Down and Out in New Orleans: Notes from the Urban Underbelly

• In Event: Transgressive Criminology

Abstract

This presentation is based on research conducted for an upcoming book on transgressive criminology that focuses on the cultural life of the urban underbelly in the post-industrial tourist intensive economy of New Orleans. This work is an homage to Orwell and resilient New Orleans viewing the city from the prism of downtrodden 1920s Paris to showcase the fascinating and uneven journeys of late-modern urban dwellers and tribes living on the periphery of city life. It reveals the complexities of social life and takes a journey into the beating heart of an unapologetically contradictory city – and one that is eternally fascinating because of it. It explores how emerging transgressive subcultures find unique solutions to the structural problems posed in late-modernity – from “freak” show clowns and voodoo practitioners to brass band musicians and hipsters gentrifying their neighborhoods to gutter punks and politically motivated urban squatters. Exploring the city requires delving deep into the world of crime and transgression to unfold new forms of deviancy in our post-modern society, and while doing so, explains urban violence with a critical sociological inquiry. I don’t settle for examining the city’s underbelly, I creep and crawl through it myself living in the urban tribes.

Author

• Peter Marina, University of Wisconsin - La Crosse