With No Direction Home

Marni Finkelstein published the ethnography With No Direction Home: Homeless Youth on the Road and in the Streets in 2005 after two summers spent studying the homeless youth population of the East Village in New York City.   Her primary research goal was to gather information on the cultural activities of a group known as “gutterpunks,” whom she felt to have been neglected by other studies on homeless youth, from an emic perspective, Secondly, she intended to make her findings available to social service agencies because of her belief that they either were not doing enough or simply did not know how to reach out to this particular segment of the population.   She accomplished her goal of studying this highly transient demographic, including an accurate portrayal of their lifestyle, but it is unclear whether the information will ultimately be put to good use by social services.
Finkelstein observed street kids in Tompkins Square Park over a one month period before initiating contact with her first informants.   Throughout the course of the study she conducted interviews with 50 informants ranging in age from 15 to 20 years.   She found them to be predominantly white but of diverse background.   Some claimed to have run away from abusive households while others reported to have been the product of well-balanced families who merely left their homes in search of adventure (Finkelstein 2005, p.13-18).   The number of informants interviewed raises the question of whether the statements of 50 people can adequately represent an entire subculture, especially one that transcends geography to the extent that this one does.   It seems likely that these could be the behavioral characteristics and opinions of a smaller social circle within the wider definition of street kid subculture.   Most of the kids interviewed spoke candidly of their involvement with drug abuse and, in her introduction, Finkelstein touched on the detachment of her street kids from the socio-political aspects of...