Review
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“Sidewalk will radically change the way we think about ‘the
public sphere.'” ―Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Yo Mama's
Disfunktional!
“An inspired, yet strategically conceived work that restores a
sense of new possibility and passion to ethnography just as it
was threatened by cliche through its recent popularity.” ―George
Marcus, author of Ethnography through Thick and Thin
“[Sidewalk] is in the best tradition of participant observation.
If I were still teaching, I would want all of my students to read
this book.” ―William Foote Whyte, author of Street Corner Society
“An exciting and original approach to the problems of urban life,
informed by years of intensive participation and by a deep
understanding of social science thinking. No one has combined
theory and knowledge of city streets as successfully. A
masterpiece of fieldwork.” ―Howard S. Becker, author of Outsiders
“Duneier must be one of the outstanding ethnographers of our
time: he renders visible what typically remains submerged as we
take in the world at street level. This is a deep, complex,
moving book that yanks you out of your own lived experiences of
that world and draws you to another.” ―Saskia Sassen, author of
The Global City
“[A] magnificent book . . . Duneier is a professor of sociology,
but he has a superb journalist's ear for quotes and the ability
to limn character and scene. He writes, that is, as very few
sociologists do: he stays on for years, immersed in his subject,
as virtually no journalist will do.” ―Richard Eder, The New York
Times
“A necessary book . . . A work of frontline reportage, an inquiry
into the economic and political and moral forces that are busy
reconfiguring the city, [and] an urgent plea for justice, however
couched it is in the careful, procedural, understating style of
fieldwork.” ―Luc Sante, Village Voice Literary Supplement
“Sidewalk is an intellectual treat and a student turn-on. I'm
using it in my urban studies course and as a key reading for
introductory sociology.” ―Harvey Molotch, co-author, Urban
Fortunes
“Inful and compelling . . . . Capture[s] the pathos,
struggle, joy, honor and dignity of the men and women of 'the
sidewalk.'” ―Elaine Rivera, Chicago Tribune
“Sidewalk brings us close to the hustle and bustle of urban
street life--the book is a knowing, thoughtful exploration that
will earn it a place among the classics of the documentary
tradition.” ―Robert Coles
“A nuanced study of the lives of impoverished street vendors in
New York's Greenwich Village . . . . A work that adds much to our
understanding of race, poverty, and our reactions to them.”
―Kirkus Reviews
“I suspect this exemplary ethnography will, like Street Corner
Society, speak to generations of readers . . . . The photos by
Ovie Carter . . . and the appendix on method are worth the price
of entry . . . . The entire book demonstrates . . . scrupulous
care, caring, and respect . . . . Duneier uses theory to help him
understand and explicate his observations, never for its own
sake. Like all classic fieldworkers he is open to learn, to
change, as a result of the ethnographic experience.” ―Joan
Cassell, Washington University, American Anthropologist
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About the Author
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Mitchell Duneier is an associate professor of sociology at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California
at Santa Barbara. His first book, Slim's Table, received the 1994
Distinguished Publication Award from the American Sociological
Association.
Ovie Carter, a photographer for the Chicago Tribune, has received
the Pulitzer Prize and multiple awards of Excellence from the
National Association of Black Journalists.
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