In Search Of Respect Analysis
In Search Of Respect
East Harlem also known as El Barrio is a neighbourhood of upper Manhattan in New York City. In addition to this, East Harlem has historically suffered from many social problems such as the highest jobless rates in NYC, teenage pregnancy, AIDS, drug abuse and homelessness (Chaturvedi, 2016). In Search of Respect is a book written by Bourgois and he goes to stay in East Harlem to conduct ethnographic research (I understand this as you basically going out to live with the people that you are studying- this is done when you observe the people through participant observation). Bourgois (1995) gives us the uncensored reality of living in poverty. In this essay, I will look at the characters: Primo and Ray and the way that the …show more content…
larger structural forces and local cultural dynamics shape their lives. My argument is that the larger structural forces (political economy, bureaucracy system and politics of representation), as well as the local cultural dynamics (street culture, the culture of terror, the culture of poverty), have a negative impact on the way that these character’s lives are shaped. To support my argument, I will firstly define what these larger structural forces are and give an example thereof. Secondly, I will define what local cultural dynamics are and give an example thereof. Lastly, I will link structure, cultural dynamics and Primo and Ray’s biographies as well as their personalities and say how these shapes their lives.
Firstly, I understand larger structural forces as the individual having no power over the course that his life will take because it is determined by the larger structural forces. In other words, this is basically, the larger structures that the people cannot control (Chaturvedi, 2016). For example, Apartheid in South Africa would be a larger structure, in that people were oppressed against their will to deal with it. In the book, the example would be the global political economy (things that are changing) that shapes Puerto Rico, like the creation of jibaro (Chaturvedi, 2016). Jibaros when translated into English means “hillbillies” and the original Spanish meaning of the term jibaro was “wild”. Primo sometimes referred to himself and his friends as jibaros (Bourgois, 1995:50). I understand jibaro as the people who rebel against the normal rules of society (are not absorbed by it) and act out by doing what they feel or see as right even though this will mean that they will possibly live like hillbillies and for this reason jibaro has respect attached (when a person does what they believe in no matter the consequences). Jibaro emerged as the Puerto Rican symbol of cultural integrity and self-respect. In the book, the jibaros were wild and rebellious, they refused to work as sugar plantation farmers and they take pride in being called jibaro even though there is mostly negativity associated with the term. The jibaro rejected the laws of a Spanish dominated society and they lived outside of the jurisdiction (Bourgois, 1995:50). Furthermore, there was also the rise of the service industry because of restructuring the economy and the financial sector expanding. Because of this, people like Primo needed to try and find work in the economic sector and this was not easy. He would work maybe as a messenger in an office building near white capital (I understand this as companies who owns large portions of the economy) and the lifestyle to accompany it (Chaturvedi, 2016).
In addition to this, on the one hand, we have the bureaucracy system (the complicated administrative procedures that are taking by the government) that restricted Ray from going “legit”. Ray was illiterate and therefore he could not understand all the rules and regulations that are needed for legal business. Ray lacked what a French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s called a “cultural capital” (I understand this as the money and credentials that a person has- Ray had no legal form of identification) that would enable him to succeed in the middle class or even lower class world (Bourgois, 1995:28). On the other hand, we have politics of representation (the play of power in representing something like for instance stereotypes that make people come across as inferior or the complex way in which people are represented) that negatively affects people like Primo. For example, think about institutionalised racism (Puerto Rican people are represented in a certain way in the minds of white people and the US media because they are represented in this way- they are thought of as being poor, shabby and dirty. As result of this, they haven’t been given a chance to enter the legal economy. This must do with who has the power to represent these people and who has a voice. You are economically marginalised and your voice is not heard and they are represented by the stereotypes of others. This leads them to go around in circles, they cannot get a job and they cannot create their own image. An example of this would be the lady that was afraid of Primo in the lift- she had no reason to be afraid of him- he was only trying to be nice and open, but because of the way she had been socialised and how Puerto Ricans had been represented to her (all her life) she thought that he was going to hurt her or rape her (Bourgois, 1995).
Secondly, I understand local cultural dynamics as the things that happen within a community and the things that people do because of their circumstances.
In other words, local cultural dynamics is the things that people are doing to oppose the system (Chaturvedi, 2016). For example, the local areas that resulted due to Apartheid, people within a group (people of colour) being denied access and so forth. In the book, the example would be what Bourgois (1995) calls “street culture”. Street culture involves the inclusion and exclusion of people from a mainstream society based on their beliefs, values, feelings and thinking as well as the ways in which they interact and communicate with one another. In addition to this, street culture is embedded in history because they saw it to create their own culture and to rebel against the norms of society (sense of oppression) and the life that they were living (Bourgois, 1995:8). In other words, street culture is the things that people are doing in their day-to-day lives to resist being marginalised or exposed, sense of opposition against mainstream society. Street culture has two aspects that I will focus on substance abuse and the underground economy. On the one hand, Primo was struggling to find work and all the employment rejections that he was getting lowered his self-confidence and thus he turned to substance abuse (I understand substance abuse as people turning to alcohol or drugs when they cannot handle things anymore). On the …show more content…
other hand, we have the underground economy (I understand this as the illegal activity, where they operate under the radar). The underground economy is hidden and the people are hidden and they also have hidden ways of making a living. Ray was a part of the underground economy as he owned crack houses and Primo managed the crack house on behalf of Ray. There is a lot of money in selling crack because “drug sales can easily outcompete other income- generating opportunities, whether it is legal or illegal” (Bourgois, 1995:3).
In addition to this, on the one hand, we have a culture of terror. The culture of terror is the different ways of thinking, speaking and feeling about oneself and others. The culture of terror looks at the people doing wrong and without looking at the reason as to why the violence exists. Therefore, the culture of terror produces a certain kind of fearful attitude towards these “gangsters” and culture of terror involves talking about others in terrible (dehumanising) terms. In the book, an example of this would be Ray. Ray makes use of violence and intimidation to make people (characters) scared of him and in doing this he also shows his power. Ray threatens Philippe with violence when he exposed his weakness about him not being able to read (his illiteracy) and in doing this, he tries to gain back his pride and dignity that he lost (Bourgois, 1995:22).
On the other hand, we have a culture of poverty that was developed by Oscar Lewis.
Culture of poverty is the people living in poverty in East Harlem, when the statistics say that they all should be starving and they are not. East Harlem is known for the high levels of poverty and people living below the poverty line when you take a close look at this data- their income, you would think that the people of East Harlem are starving, but they are not actually starving because of the underground economy (Chaturvedi, 2016). The culture of terror theory became famous for the way it as critiqued, the writing is understood as poverty perpetuating a destructive culture and poverty perpetuating a feeling of helplessness, disappointment and powerlessness that consequently just transmits itself from generation to generation and poor people are unable to help themselves (Chaturvedi, 2016). The poor can never be seen taking collective action and trying to alleviate themselves from their lives of poverty because the state is always going to close on them a
lot.
Lastly, Primo referring to himself and his friends as jibaro (structural force) affects him negatively because the people will start to view him in this negative way and this links to the politics of representation as well, where the people have one negative view of you and you cannot create your own image (Bourgois, 1995). An example of this is the lady in the elevator, she had no reason to fear him, but because of what she was socialised to believe about Puerto Ricans her whole life she feared him (Bourgois, 1995). The rise in the service industry that led to the restructuring of the economy is next and the financial sector expanding made finding a job harder for people like Primo. This job seeking seemed almost impossible with Primo’s background and his lack of knowledge about this formal or legal employment world (Chaturvedi, 2016). This also links to the bureaucracy system and it had harmful effects Primo’s life because it restricts his life as he is forced to live in Puerto Rico and go back into the underground economy because he cannot find work in the formal employment sector. The disadvantages from not finishing his training are that Primo does not have the proper clothing for this industry because you need different clothes for success in office culture than you do in street culture and Primo did not want to be laughed at for not having this clothes or not having the money to buy this clothes (Bourgois, 1995).
Equally important, we have the bureaucracy system that prevented Ray from legitimising his business and this affected his life negatively because he was trying to change and even possibly make an honest living. This lead to him going back to the underground economy, where he used violence (intimidation) to protect his business and instil fear in people (Chaturvedi, 2016). This had other discouraging effects as well because Ray did not have any legal documentation and this prevented him from going outside of East Harlem, this restricted his life because he was forced to stay in East Harlem and live his eventful life and have no knowledge of the world outside of East Harlem (Bourgois, 1995). In addition to this, we have street culture and the negative effects of substance abuse that forms part of street culture, life is hard enough on its own and now Primo feels disappointed because he cannot find a job and things are just not going right and he probably feels like everything is falling apart and as a way out he turns to substance abuse. I am not saying that substance abuse is right or making any excuses, I am empathising with him though and saying that I understand what he is going through and where he is coming from.
Furthermore, there is also the culture of terror that Ray practices. This does affect his life negatively in the sense that he feels that he needs to make people feel scared of him or else he will be viewed as weak, this discourages Ray from being the true person that he is. In addition to this, Ray’s circumstances have also changed him as a person because he felt that to survive in a place like East Harlem he needed to adapt to its lifestyle and this ended up changing him and not for the better. Marlo Stanfield, a character from The Wire (is a television series about gangsters that have these larger than life characters as these men with medallions, cars and lots of money and hip-hop). Marlo links to Ray, both Marlo and Ray are feared and people are not willing to go against them. Marlo wants to appear tough to avoid being vulnerable and the same can be said for Ray. Likewise, the American rapper Tupac can also be linked to Ray, the violence and crime that Tupac faced can take a lot out of a person and the same can be said for Ray, everything that he went through changed him. All three of them (Ray, Tupac and Marlo) can appear tough on the surface, but deep down they are vulnerable.
To conclude, the above essay supports my argument that the larger structural forces such as the political economy, bureaucracy system and the politics of representation as well as the local cultural dynamics such as street culture (which includes substance abuse and the underground economy), culture of terror and culture of poverty have a negative impact on the way that Primo and Ray’s lives are shaped. I just want to end off this essay with a few lines from Tupac’s song Changes. “We gotta make a change… It’s time for us as a people to start makin’ some changes. Let’s change the way we eat, let’s change the way we live and let’s change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn’t working so it’s on us to do what we gotta do, to survive”.
East Harlem also known as El Barrio is a neighbourhood of upper Manhattan in New York City. In addition to this, East Harlem has historically suffered from many social problems such as the highest jobless rates in NYC, teenage pregnancy, AIDS, drug abuse and homelessness (Chaturvedi, 2016). In Search of Respect is a book written by Bourgois and he goes to stay in East Harlem to conduct ethnographic research (I understand this as you basically going out to live with the people that you are studying- this is done when you observe the people through participant observation). Bourgois (1995) gives us the uncensored reality of living in poverty. In this essay, I will look at the characters: Primo and Ray and the way that the …show more content…
larger structural forces and local cultural dynamics shape their lives. My argument is that the larger structural forces (political economy, bureaucracy system and politics of representation), as well as the local cultural dynamics (street culture, the culture of terror, the culture of poverty), have a negative impact on the way that these character’s lives are shaped. To support my argument, I will firstly define what these larger structural forces are and give an example thereof. Secondly, I will define what local cultural dynamics are and give an example thereof. Lastly, I will link structure, cultural dynamics and Primo and Ray’s biographies as well as their personalities and say how these shapes their lives.
Firstly, I understand larger structural forces as the individual having no power over the course that his life will take because it is determined by the larger structural forces. In other words, this is basically, the larger structures that the people cannot control (Chaturvedi, 2016). For example, Apartheid in South Africa would be a larger structure, in that people were oppressed against their will to deal with it. In the book, the example would be the global political economy (things that are changing) that shapes Puerto Rico, like the creation of jibaro (Chaturvedi, 2016). Jibaros when translated into English means “hillbillies” and the original Spanish meaning of the term jibaro was “wild”. Primo sometimes referred to himself and his friends as jibaros (Bourgois, 1995:50). I understand jibaro as the people who rebel against the normal rules of society (are not absorbed by it) and act out by doing what they feel or see as right even though this will mean that they will possibly live like hillbillies and for this reason jibaro has respect attached (when a person does what they believe in no matter the consequences). Jibaro emerged as the Puerto Rican symbol of cultural integrity and self-respect. In the book, the jibaros were wild and rebellious, they refused to work as sugar plantation farmers and they take pride in being called jibaro even though there is mostly negativity associated with the term. The jibaro rejected the laws of a Spanish dominated society and they lived outside of the jurisdiction (Bourgois, 1995:50). Furthermore, there was also the rise of the service industry because of restructuring the economy and the financial sector expanding. Because of this, people like Primo needed to try and find work in the economic sector and this was not easy. He would work maybe as a messenger in an office building near white capital (I understand this as companies who owns large portions of the economy) and the lifestyle to accompany it (Chaturvedi, 2016).
In addition to this, on the one hand, we have the bureaucracy system (the complicated administrative procedures that are taking by the government) that restricted Ray from going “legit”. Ray was illiterate and therefore he could not understand all the rules and regulations that are needed for legal business. Ray lacked what a French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s called a “cultural capital” (I understand this as the money and credentials that a person has- Ray had no legal form of identification) that would enable him to succeed in the middle class or even lower class world (Bourgois, 1995:28). On the other hand, we have politics of representation (the play of power in representing something like for instance stereotypes that make people come across as inferior or the complex way in which people are represented) that negatively affects people like Primo. For example, think about institutionalised racism (Puerto Rican people are represented in a certain way in the minds of white people and the US media because they are represented in this way- they are thought of as being poor, shabby and dirty. As result of this, they haven’t been given a chance to enter the legal economy. This must do with who has the power to represent these people and who has a voice. You are economically marginalised and your voice is not heard and they are represented by the stereotypes of others. This leads them to go around in circles, they cannot get a job and they cannot create their own image. An example of this would be the lady that was afraid of Primo in the lift- she had no reason to be afraid of him- he was only trying to be nice and open, but because of the way she had been socialised and how Puerto Ricans had been represented to her (all her life) she thought that he was going to hurt her or rape her (Bourgois, 1995).
Secondly, I understand local cultural dynamics as the things that happen within a community and the things that people do because of their circumstances.
In other words, local cultural dynamics is the things that people are doing to oppose the system (Chaturvedi, 2016). For example, the local areas that resulted due to Apartheid, people within a group (people of colour) being denied access and so forth. In the book, the example would be what Bourgois (1995) calls “street culture”. Street culture involves the inclusion and exclusion of people from a mainstream society based on their beliefs, values, feelings and thinking as well as the ways in which they interact and communicate with one another. In addition to this, street culture is embedded in history because they saw it to create their own culture and to rebel against the norms of society (sense of oppression) and the life that they were living (Bourgois, 1995:8). In other words, street culture is the things that people are doing in their day-to-day lives to resist being marginalised or exposed, sense of opposition against mainstream society. Street culture has two aspects that I will focus on substance abuse and the underground economy. On the one hand, Primo was struggling to find work and all the employment rejections that he was getting lowered his self-confidence and thus he turned to substance abuse (I understand substance abuse as people turning to alcohol or drugs when they cannot handle things anymore). On the …show more content…
other hand, we have the underground economy (I understand this as the illegal activity, where they operate under the radar). The underground economy is hidden and the people are hidden and they also have hidden ways of making a living. Ray was a part of the underground economy as he owned crack houses and Primo managed the crack house on behalf of Ray. There is a lot of money in selling crack because “drug sales can easily outcompete other income- generating opportunities, whether it is legal or illegal” (Bourgois, 1995:3).
In addition to this, on the one hand, we have a culture of terror. The culture of terror is the different ways of thinking, speaking and feeling about oneself and others. The culture of terror looks at the people doing wrong and without looking at the reason as to why the violence exists. Therefore, the culture of terror produces a certain kind of fearful attitude towards these “gangsters” and culture of terror involves talking about others in terrible (dehumanising) terms. In the book, an example of this would be Ray. Ray makes use of violence and intimidation to make people (characters) scared of him and in doing this he also shows his power. Ray threatens Philippe with violence when he exposed his weakness about him not being able to read (his illiteracy) and in doing this, he tries to gain back his pride and dignity that he lost (Bourgois, 1995:22).
On the other hand, we have a culture of poverty that was developed by Oscar Lewis.
Culture of poverty is the people living in poverty in East Harlem, when the statistics say that they all should be starving and they are not. East Harlem is known for the high levels of poverty and people living below the poverty line when you take a close look at this data- their income, you would think that the people of East Harlem are starving, but they are not actually starving because of the underground economy (Chaturvedi, 2016). The culture of terror theory became famous for the way it as critiqued, the writing is understood as poverty perpetuating a destructive culture and poverty perpetuating a feeling of helplessness, disappointment and powerlessness that consequently just transmits itself from generation to generation and poor people are unable to help themselves (Chaturvedi, 2016). The poor can never be seen taking collective action and trying to alleviate themselves from their lives of poverty because the state is always going to close on them a
lot.
Lastly, Primo referring to himself and his friends as jibaro (structural force) affects him negatively because the people will start to view him in this negative way and this links to the politics of representation as well, where the people have one negative view of you and you cannot create your own image (Bourgois, 1995). An example of this is the lady in the elevator, she had no reason to fear him, but because of what she was socialised to believe about Puerto Ricans her whole life she feared him (Bourgois, 1995). The rise in the service industry that led to the restructuring of the economy is next and the financial sector expanding made finding a job harder for people like Primo. This job seeking seemed almost impossible with Primo’s background and his lack of knowledge about this formal or legal employment world (Chaturvedi, 2016). This also links to the bureaucracy system and it had harmful effects Primo’s life because it restricts his life as he is forced to live in Puerto Rico and go back into the underground economy because he cannot find work in the formal employment sector. The disadvantages from not finishing his training are that Primo does not have the proper clothing for this industry because you need different clothes for success in office culture than you do in street culture and Primo did not want to be laughed at for not having this clothes or not having the money to buy this clothes (Bourgois, 1995).
Equally important, we have the bureaucracy system that prevented Ray from legitimising his business and this affected his life negatively because he was trying to change and even possibly make an honest living. This lead to him going back to the underground economy, where he used violence (intimidation) to protect his business and instil fear in people (Chaturvedi, 2016). This had other discouraging effects as well because Ray did not have any legal documentation and this prevented him from going outside of East Harlem, this restricted his life because he was forced to stay in East Harlem and live his eventful life and have no knowledge of the world outside of East Harlem (Bourgois, 1995). In addition to this, we have street culture and the negative effects of substance abuse that forms part of street culture, life is hard enough on its own and now Primo feels disappointed because he cannot find a job and things are just not going right and he probably feels like everything is falling apart and as a way out he turns to substance abuse. I am not saying that substance abuse is right or making any excuses, I am empathising with him though and saying that I understand what he is going through and where he is coming from.
Furthermore, there is also the culture of terror that Ray practices. This does affect his life negatively in the sense that he feels that he needs to make people feel scared of him or else he will be viewed as weak, this discourages Ray from being the true person that he is. In addition to this, Ray’s circumstances have also changed him as a person because he felt that to survive in a place like East Harlem he needed to adapt to its lifestyle and this ended up changing him and not for the better. Marlo Stanfield, a character from The Wire (is a television series about gangsters that have these larger than life characters as these men with medallions, cars and lots of money and hip-hop). Marlo links to Ray, both Marlo and Ray are feared and people are not willing to go against them. Marlo wants to appear tough to avoid being vulnerable and the same can be said for Ray. Likewise, the American rapper Tupac can also be linked to Ray, the violence and crime that Tupac faced can take a lot out of a person and the same can be said for Ray, everything that he went through changed him. All three of them (Ray, Tupac and Marlo) can appear tough on the surface, but deep down they are vulnerable.
To conclude, the above essay supports my argument that the larger structural forces such as the political economy, bureaucracy system and the politics of representation as well as the local cultural dynamics such as street culture (which includes substance abuse and the underground economy), culture of terror and culture of poverty have a negative impact on the way that Primo and Ray’s lives are shaped. I just want to end off this essay with a few lines from Tupac’s song Changes. “We gotta make a change… It’s time for us as a people to start makin’ some changes. Let’s change the way we eat, let’s change the way we live and let’s change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn’t working so it’s on us to do what we gotta do, to survive”.