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alexisrt's review
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh (2008)
rbumpass001's review against another edition
4.0
This was a really interesting book. Obviously it lacks some of the scholarly details that make up his dissertation, but that is because that is not what this book is about. His interactions with different people allow you to see into this community in the 1980s in a way that was not as common in the 20th century. I would have liked to hear more personal accounts and emotions from people in the housing complex, but overall it was a great book and the narrator was excellent.
jwsg's review against another edition
3.0
The title - Gang Leader for a Day - seems to suggest this is some expose on the inner workings of a gang, of how a sociologist somehow managed to wriggle his way to the upper echelons of a gang (albeit for a day). But what Sudhir Venkatesh's book is really about, is the (mis)adventures of a naive, eager and ambitious sociologist leaving the safety of quantitative data and venturing into ethnography for his research. Venkatesh's adventures begin when he visits the Lake Park projects in Chicago to try to study urban poverty. He meets JT, a junior gang leader of the Black Kings, who takes a shine to Venkatesh and gives him (carefully curated) access to his life and activities. When JT moves over to handle the operations in Robert Taylor Homes, Venkatesh goes along with him and gradually gets to know the different people in the community - the gang members, the squatters, the tenants, the powerful tenant leader, Mrs Bailey, the police.
So the title is a little misleading. But this doesn't make the book any less fascinating. In many ways, Gang Leader for a Day is Ethnography 101, covering both the thrills and pitfalls of ethnographic research. In the opening chapters of Gang Leader for a Day, we see Venkatesh's euphoria at seeing the 'real' side of urban poverty, in contrast to the limitations of census and other survey data. It is the summer and he gets to hang out with the tenants at BBQs they organise along the communal corridors of the high rise, attend the late night basketball game that the Black Kings sponsor. It's warm, fuzzy and communal - a side of the ghettoes that you don't read about and see from the statistics. And Venkatesh is surprised to see the role the BK plays in the community - as benefactor when they donate money to Mrs Bailey to organise activities for tenants' children, as enforcer in the absence of a police presence in the projects, as community organiser, when they throw basketball games and other parties for the community.
But time goes on and as the cold weather looms, Venkatesh starts to see that things are much more complicated. Just as the statistics can't tell you everything about poor urban communities, ethnography can't give you a holistic understanding of a community. For one thing, there's no such thing as an impartial observer - as JT puts it, Venkatesh is either with JT or with Mrs Bailey. He has to pick a side and by associating himself with one or the other, this will invariably affect how the community sees Venkatesh, how they engage with him and how Venkatesh himself will understand the community. And what are the implications when you get too close to the subject of your research, or when you are overly reliant on one individual, like Venkatesh is on JT, to gain access to the community? Then there are the ethical (not to mention legal) issues involved with Venkatesh spending his days with a gang that is involved with the drug trade, that extorts money from the community and administers violence to impose its control and authority over the community.
Venkatesh realises that in some ways, he's no different from the members of the Robert Taylor Homes community - like them, he's a hustler. Except that he's hustling for stories, for data, for angles for his research, and not money. And while he starts out his research optimistically thinking that by illuminating the lives of the urban poor, it can eventually benefit the tenants in some way - better policy perhaps, or more attention on their plight - Venkatesh realises that in the end that the main beneficiary of his research is probably himself, as he secures prestigious fellowships and teaching positions. Meanwhile, the subjects of his research are likely to remain poor, in jail or dead from violence.
While Gang Leader for a Day may not really give an 'accurate' sense of what it's like to be in a gang, it does give a better sense of what it is to live in a ghetto. And more importantly perhaps, it is a frank account of the challenges of ethnographic research.
So the title is a little misleading. But this doesn't make the book any less fascinating. In many ways, Gang Leader for a Day is Ethnography 101, covering both the thrills and pitfalls of ethnographic research. In the opening chapters of Gang Leader for a Day, we see Venkatesh's euphoria at seeing the 'real' side of urban poverty, in contrast to the limitations of census and other survey data. It is the summer and he gets to hang out with the tenants at BBQs they organise along the communal corridors of the high rise, attend the late night basketball game that the Black Kings sponsor. It's warm, fuzzy and communal - a side of the ghettoes that you don't read about and see from the statistics. And Venkatesh is surprised to see the role the BK plays in the community - as benefactor when they donate money to Mrs Bailey to organise activities for tenants' children, as enforcer in the absence of a police presence in the projects, as community organiser, when they throw basketball games and other parties for the community.
But time goes on and as the cold weather looms, Venkatesh starts to see that things are much more complicated. Just as the statistics can't tell you everything about poor urban communities, ethnography can't give you a holistic understanding of a community. For one thing, there's no such thing as an impartial observer - as JT puts it, Venkatesh is either with JT or with Mrs Bailey. He has to pick a side and by associating himself with one or the other, this will invariably affect how the community sees Venkatesh, how they engage with him and how Venkatesh himself will understand the community. And what are the implications when you get too close to the subject of your research, or when you are overly reliant on one individual, like Venkatesh is on JT, to gain access to the community? Then there are the ethical (not to mention legal) issues involved with Venkatesh spending his days with a gang that is involved with the drug trade, that extorts money from the community and administers violence to impose its control and authority over the community.
Venkatesh realises that in some ways, he's no different from the members of the Robert Taylor Homes community - like them, he's a hustler. Except that he's hustling for stories, for data, for angles for his research, and not money. And while he starts out his research optimistically thinking that by illuminating the lives of the urban poor, it can eventually benefit the tenants in some way - better policy perhaps, or more attention on their plight - Venkatesh realises that in the end that the main beneficiary of his research is probably himself, as he secures prestigious fellowships and teaching positions. Meanwhile, the subjects of his research are likely to remain poor, in jail or dead from violence.
While Gang Leader for a Day may not really give an 'accurate' sense of what it's like to be in a gang, it does give a better sense of what it is to live in a ghetto. And more importantly perhaps, it is a frank account of the challenges of ethnographic research.
holly_117's review
4.0
This is a really good overview of gang life in Chicago's projects and of the political and social corruption that exist all over Chicago to this day.
I recommend this book to everyone - especially people who grew up privileged and sheltered, and people who say ignorant things like "you should have to get tested for drugs to qualify for welfare!", it's a huge eye-opener.
I recommend this book to everyone - especially people who grew up privileged and sheltered, and people who say ignorant things like "you should have to get tested for drugs to qualify for welfare!", it's a huge eye-opener.
0k_b's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
borumi's review
2.0
Well, this was a fast paced read.
It was interesting and emotionally involved journalism at best. However, it wasn't exactly what I expected, as I was hoping to gain more insight on the sociological or perhaps an economic (judging from his cowork with Levitt) aspect of the gang. I didn't expect this book to have any happy ending or that his work is going to have a major impact in social policy as he seemed to have in the outset. In fact, the title pretty much sums up his experience. As much as being a gang leader for a day can teach you about the gang, the author's four years of 'hanging out' with the gang and the tenants of Robert Taylor housing didn't make much of a dint in the whole system (his naivete and self-absorption caused more of a harm than benefit for some of the tenants) but maybe, just maybe would serve as a fodder for some discussion on poverty and the civic system. As the gang leader he befriended and then subsequently abandonned in his hustling for information succinctly and accurately described, 'What else are you going to do? You can't fix nothing, you never worked a day in your life. The only thing you know how to do is hang out with niggers like us."
Maybe that was all he had done all through those years, and maybe that was all that these desperate and hopeless tenants who eventually get kicked out into even further destitution can hope for. Yet it's certainly a wake-up call to reality for both rogue sociologists and conventional sociologists alike, and I truly hope there's something more to be said and be actually 'done' than just listen to people's stories. It's a start, but it could go further than that.
It was interesting and emotionally involved journalism at best. However, it wasn't exactly what I expected, as I was hoping to gain more insight on the sociological or perhaps an economic (judging from his cowork with Levitt) aspect of the gang. I didn't expect this book to have any happy ending or that his work is going to have a major impact in social policy as he seemed to have in the outset. In fact, the title pretty much sums up his experience. As much as being a gang leader for a day can teach you about the gang, the author's four years of 'hanging out' with the gang and the tenants of Robert Taylor housing didn't make much of a dint in the whole system (his naivete and self-absorption caused more of a harm than benefit for some of the tenants) but maybe, just maybe would serve as a fodder for some discussion on poverty and the civic system. As the gang leader he befriended and then subsequently abandonned in his hustling for information succinctly and accurately described, 'What else are you going to do? You can't fix nothing, you never worked a day in your life. The only thing you know how to do is hang out with niggers like us."
Maybe that was all he had done all through those years, and maybe that was all that these desperate and hopeless tenants who eventually get kicked out into even further destitution can hope for. Yet it's certainly a wake-up call to reality for both rogue sociologists and conventional sociologists alike, and I truly hope there's something more to be said and be actually 'done' than just listen to people's stories. It's a start, but it could go further than that.
katepowellshine's review
5.0
Loved it. My favorite part is when the author first walks into the projects and tries to survey some crack dealers: "How does it feel to be black and poor? ... Very bad, somewhat bad, neither bad nor good, somewhat good, very good." He's met with the response, "You got to be fucking kidding me" and is then detained while they try to figure out who he really is. It just gets better from there. Fascinating AND entertaining.