Ethnographic study concepts and methods

¶ … Mitchel Duneier.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York. 1999.

The books and magazine vendors, the panhandlers, the second-hand merchants -- you see them every day on the corner of the street, praising their merchandise, chasing customers, jazzing up the street. You may regard them with curiosity, with feelings ranging from pity to blame, from disapproval to fear, but have you ever wonder how is it like to be in their shoes, not for an hour, not for a day, but for years and years? The sociologist Mitchel Duneier did. For five years. And he scribbled down his experience in Sidewalk, a fascinating ethnography study, which can be described as an excellent introduction into New York urban life in all its complexity.

Published in 1999, Sidewalk opens a gate to the heart of Greenwich Village, through the eyes of poor black men and women, who work and live on the sidewalk of an upper-middle-class neighborhood around 6th Avenue. It is a spirited, intimate study that explores life on the streets with a powerful, novelistic nuance. Adding to the powerful text are the beautiful photographs one can find in the book, taken by Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer Ovie Carter that captured not only personal images but also social dynamics and interactions of the street life.

Duneier's book is not a descriptive, one-sided study, but rather a phenomenological account of the many characters he encounters during the five years, which him allows to loudly tell their story and their perspective on the norms and conditions of the street life.

Throughout the study Duneier focused on the social and cultural experience of inequality and examined and criticized social policies concerning street vendors, emphasizing the distinctions between legitimate subcultures and deviant communities. Despite the general opinion that these people represent a threat to society, and they should be banned and legally sanctioned, Duneier became an advocate for those who live and work on 6th Avenue and managed to humanize this marginalized group and even argued that they actually contribute significantly to the order and welfare of their community.

In the first story of the book the reader gets to meet 42 years old Hakim Hassan, a book vendor and street intellectual who had his stall at the intersection of 8th Street with 6th Avenue. For two years Duneier lived around the corner where Hakim was set up and initially he wanted to write only about Hakim in his book, but at Hakim's advice he chose to further extend his observations and reveal more stories. In the appendix of the book the reader finds out that, as an appreciation of his wit and knowledge, Duneier invited Hakim to be his assistant teacher for a sociology course at the University of California.

Besides Hakim's story the reader can find 19 other stories, each one of them shedding a new light on the struggles, aspirations or rationalizations constructing the background that brought them there in the first place and how it fit into broader context of division of labor and social cohesion. Through anecdotal illustrations and personal interviews, the reader develops a thorough understanding of the social dynamics that are in play from a narrative perspective.