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Introduction to the Special Issue on Ethnography from the Margins: Why We Need to Understand the Relationship Between Power, Powerlessness, and Marginalization

The twenty-first century witnessed a surge of scholarly inquiry into the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and crime and justice studies (Lauritsen and Heimer 2010). Much of this research seeks to address a key question: How do social and economic conditions contribute to the rise and fall in violent crime—and how are these related to the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender? This work also seeks to address the connections among justice system trends, including increasingly aggressive policing styles and harsher sentencing on race and the incarceration gap in the United States (Lauritsen, Gorislavsky, and Heimer 2013). Examining these connections has inspired a desire to focus on the lived experiences of those in marginalized communities through an ethnographic lens. Although violent crime levels for blacks and Latinos are at historic lows, persistent gaps relative to levels of non-Latino whites endure in most crime and justice studies. Peterson and Krivo (2010) found that in an era of crime decline, violent crime rates are still higher among persons of color than whites. The crime and justice literature describes the consequences of targeting people of color for justice system involvement, as well as the negative impact of aggressive and para-militaristic policing styles and high rates of incarceration on communities of color (Fagan, Geller, Davies, and West 2010). Black and Latino males are incarcerated at rates several times the rate of white males, and this disparate impact is felt across cities and communities of color (Fagan and West 2013). These persistent findings highlight the need to focus research on the intersections of marginalization and the actions of the powerful and powerless. This edited issue broadens the research focus on race, ethnicity, crime, and justice to encompass issues relevant to a variety of marginalized (or otherwise hard-to-find) populations. Although there is a significant body of heavily quantitative research in race, ethnicity, crime, and justice, significant research gaps remain. Emerging qualitative research on marginalized and economically disadvantaged groups residing on the fringes of society has generated important scholarly and public dialogue, drawing attention to the role of ethnographers in communities of color (e.g., Duck 2015; Goffman 2014; Rios 2011). This important and evolving area of research is highlighted in this issue. Much of the race, ethnicity, crime, and justice literature focuses on the impact of aggressive police practices of singling out young males of color and stigmatizing many of those belonging to these groups as “criminals.” This seems to be a tale repeated throughout the history of the United States (Escobar 2015:174). This highlights the need for additional research on the consequences of disproportionate minority contact and punishment on communities of color (Harris 2016). The themes in race, ethnicity, crime, and justice studies are situated within the broader context of