding of homelessness that will change the way you view the politicians, social workers, and people living on the street. On all accounts, this book is a resounding success and I'm looking forward to reading it again.
Additional comments to the casual reader: As mentioned, this book uses little jargon and is enjoyable to read. You will be able to move through the text without becoming bored or stuck on dry scholarly debates.
Additional comments to other ethnographers and scholars studying culture: This book advances the discussion surrounding the culture of poverty anxiety generated by the Moynihan report. It also could be viewed as a methodological exemplar of how to use discourse analysis with ethnographic data. It is the first I've seen using this approach, but as any good approach, I'm sure it won't be the last.
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