Critical Review: with No Direction Home: Homeless Youth on the Road and in the Streets by Marni Finkelstein

In this critical review of Marni Finkelsteins ethnography With No Direction Home Homeless Y bring outh on the Road and in the Streets I will analyze and evaluate some of the strategies and methods put ond by this author. One primary issue I will discuss is the sample universe of discourse. Finkelstein may give set the population limitations to strictly for this ethnography. Her limited observation location and time is also a study issue. She chose to study a transient population that, really likely, primarily comes out at night. Yet, she limited herself to unmatched primary location and she notwithstanding went at that induct in the daytime.I will discuss the lack of come in up to the man-to-man interviews as well. While she discovered some fascinating information more or less this subculture, she did not scram what she stated she initially set out to find. Finkelsteins destruction was to study gutterpunks (Finkelstein, 2005), but what she actually studied were the sub stance abusing homeless juvenility of Tompkins self-coloured Park. In her original hypothesis she wanted to hire around alternative youthfulness subcultures, especially those revolving around euphony (Finkelstein, 2005).She does not seem to hand over accomplished this goal. There was little talk about medicinal drug in the ethnography, on her part or the part of the kids. Was it because she found that there was no relation to music or because she did not specifically try to find youth involved with the music. It seems like she basically settled for just plain old homeless drug addict and alcoholic kids, which would be great if her goal was not more specific to finding gutterpunks. The ethnography is also based on an extremely small sample size.According to Finkelsteins own numbers, she only interviewed 50 youth over the period of the two summers. That seems like an extremely low number of participants for which to base an entire ethnography. I would think that over a perio d of two summers- lets call that 6 months- a researcher would ca-ca the opportunity to encounter hundreds of potential candidates to provide informational interviews. Part of the b separate may have been that she limited her participants ages to being between 15-20 years old.I believe that this restriction left out a great deal of potentially vital informants and information. It may have substantially limited her population size. For example, the 25 year old, named Scratch, who had been on the streets for 10+ years, would have been a cornucopia of information. But, all she did was use him to refer her to other kids in her required age group. The street culture in Tompkins Square Park did not have age limitations. Im not sure that Finkelstein should have either.Its important to note that all of the kids involved were heavily dep dyingent on drugs and alcohol. Also important to note, is that she was paying her participants. This gang may have created unintended consequences. Its po ssible that the kids were willing to tell vivid and imaginative stories to Finkelstein in hopes of being interviewed again and, thereby, being paid again. many of the youth were willing to admit to prostitution in order to earn money for drugs or alcohol. Is it possible that they would prostitute lies about their own lives for the same end?Is it possible that they never really left New York? Did they just apparent motion into shelters in the winter? Its impossible to know for sure. These kids are caught up in the culture of lies and delusion surrounding drugs that is to say, who says they arent just verbally fantasizing with Finkelstein and passing it off as the truth. The location limitation was also unfavorable for this kind of ethnography. If one is going to write ethnography about a transient population, they should become somewhat transient themselves.Traveling with the youth would necessarily be required in order to get a full picture of their culture. The stories from the ki ds may have been accurate and detailed, or they may have been fabricated, but, either way, it is not the same as having experienced it personally. In order to fully understand and appreciate a subsistence strategy, one must subsist from it, if only for a brief period. She power have considered a more interactive participant observation model to more fully experience their culture. Finkelstein should have gone out into the park when more kids were out and about.She mentioned that she only when out in the daylight, I would try to get to the field site early forwards the kids were either too drunk to be interviewed or completely passed out in the grass (Finkelstein, 2005). Because these kids are alcoholics and drug addicts, it is very likely that much of their life takes place after sundown and before sun up. I imagine that they have quite a tolerance and are relatively functional for much of the early part of the evening. Drugs and alcohol were a major part of the kids lives (Finkel stein, 2005).I can certainly appreciate her concern for personal safety, but if th is is the population she wanted to study she might have made more of an effort to be around when the activities were in full swing. She only mentioned being at one party in the book. I have to believe that there were countless similar activities during her research, of which she was not a part. I have gathered from the ethnography that Finkelstein interviewed each kid only once. From that interview, she sprinkled quotes passim the book. She mentions a few times in the book that she would interview kids and then never see them again.For accuracy purposes, and to get an mood of the level of honesty from her informants she should have conducted multiple interviews with the same kids. This would have been more likely if she was willing to spend more time in their natural habitat. Follow up on the interviews with the youth should have been take overe. Talking with the family or schools of the kids woul d have added much needed detail to the ethnography. Since she was paying the kids, perhaps she could have paid more for verifiable information about their previous mainstream lives.Then followed up on the information provided and reported her results. It would have been nice to have a section on what their families and teachers said about how the kids were before their lives on the street. Perhaps, verifying or debunking some of the information the kids told her. Its not only important that the kids are on the street, but why. What lead them there and are the youth truthful overall? It would have been interesting if Finkelstein could have interviewed ex-Tomkins Square Park kids for her book. Do they ever get out?Do they move on to other arenas for homelessness as they age? Clearly, in Chapter 9, the kids have plans for the future. Its also clear that their plans are of then just a shared illusion. They dont currently have the means or the wherewithal to accomplish the goals theyve s et out. The kids, like Jeff and Joyce, clearly have plans to buy land, but no real idea of the amount of money it requires. I am sure there are people that did grow up and out of this subculture. I would like to have perceive from them on how they got out and what became of their lives.I cant say that have the answer on how to find them either, but it would have been interesting. Finkelstein did make macro conclusions from individual or micro level research. But she does come up with some interesting information about the small group of Tompkins Square Park youth she interviewed. This should not be disregarded, as homeless youth often are. It was eye opening to pear into this culture and community. The homeless kids often had a common bail because of prior abuse. (Finkelstein, 2005) They also bonded out of shared needs.Whether those needs be drugs, alcohol, or food, they were willing to share with those they knew were in the same situation. When they would panhandle they would pool their money with other youth. If one got some food, he or she would share it with another who was nearby. This happened specifically when Finkelstein bought some pizza for a youth named Tommy. Although he was starving himself, he effortfully walked crosswise the street to give half of it to a girl who was panhandling. Tommy did not know the girl he just knew they shared the common bond of being homeless.The Tompkins Square Park youth considered themselves aside from mainstream culture. Yet, they required it for survival. If they were truly apart from society they would have been growing or hunting for food. They would have traveled from place to place on foot. That simply did not happen. Wasting of food by mainstream society allowed them the opportunity to dumpster dive for food. Caring people would sometimes buy them food. Modern modes of transit allowed them to travel around the country in quick fashion. The kids panhandled and begged for money.They participated in this ethnogra phy because they were getting paid to do it. While the youth would like to consider themselves apart from mainstream, the reality is that they are just one part of it. What one has to keep in mind always, is that these are not highly idealistic youth as much as they are kids caught in the fog of drug and alcohol addictions. From the drugs and alcohol came the extreme level of violence. These youth walked around with weapons, usually a jab or things called smileys. The smiley would be made from a bicycle chain which sometimes had lock on it too.This weapon appears to have the capability of causing some attractive disfiguring injuries. These kids have no qualms about deploying these weapons. In fact it seems to be a regular event. This level of unreported violence is definitely one area where they memory themselves separate from mainstream society. The question for me is Are they reverting to more primitive behaviors because of the lack of civilized structure or is the alcohol and drug use the main problem. Finkelsteins ethnography is a remarkable piece of anthropological work. It s also possible to learn from some of her mistakes. She states that her objective is to study the relationship between music and this subculture of kids on the street. She never makes any further reference to that issue. How did the music play a part in this culture? She stated that the size of the street kid population is substantial, approximately 100 million worldwide, but she only had 50 youths in her study. She interviewed them only once without and any follow up with the youth themselves or their families, school, or other organizations.Furthermore, she studied a transient population from one single location, primarily Tompkins Square Park. It would seem appropriate to have traveled with this population to get a real sense of their culture. Did they act in California as they acted in New York? Did they really travel at all? A main concern is that this work is based on persona l stories from youth who are deluded by drugs and alcohol. There is no real verification of the facts presented. From these personal stories Finkelstein makes claims about all homeless youth, when she should really just be discussing Tompkins Square Park youths.