Léon Anderson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3610035 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Léon Anderson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Léon |
| FAMILY NAME | Anderson |
| SIGNATURE | ANDERSON L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ohio University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1410 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Garfinkeling in Real Life
This narrative recounts my improvisational use of breaching experiments when I was a high school student in the late 1960s. While I had no knowledge of ethnomethodologist Harold Garfinkel’s use of breaching experiments as a strategy for illuminating the taken-for-granted features of social interaction, during my last two years of high school I regularly engaged in breaching activities similar to what Garfinkel advocated for research purposes. Hav…
Deviance
Deviance: Social Constructions and Blurred Boundaries draws on up-to-date scholarship across a wide spectrum of deviance categories, providing a symbolic interactionist analysis of the deviance process. The book addresses positivistic theories of deviant behavior within a description of the deviance process that encompasses the work of deviance claims-makers, rule-breakers, and social control agents. Students: are introduced to the sociology of d…
Autoethnographic methods
Autoethnography is a genre of qualitative research in which the ethnographer is a complete member in the social world or realm of experience that is being studied. While criticized by some scholars as lacking rigor, autoethnography has gained popularity in sociology, communication studies, and other social science disciplines since the 1990s. Evocative autoethnography adopts postmodern sensibilities and nontraditional social science writing style…
Mental Health Courts in America
Auto-ethnography in leisure studies
In this paper we explore auto-ethnography, one recent genre of qualitative inquiry that we believe is particularly well-suited for the field of leisure studies. We begin by defining auto-ethnography and describing its key features. We then examine its use in leisure research to date, based on an analysis of auto-ethnographical studies of leisure published in three major qualitative methods journals and three major sport and leisure journals over …
Time Is of the Essence
While leisure is often represented in public discourse as a realm of freedom and self-actualization, for most adults the pursuit of serious leisure activities involves negotiating familial and professional constraints. Based on the author's autoethnographic experiences with sport skydiving, this article examines the familial and professional constraints that he has experienced, as well as the challenges to recreational skydivers posed by current …
Expanding Horizons of Risk in Criminology
Few topics in the social sciences have witnessed as dramatic an increase in scholarly attention over the past two decades as the topic of risk. In this essay we examine sociological approaches to risk in criminological research and theory. After briefly describing the concept of risk in classical and neoclassical criminology, we turn our attention to three emerging social science perspectives on risk, those associated with the scholarship on risk…
Standing Out while Fitting In
Serious leisure communities have proliferated over the past century, providing ever more opportunities for people to enact and embrace leisure-related identities. Serious leisure offers individuals resources to distinguish themselves by developing specialized knowledge, skills, and experiences. But members of serious leisure communities may also feel marginalized when they perceive themselves and their activities as misunderstood by the broader s…
Managing the Stigma of Personal Bankruptcy
In recent years, the relationship between personal bankruptcy and stigma has generated much discussion and speculation. However, virtually no research has examined the experiences of bankrupt debtors themselves. In this paper, we provide an analysis of bankruptcy stigma based on thirty-seven in-depth interviews with 19 married couples who filed for personal bankruptcy in 1999. The data demonstrate that stigma is a pervasive feature of contemporar…
Edgework
On Apples, Oranges, and Autopsies
Analytic Autoethnography
Autoethnography has recently become a popular form of qualitative research. The current discourse on this genre of research refers almost exclusively to "evocative autoethnography" that draws upon postmodern sensibilities and whose advocates distance themselves from realist and analytic ethnographic traditions. The dominance of evocative autoethnography has obscured recognition of the compatibility of autoethnographic research with more tradition…
Elaborating Analytic Ethnography
Among the diverse styles of qualitative methodology is what John Lofland referred to as `analytic ethnography.' In contrast to the traditional interpretive style that attempts to get at the crux of `what is going on', to the more formal approach that seeks to identify the cognitive rules undergirding behavior, and to the more recent postmodern preoccupation with individual experience and voices, analytic ethnography seeks to develop systematic an…
Nowhere to Grow
L'exclusion sociale et le soi
Inequality and the Self
Symbolic interactionism provides a major contribution to understanding inequality by illuminating the various manifestations and contexts of inequality at the micro, everyday level of social life. Drawing on a spectrum of symbolic interactionist theory and research, we examine the range of symbolic and interactional manifestations of social inequality, the consequences of being the object of patterned interactional affronts, and the strategies pe…
Taylor's Campaign
The Open Road to Ethnography's Future
Something Left to Lose
Preface Part I: On the Streets 1. Word Is Your Bond: The Station 2. Kindness for Weakness: The Shanty Part II: In the Shelters 3. More than Refuge: The Armory 4. Stinkin' Thinkin': The Private Shelter Part III: From a Distance 5. Conclusion Notes Index
New Ethnographies
Sociology
Down on Their Luck
Over the Edge
Down on Their Luck
David Snow and Leon Anderson show us the wretched face of homelessness in late twentieth-century America in countless cities across the nation. Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas, Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless,…
Distorting Tendencies in Research on the Homeless
The authors argue that the most common research strategy used to study homeless individuals unwittingly presents a distorted picture of the very phenomenon it seeks to illuminate and understand
Analytic Autoethnography
Autoethnography has recently become a popular form of qualitative research. The current discourse on this genre of research refers almost exclusively to "evocative autoethnography" that draws upon postmodern sensibilities and whose advocates distance themselves from realist and analytic ethnographic traditions. The dominance of evocative autoethnography has obscured recognition of the compatibility of autoethnographic research with more tradition…
Identity Work Among the Homeless
This paper elaborates processes of identity construction and avowal among homeless street people, with two underlying and interconected objectives in mind: to advance understanding of the manner in wich individuals at the bottom of status systems attempt to generate identities that provide them with a measures of self-worth and dignity and to shed additional empirical and theoretical light on the relationships among role, identity, and self-conce…
Elaborating Analytic Ethnography
Among the diverse styles of qualitative methodology is what John Lofland referred to as `analytic ethnography.' In contrast to the traditional interpretive style that attempts to get at the crux of `what is going on', to the more formal approach that seeks to identify the cognitive rules undergirding behavior, and to the more recent postmodern preoccupation with individual experience and voices, analytic ethnography seeks to develop systematic an…
The Myth of Pervasive Mental Illness among the Homeless
This paper calls into question the double-edged thesis that the majority of the homeless are mentally ill and that the streets of urban America have consequently become the asylums of today. We present data from a triangulated field study of nearly 1,000 unattached homeless adults in Texas that contradict this stereotypic imagery. We also suggest that this root image is due to the medicalization of the problem of homelessness, a misplaced emphasi…
Inequality and the Self
Symbolic interactionism provides a major contribution to understanding inequality by illuminating the various manifestations and contexts of inequality at the micro, everyday level of social life. Drawing on a spectrum of symbolic interactionist theory and research, we examine the range of symbolic and interactional manifestations of social inequality, the consequences of being the object of patterned interactional affronts, and the strategies pe…
Fieldwork Roles and Informational Yield
One of the basic premises of role theory is that all roles, by virtue of their attendant rights and obligations, function as avenues and barriers to other roles and their information bases and perspectives. Using this premise as a point of departure, this article examines how different fieldwork roles facilitate and impede access to different types of information. The types of information considered include (1) direct experience, (2) observationa…
Criminality and Homeless Men
This paper examines the relationship between criminality and homelessness by tracking a random sample of homeless males through the police department records of a large Southwestern city over a 27-month period. When compared with data on criminality in the general population of males within the city over the same period, these data show that while the homeless have a higher overall arrest rate, the majority of offenses for which they are arrested…
On Apples, Oranges, and Autopsies
Auto-ethnography in leisure studies
In this paper we explore auto-ethnography, one recent genre of qualitative inquiry that we believe is particularly well-suited for the field of leisure studies. We begin by defining auto-ethnography and describing its key features. We then examine its use in leisure research to date, based on an analysis of auto-ethnographical studies of leisure published in three major qualitative methods journals and three major sport and leisure journals over …
Standing Out while Fitting In
Serious leisure communities have proliferated over the past century, providing ever more opportunities for people to enact and embrace leisure-related identities. Serious leisure offers individuals resources to distinguish themselves by developing specialized knowledge, skills, and experiences. But members of serious leisure communities may also feel marginalized when they perceive themselves and their activities as misunderstood by the broader s…
Managing the Stigma of Personal Bankruptcy
In recent years, the relationship between personal bankruptcy and stigma has generated much discussion and speculation. However, virtually no research has examined the experiences of bankrupt debtors themselves. In this paper, we provide an analysis of bankruptcy stigma based on thirty-seven in-depth interviews with 19 married couples who filed for personal bankruptcy in 1999. The data demonstrate that stigma is a pervasive feature of contemporar…
On the Precariousness of Measuring Insanity in Insane Contexts
On the Precariousness of Measuring Insanity in Insane Contexts David A. Snow, David A. Snow University of Arizona, Tucson Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Susan G. Baker, Susan G. Baker University of Texas, Austin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Leon Anderson Leon Anderson University of Texas, Austin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Acad…
Distorting Tendencies in Research on the Homeless
The authors argue that the most common research strategy used to study homeless individuals unwittingly presents a distorted picture of the very phenomenon it seeks to illuminate and understand
The Open Road to Ethnography's Future
L'industrie du plasma
The Commercial Blood Plasma Industry The commercial blood plasma industry in the United States obtains its raw « source plasma » from economically marginal sectors of the population. This paper focuses on the connections between the US plasma industry and the homeless, who comprise one major sector of the plasma « donor » population. The broader homeless economy provides few dependable economic opportunities and over time on the streets many home…
Teaching Writing in Sociology
The writing-across-the-curriculum movement has taken two directions. One direction (the stronger to date) emphasizes writing in substantive courses in the disciplines. The other advocates actual writing courses taught in the disciplines rather than by English department faculty. This second direction is relatively undeveloped, but is growing. The continuing development of writingcourses in sociology has twoprimary needs: 1) a theoretically inform…
Time Is of the Essence
While leisure is often represented in public discourse as a realm of freedom and self-actualization, for most adults the pursuit of serious leisure activities involves negotiating familial and professional constraints. Based on the author's autoethnographic experiences with sport skydiving, this article examines the familial and professional constraints that he has experienced, as well as the challenges to recreational skydivers posed by current …
Expanding Horizons of Risk in Criminology
Few topics in the social sciences have witnessed as dramatic an increase in scholarly attention over the past two decades as the topic of risk. In this essay we examine sociological approaches to risk in criminological research and theory. After briefly describing the concept of risk in classical and neoclassical criminology, we turn our attention to three emerging social science perspectives on risk, those associated with the scholarship on risk…
Facilitative Aspects of Field Research with Deviant Street Populations
The authors examine facilitative aspects of field research with deviant street populations. Based on the authors' research with the homeless and with male street prostitutes, the facilitative aspects include access to settings, social relationships, acquisition of information, and the maintenance of researcher interest. The authors argue that in each of these aspects street deviants may in some ways be easier to study than other populations. The …
Down on Their Luck
David Snow and Leon Anderson show us the wretched face of homelessness in late twentieth-century America in countless cities across the nation. Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas, Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless,…
Assembling Processes in a Periodic Gathering
This paper examines assembling processes involved in attendance at an annually recurring Halloween street celebration in Athens, Ohio. The celebration draws primarily college students from around the state of Ohio. Based on survey data from students at six large public universities in the state, we examine various factors associated with assembling processes to determine their influence on the likelihood of assembling at this event. Specifically,…
L'exclusion sociale et le soi
The Myth of Pervasive Mental Illness among the Homeless
This paper calls into question the double-edged thesis that the majority of the homeless are mentally ill and that the streets of urban America have consequently become the asylums of today. We present data from a triangulated field study of nearly 1,000 unattached homeless adults in Texas that contradict this stereotypic imagery. We also suggest that this root image is due to the medicalization of the problem of homelessness, a misplaced emphasi…
Fieldwork Roles and Informational Yield
One of the basic premises of role theory is that all roles, by virtue of their attendant rights and obligations, function as avenues and barriers to other roles and their information bases and perspectives. Using this premise as a point of departure, this article examines how different fieldwork roles facilitate and impede access to different types of information. The types of information considered include (1) direct experience, (2) observationa…
Identity Work Among the Homeless
This paper elaborates processes of identity construction and avowal among homeless street people, with two underlying and interconected objectives in mind: to advance understanding of the manner in wich individuals at the bottom of status systems attempt to generate identities that provide them with a measures of self-worth and dignity and to shed additional empirical and theoretical light on the relationships among role, identity, and self-conce…
On the Precariousness of Measuring Insanity in Insane Contexts
On the Precariousness of Measuring Insanity in Insane Contexts David A. Snow, David A. Snow University of Arizona, Tucson Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Susan G. Baker, Susan G. Baker University of Texas, Austin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Leon Anderson Leon Anderson University of Texas, Austin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Acad…
New Ethnographies
Criminality and Homeless Men
This paper examines the relationship between criminality and homelessness by tracking a random sample of homeless males through the police department records of a large Southwestern city over a 27-month period. When compared with data on criminality in the general population of males within the city over the same period, these data show that while the homeless have a higher overall arrest rate, the majority of offenses for which they are arrested…
Teaching Writing in Sociology
The writing-across-the-curriculum movement has taken two directions. One direction (the stronger to date) emphasizes writing in substantive courses in the disciplines. The other advocates actual writing courses taught in the disciplines rather than by English department faculty. This second direction is relatively undeveloped, but is growing. The continuing development of writingcourses in sociology has twoprimary needs: 1) a theoretically inform…
Selecting Ethnographic Informants
New Ethnographies
Assembling Processes in a Periodic Gathering
This paper examines assembling processes involved in attendance at an annually recurring Halloween street celebration in Athens, Ohio. The celebration draws primarily college students from around the state of Ohio. Based on survey data from students at six large public universities in the state, we examine various factors associated with assembling processes to determine their influence on the likelihood of assembling at this event. Specifically,…
Facilitative Aspects of Field Research with Deviant Street Populations
The authors examine facilitative aspects of field research with deviant street populations. Based on the authors' research with the homeless and with male street prostitutes, the facilitative aspects include access to settings, social relationships, acquisition of information, and the maintenance of researcher interest. The authors argue that in each of these aspects street deviants may in some ways be easier to study than other populations. The …
Down on Their Luck
David Snow and Leon Anderson show us the wretched face of homelessness in late twentieth-century America in countless cities across the nation. Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas. Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless.…
Over the Edge
Down on Their Luck
David Snow and Leon Anderson show us the wretched face of homelessness in late twentieth-century America in countless cities across the nation. Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas, Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless,…
Distorting Tendencies in Research on the Homeless
The authors argue that the most common research strategy used to study homeless individuals unwittingly presents a distorted picture of the very phenomenon it seeks to illuminate and understand
L'industrie du plasma
The Commercial Blood Plasma Industry The commercial blood plasma industry in the United States obtains its raw « source plasma » from economically marginal sectors of the population. This paper focuses on the connections between the US plasma industry and the homeless, who comprise one major sector of the plasma « donor » population. The broader homeless economy provides few dependable economic opportunities and over time on the streets many home…
Down on Their Luck
New Ethnographies
Sociology
Something Left to Lose
Preface Part I: On the Streets 1. Word Is Your Bond: The Station 2. Kindness for Weakness: The Shanty Part II: In the Shelters 3. More than Refuge: The Armory 4. Stinkin' Thinkin': The Private Shelter Part III: From a Distance 5. Conclusion Notes Index
The Open Road to Ethnography's Future
Taylor's Campaign
Nowhere to Grow
L'exclusion sociale et le soi
Inequality and the Self
Symbolic interactionism provides a major contribution to understanding inequality by illuminating the various manifestations and contexts of inequality at the micro, everyday level of social life. Drawing on a spectrum of symbolic interactionist theory and research, we examine the range of symbolic and interactional manifestations of social inequality, the consequences of being the object of patterned interactional affronts, and the strategies pe…
Sociology (32 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Criminology (12 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Social science (10 works) · Anthropology (9 works) · Ethnography (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works)