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Entering the Street Field: A Case Study on Gangs

This chapter makes the case for criminological ethnography as a form of negotiated boundary work between separate sociocultural domains. Drawing on the conceptualization of “field” articulated by Pierre Bourdieu, as a semiautonomous site of contest, the chapter conceives of fieldwork as a distinct form of emotional labor; in short, as fieldwork. In making this argument, the chapter presents findings from a four-year ethnographic study of street gangs in Glasgow, Scotland, which involved navigating multiple, overlapping fields. The first section introduces the study, covering the experience of entering the “street field” of Langview. The second and third sections outline two empirical contributions flowing from the study, covering cultural reproduction in the “street” field and bureaucratic misrecognition in the “police” field. The fourth is a reflexive account of the disjuncture between the “street” and “academic” field, and the reflections this prompted. In conclusion, the chapter suggests a number of implications and conclusions for ethnography, gang studies, and public policy.