Writing the "Wrongs" of Fieldwork: Confronting Our Own Research/ Writing Dilemmas in Urban Ethnographies

Abstract

Inspired by Laurel Richardson's (1995) call for "writing stories," the authors of this essay struggle with how to produce scholarly texts drawn from narratives of over 150 poor and working-class men and women—White, African American, Latino, and Asian American. They unveil a set of knotty, emergent ethical and rhetorical dilemmas they have encountered in their attempt to write for, with, and about poor and working-class informants at a time when their lives and moralities are routinely maligned in thepopular media; when the very problematic policies that may once have "assisted" them are being abandoned; and when the leverage of and audience for progressive social researchers and policy makers has grown foggy, and weak in the knees. Writing with a desire to create a conversation about ethics, writing, and qualitative research, the authors worry about the contemporary role of qualitative social researchers.