Listen to the WNYC interview with Dr. Alice Goffman listed in Lesson 2 learning materials and answer the questions below. https://www.ted.com/talks/alice_goffman_how_we_re_…

Dr. Alice Goffman, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the U. of Wisconsin at Madison wrote one of the most acclaimed books in Sociology: On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (University of Chicago Press, 2014). Her book is based on six years of her in-depth ethnographic study of criminal-justice system involved young Black men in Philadelphia. Early on Goffman’s book received critical acclaim from academicians and journalists (if you are interested, see one review here, and feel free to google the book title for more reviews). Goffman’s TED talk based on her work has been viewed nearly two million times. Later on, however, Goffman received immense amount of criticism from academics and others for ethical issues in relation to her research methods and the way she described the social lives of the young men she studied.

Ethnographic research (which we will cover later in our course) is a type of in-depth research method that involves researcher to collect data about a topic in the environment of that topic. In ethnographic research, researchers can exert a diverse level of participation ranging from full participation to complete observer. A complete observer does not engage in social interaction with the people/groups they study and might even shun the idea of interaction with research subjects. On the other hand, a full participant may be a genuine participant in what they are studying or at least pretend to be one. For example, if you are studying pro-life or pro-choice individuals, you can participate in a demonstration for/against one of these groups. Regardless if you are participating genuinely or under the pretense, if you are a full participant, you let people see you as a participant and not a researcher.

In her ethnographic work, Goffman was a full participant. She started working on this ethnographic research project as a 19-year old sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania and finished it during her graduate studies at Princeton University. At some point during her study, Goffman embedded herself with a group of young Black men from a Philadelphia neighborhood she called the 6th street. One of the research subjects in her project, Chuck, who she describes as her friend and occasional roommate was murdered by neighborhood rivals. Goffman in her book describes driving her other roommate (and another research subject) Mike, on his manhunt for the killer. Critiques of Goffman equated this description to a confession and suggested that this was a prosecutable felony. Goffman later reframed this experience as a mourning ritual that was in reaction to losing Chuck, who became her friend during her study.

Question 1: At the beginning of her study, University of Pennsylvania authorized Goffman’s research as part of her undergraduate degree. What are the potential harms and benefits of this kind of a research study conducted by a researcher-in-training at the undergraduate level?
Question 2: Majority of criminological research studies “focus on the crimes of the ‘marginalised’ rather than on the crimes of powerful business interests or of the state” (Yates, 2004, p.4). What do you think are some of the most pressing ethical issues you in relation to conducting criminological research on marginalized communities?