Who You Claim: Performing Gang Identity in School and on the Streets (Alternative Criminology)
“Path breaking and precedent-setting. Robert Garot has appreciated what no one has before, the essential shadow quality of urban gangs, which are not so much things one can be in as they are things danced around, avoided, played with, and very occasionally, practically invoked.”-Jack Katz,author ofHow Emotions Work“Written with the ink of theory, passion, fine attention to method and ethics, Garot represents with dignity the complex and strategic maneuverings of youth in gangs as he represents with humility the equally complex negotiations of a white guy ethnographer working with, for and beside urban youth.”-Michelle Fine,co-author ofSilenced Voices and Extraordinary Conversations: Re-Imagining Schools“Garot has provided deep insight into an inner‒city alternative school showing how self identity can change and adjust to the surrounding circumstances and why gang identity is a variable that defies a fixed characterization.”-Diego Vigil,author ofThe Projects: Gang and Non‒Gang Families in East Los Angeles"Garot should be commended for his well-written, exceptionally insightful school ethnography... I teach graduate courses on cultural differences and educational research, and plan to use this book as an example of how to design, execute, and present exemplary research, and most importantly, how to represent historically marginalized young people accurately, ethically, and in a manner that reveals their humanity in dehumanizing circumstances."-Annette Hemmings, Teachers College Record.,