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Summary: Great for newbies
Comment: A great book if you're new to anthropology. Easy to read, and Jackson defines terms and theories well as he goes along.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Helluva writer...but work isn't that strong
Comment: Let me say at the outset that the author is an excellent writer. I'm familiar with Dr. Jackson's work, and he is an excellent wordsmith.But in this case, his writing skills obscure the weakness of his argument.
Jackson is arguing that for black people "class" isn't a matter of educational level, or a matter of income/wealth, but rather a matter of how one carries him/herself in different social settings. So class isn't something you ARE (as in, are you middle class or upper class) but something you HAVE (as in, are you ghetto acting or bourgie). Given the complex way politics and economics truncate black life options, this is a woefully inadequate way of grappling with race and class in Harlem, much less centers of black life like Detroit or Washington D.C.
Again, VERY well written. It just isn't saying much.
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Summary: A multi-faceted examination of new Harlem lifestyles
Comment: Harlem is the center of black culture and history: Harlem World reveals a probe of the region which uses interviews with a cross-section of Harlem residents to offer new insights into the lives and attitudes of modern Harlem dwellers. What evolves is a multi-faceted examination of new Harlem lifestyles.
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Summary: Insightful and beautifully written
Comment: Jackson's Harlemworld examines Harlem, both as an actual place and as a mythical "hyperscape," to assess the ways in which concepts of racial and socioeconomic identity are conceived, articulated, and performed in contemporary America (19). For Jackson, Harlem is a site that illuminates the ways that people employ multi-layered ideas of racial belonging, being, and doing in their everyday lives. Here, people "do" race and class; for Harlemites--residents of the actual Harlem and African diasporic subjects who inhabit Harlem as an imaginary home--black identity functions not as a static, coherent essence but rather as a set of "skills and cultural practices" that people act out in distinct ways (63).Jackson's theory of social identity situates itself somewhere in between (or decidedly outside of) recent academic debates about culture and identity. His notion of performative social identity works through and against Pierre Bordieu's habitus, Michel Foucault's discourse analysis, and Judith Butler's performativity. Jackson's field research--involving interviews with both long-time and new residents of the neighborhood--uncovers a community in which black people move between socioeconomic echelons, building and maintaining both complex social networks and complex notions of what constitutes blackness.
Harlemworld is a refreshing and extraordinary addition to a growing discourse on identity and everyday life in America. Jackson's fascinating prose allows Harlemworld and its readers to navigate a complex field of theoretical formulations with grace. It will easily get added onto sociology, anthropology and cultural studies reading lists, as it makes possible new and interesting readings of race and class in this country.
