With No Direction Home Summary

20; Levi, Rosenthal & Bailey 2013, 241). In the case of the Edgewater homeless, this photo ethnography urges the reader to move beyond base simplistic assumptions and stigma surrounding the community and move towards a greater understand of how large coercive constraints interact with intimate behaviour, and how this contributes to, and continue to contribute to, the Edgewater homeless circumstances and suffering (Bourgois & Schonberg 2009, p.20). Bourgois and Schonberg (2009, pp. 20, 318) state that the Edgewater Boulevard is home to the social pariahs who have hit rock bottom, fleeing and expelled from family, the labour force and government services, and all the while blaming themselves for their fate. It is the gray zone that justifies this self-condemnation and where interpersonal violence and betrayal can fester, playing out between loved ones or themselves (Bourgois & Schonberg 2009, p. 318). Bourgois and Schonberg (2009, p. 318) state that it is this everyday spectacle of gray zone behaviour that obscures impact of long-term social forces and legitimizes purposefully hostile or dysfunctional government policies towards the poor.

In “Salvaging the Self from Homelessness”, David Snow and Leon Anderson argue that while people living on the streets have an obvious social or role identity, they sometimes struggle to find their personal identities. A social identity is an identity given to someone by society. If a person sees someone else living on the street, they will most likely be identified as homeless. A personal identity is an identity people assign to themselves to give meaning to who they are. Snow and Anderson continue by studying how homeless people attempt to create a personal identity. They come up with three general ways, distancing, embracement, and fictive storytelling. Distancing simply means trying to avoid actions, places, and people who relate

The ethnography in “With No Direction Home” by Marni Finkelstein was quite astounding. The group Finkelstein studied were street kids no older than the age of 20. Finkelstein did not interview kids over 20 because he said kids under the age of 21 rely on their families for social and financial support. He studied kids under 20 because those groups are most vulnerable to the lack of familial support and wanted to determine whether it will affect their self behaviour. These interviews and observations were constructed in the East Village of New York. The kids interviewed were from all over the place like New Jersey, Northeastern states, Southwest, Midwest, Southwest..etc. This study took place in the year 2005. Finkelstein tried to answer

Being homeless presents many challenges for youth that they normally live day to day, unable to develop plans for forming a productive life structure. Since many homeless youth don’t have money so they start begging or selling drugs or start prostituting to earn money to cover their basic needs. The basic problem of homelessness is the human need for personal shelter,

The book “With No Direction Home: Homeless Youth on the Road and in the Streets” written by Marni Finkelstein refers to the homeless youth. This book describes the lifestyle of the teenagers with no home and explains with detail about what consist in their everyday lives in the streets of New York City. The purpose of this book is to explain to people who these kids are and to see life in their point of view. It explains the difference between street kids and the kids that live on the street. We need to understand that the kids that live on the streets have their own culture and their own way of surviving. Learning their point of view would be a great eye opening experience for everyone and to also understand their struggle. This book explains a study that was done to 50 street kids and life on the streets.

A suburban life is a paradise full of shopping, colorful gardens, and well-groomed homes. Despite all these benefits, a suburban life is an isolated life. People living in suburbs are rarely exposed to miseries in society. One of these conflicts is homelessness. When living in an environment surrounded by homes, individuals often have difficulty imagining not being able to sleep in a warm bed, eat a proper meal or even receive necessary medical attention. This grim situation is depicted in the writings of Jeannette Walls. In the autobiography The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls accurately portrays homelessness by explaining its causes, its impact upon daily life, and its effect on victimized families.

In this critical review of Marni Finkelstein’s ethnography “With No Direction Home: Homeless Youth on the Road and in the Streets” I will analyze and evaluate some of the strategies and methods used by this author. One primary issue I will discuss is the sample population. Finkelstein may have set the population limitations to strictly for this ethnography. Her limited observation location and time is also a major issue. She chose to study a transient population that, very likely, primarily comes out at night. Yet, she limited herself to one primary location and she only went there in the daytime. I will discuss the lack

Youth who live on the streets are there for two main reasons either they chose to leave the home because of the living situation or they will leave home because they are kicked out or drugs and alcohol have led them onto the streets. 20% of the homeless population is youth and it is increasing every year because of the changes that our generation is going through and being affected by. The rates of suicide in homeless youth are 10.3 times larger then an average Canadian youth. (McKay, E. (2009). Independent Living Accounts: Leaving Homelessness in the Past.).

Homelessness is portrayed as circumstances of people or family units without steady, uninterrupted, proper lodging, or the quick prospect, means and capacity of getting it. It is the aftereffect of universal or public obstructions, an absence of reasonable and suitable lodging, the individual/family unit 's money related, mental, cognitive, behavioral or physical difficulties, and/or bigotry and segregation. A majority of individuals don 't decide to be dispossessed, and the occurrence is usually negative, unsavory, upsetting and troubling

The ethnography With No Direction Home: Homeless Youth on the Road and in the Streets by Marni Finkelstein, describes the life of street youth in New York City. The ethnography attempts to debunk myths that prior studies have formed of these street youths. The author, Marni Finkelstein is an Anthropologist renowned for her work on urban populations at risk. She graduated from the New School of Social Research in New York City with her PhD in Anthropology. Finkelstein has also conducted studies on substance abuse, sexual assaults and drug use of youths in New York City. Finkelstein achieves her goals, by using a scientific approach when observing the street youths. A few methods she utilizes are similar to that have been previous used but

Homelessness is a social crisis that has stayed with us throughout our history. There was an increase in the number of homeless people in the 1980s due to housing and social service cuts increasing. In Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg’s, “Righteous Dopefiend,” being homeless is just one of the many problems that encompass their day to day reality. The two anthropologists assimilate themselves in the homeless community and observe the hardships that come from living on the streets and drug addiction. A better understanding is attained through their ethnographic research and details of the homeless’ lives can be used to further our knowledge and help in solving society’s problems. This ethnography shows

Ursin opens by suggesting that perhaps even homeless people can feel at home. Influenced by Western culture, we tend to think of the streets as lesser- not suitable for sleeping or sustainable for life. However, through Ursin's research and time spent interviewing and taking in what daily life is like for the eleven men and fifteen children she encountered, those who tend to spend most of their time in the streets see it differently. Many of them gravitate toward the streets because they are running from something, some of them are running to something better, but some things they all have in common are the search for safety (stability), a sense of liberty, and belonging.

While a portion of today’s society turns a blind eye to the subject of the criminalization of homelessness, an even larger quantity of people are not aware of the situation that is happening in every major city of America. For those living an affluent lifestyle, it can be difficult to discuss the amount of poverty and homelessness that is constantly occurring. The definition and meaning behind the absence of home is also arduous to discuss. While homelessness is commonly associated with sleeping outside or in provisional areas, this word also identifies with an absence of belonging. This absence of belonging can relate not only to a community, but also to the people that dwell there (Baumohl 3). Within the portion of those who are aware of the homelessness situation, there is a section that detests the poverty stricken persons of our society. These biased members of the American population express their antipathy in several ways. It is necessary to reveal the privileges that homeless persons have been violently stripped of, and expose and broadcast the freedom they are entitled to. Through

Children of many ages are affected by these tremendous problems resulting from homelessness that have just become greater as time has passed. Homelessness leaves long lasting scars on these children (Crary 2). “The burden places upon these people can influence every facet of their lives; from contraception to early adulthood” (Hart-Shegos 2). All stages of life are affected by this experience of homelessness and severe problems can be caused in every stage.

In society, we learn that homeless people are not to be trusted and that people on the street have done something in order to get on the streets. In the novel, Theories of Relativity by Barbara Haywood, The distrust and dismissal of homeless youth is shown and portrayal of homeless youth and their ability to get off the street in the book is realistic as the characters need heavy support in order to get off the streets.