41 pages • 1 hour read
Philippe Bourgois, Jeffrey SchonbergA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Having explored the inner world of the Edgewater homeless community and social network, Bourgois and Schonberg end on the question, “So what?” Their final thoughts tie together the theoretical lenses they’ve drawn on throughout the book—Foucault’s discourse on biopower, Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence, Marx’s philosophy around power and class, and their own theory of lumpen abuse. The harm of neoliberalism, the War on Drugs, and the criminalization of poverty contribute the most to the harm experienced by the Edgewater homeless population by directing blame for their situation onto individuals rather than acknowledging the systematic discrimination they run into at every turn and the violence that besets them.
The conclusion of Righteous Dopefiend discusses the theoretical and practical applications of Bourgois and Schonberg’s fieldwork. It questions the use of the fieldwork, asking how realistic it is to hope that their findings would be applied to better serve populations such as the Edgewater homeless community. This ending asks readers to think critically about the book’s purpose and to consider whether books like this can make any difference.
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