Marni Finkelstein in With No Direction Home

The ethnography With No Direction Home: Homeless Youth on the Road and in the Streets by Marni Finkelstein, describes the life of street youth in New York City. The ethnography attempts to debunk myths that prior studies have formed of these street youths. The author, Marni Finkelstein is an Anthropologist renowned for her work on urban populations at risk. She graduated from the New School of Social Research in New York City with her PhD in Anthropology. Finkelstein has also conducted studies on substance abuse, sexual assaults and drug use of youths in New York City. Finkelstein achieves her goals, by using a scientific approach when observing the street youths. A few methods she utilizes are similar to that have been previous used but some are very unique and present a new point of view on issue. In addition, the ethnography provides a brief look on the highly adaptive nature of humans.

In the ethnography With No Direction Home: Homeless Youth on the Road and in the Streets, she combines her understanding of her previous researches with her current study in order to enculturate street youth behaviour. Finkelstein attempts to answer two distinctive questions about street youth. First, she tries to understand what occurrences result in youth being on the streets? Secondly, once youths are on the streets what do they experience? In answering these questions, Finkelstein attempts to address the lack of “information on the lives of street kids” (Finkelstein, 2005, preface) that is available to the general public. She conducts ethnographic interviews, in order to analyze the similarities and differences between the youth’s backgrounds. The author utilizes various ethnographic methods in an attempt to accomplish her goal. Although ...

... middle of paper ...

...ips daily, the fact that they have survived and continue to survive, provides a glimpse on how humans are able to adjust based on the environment. Unlike Diversi’s, Dachner’s and Abraham’s ethnographies, Finkelstein ensures she applies the methodology of participant observation frequently throughout her research.

Works Cited

Diversi, M. (2006). Street Kids In Nikes: In Search Of Humanization Through The Culture Of Consumption. Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, 6(3), 370-390.

Finkelstein, M. (2005). With no direction home: homeless youth on the road and in the streets. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.

Gundersen, C., Weinreb, L., Wehler, C., & Hosmer, D. (2003). Homelessness And Food Insecurity. Journal of Housing Economics, 12(3), 250-272.

Robbins, R. H. (2014). Cultural anthropology: a problem-based approach (Second Canadian ed.). Itasca: F.E. Peacock.