Interrogating Staggolee: Investigating the Meanings of Hustling

• In Event: 033 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 09. Inequality and Crime 3

Abstract

This paper is an investigation of hustling that uses the perspectives of critical criminology and intersectionality to pull apart the meanings embedded in the concept. As such it is an attempt to correct for an overly economic conception of hustling that has dominated research with in criminology and urban sociology. It is based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a Career Development class in an agency that serves formerly incarcerated individuals who are primarily male, African American and Latino. The study utilizes reflexive methods and is based on participant observation and interviews with program staff and participants. The meanings that are attached to the concept of the hustle are discussed in the context of the institutions that shape each understanding. The implications of hustling for practice with in reentry and future research are discussed.

Author

• Deirdre D. Caputo-Levine, Idaho State University