I found Alice Goffman’s On The Run truly to be a tough one to grapple with, due to its multiple methodological tensions. While I found the main body of the text to be a fascinating and unprecedented insight into the lives of inner-city Blacks who find themselves in constant flight from the omnipresent carceral state, the “Methodological Notes” appendix provided much to contend with, and poses interesting questions on the ethics of being a exceedingly privileged white woman studying a poor Black community.
For me, the methodology that Goffman adopts poses two important questions, both with vastly important implications for the legitimacy of ethnographic study and the ethicality of studying markedly less privileged community than that to which you belong:
1) What is an appropriate stance, or level of integration, for a white sociologist to adopt if studying urban Black community? Goffman positioned herself at the center of 6th Street’s dynamic society, hanging out with Mike, Chuck, etc., moving into the community herself, and even bringing in some of those whom she was studying as roommates. As discussed at length in class, her extreme levels of physical and emotional integration within the 6th Street community manifested itself most extremely in her accompanying of Mike in his attempting to avenge the murder of Chuck, acting as a driver to his lookout. Legal technicalities aside, this extreme circumstance begs the question: at what point does a sociologist’s integration into the lives of those she studies pose a obstruction to collecting reliable information? A privileged white woman’s presence in a poor Black community is most definitely going to change the way that many in that community behave. There are inherent shortcomings that outsiders “looking-in” must acknowledge when conducting ethnographic research, and while Goffman does acknowledge, she does not consequent temper her integration.
This presupposes 2) What methods ought a white sociologist adopt to effectively immerse herself into a society which is distinct from her own? This is perhaps what I find most problematic with Goffman’s ethnographic approach. Upon noticing that members of the 6th Street community who did not know her were scrutinizing her confusing presence, she turned to a means of Black exploitation that is quite often overlooked as a significant societal problem facing the Black community: sexual fetishization. Goffman goes on a date with Mike, seeing it as an “in” to an understanding of the community members: “If I had been something of a puzzle before, now my presence in the neighborhood made sense: I was one of those white girls who liked Black guys” (Goffman 223). Black men and women are often sexually exploited due to the racial stereotypes that the white community believe befit Black sexuality. Notions of masculinity, sexual prowess, “thuggishness”: these are all lines of sexual exploitation that frequently haunt the lives of Black men in particular, who are often held to these standards of exotification by whites. They can become bereft of any individualism, reduced to a sexual body that is expected to fulfill certain roles. While Goffman recognizes that these are all stereotypes, she capitalizes on this Black problem for personal methodological gain. I believe it would have been far more ethical, far less racist even, for Goffman to have acknowledged and accepted how her white privileged presence ought to turn heads, and go no further than to note this as a “problem” a privileged white sociologist must accept.