Buskers of New Orleans: Transgressive Sociology in the Urban Underbelly

This article is based on extensive ethnographic research involving living and working on the urban fringes of the postindustrial, tourist-intensive economy of New Orleans. As this late modern metropolis has experienced great structural transformations, and as new urban dwellers have emerged with the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of contemporary ethnography Vol. 47; no. 3; pp. 306 - 335
Main Author Marina, Peter
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2018
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Ethnographic research
Ethnography
Fringes
Informal economy
Modernity
Postindustrial societies
Social life & customs
Subcultures
Urban areas
Urban sociology
New Orleans Louisiana
United States > US
urban ethnography
informal street economy
urban underbelly
sociology of transgression
buskers of New Orleans
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:This article is based on extensive ethnographic research involving living and working on the urban fringes of the postindustrial, tourist-intensive economy of New Orleans. As this late modern metropolis has experienced great structural transformations, and as new urban dwellers have emerged with their own unique cultural solutions to the structural problems posed in late modernity, this work captures the culture of urban dwellers living on the social periphery of New Orleans. The analysis reveals the less-seen spaces of New Orleans, intimately depicting the social life of the new creative urban buskers through sociological analysis and reflexive ethnographic interpretation. Revealing the underbelly of New Orleans requires not only traditional interviews and participant observation but also full immersion into the subcultures of buskers through my performing on the streets with buskers in the tourist economy as they carve out creative and transgressive lives on the urban fringes.
ISSN:0891-2416
1552-5414
DOI:10.1177/0891241616657873