Selling Crack In El Barrio Summary

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Jack Hillis Dr. Mahmood Intro to Cultural Anthropology May 1st, 2024. Anthropology has been pivotal in the discovery and understanding of different cultures around the world. Anthropologists help us decipher and connect with these cultures; an example of these anthropologists is two authors who wrote books about drug abuse and its culture. The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along the Rio Grande by Angela Garcia and In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio by Philippe Bourgois. Garcia depicts the harsh reality of a small community overrun by heroin; she works at a rehab clinic trying to help the many people hooked on drugs. Bourgois takes a different approach; he dives in headfirst and moves his family to El Barrio in the heart of a crack epidemic. His goal is to gain the trust of drug …show more content…

They will also examine the adversity these individuals must overcome, which you and I could never understand. Finally, Garcia and Bourgois will discover how, even though they examine cultures that are very different from their own, they can still find connections to their society. Garcia and Bourgois depict how anthropology contributes to studying our society. To truly understand both authors' environments when writing these books, we must first explore the social and economic status of both El Barrio and rural New Mexico. El Barrio is not the most excellent part of town; it is infected with drugs and violence that take over the community like an ancient plague. The neighborhood was known for its high levels of poverty and unemployment. Author Philippe Bourgois moved his family to El Barrio, aka East Harlem, when writing In Search of Respect. His goal was to observe and understand the residents firsthand. What he found was that due to the high levels of poverty, many people had to resort to selling drugs to make a living; even with the money from selling drugs, it was common to see many

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