This study examines what individuals of limited pecuniary resources in an urban
society have to say about how they conceive of or interact with family, neighborhood,
city, and society at large, as well as what some of the material and metaphorical
boundaries are they meet, and how these function. The narratives they tell delineate
ways, directly or indirectly, the consultants attempt to make sense of their lives, and
explicate certain of their intertanglements with and perspectives on boundaries they
encounter. When boundaries are placed, according to their characteristics, on a soft to
hard continuum, an opening presents itself, signaled by specific, identifiable components,
to reveal the constructions of empowerment and disenfranchisement that lie behind some
seemingly unbreachable barriers.
The consultants for this paper tell of skills and creativity they use to re-frame,
ignore, cross, or otherwise get around many prevalent constrictive boundaries in order to
conduct fulfilling lives. Since much of the success of ethnography, particularly that
based on participant observation, hinges on capabilities to cross boundaries in order to
understand different communities, the consultants' knowledge of ways to contend with boundaries can be applied productively to anthropological investigations. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/ETD-UT-2011-12-4831 |
| Date | 23 January 2012 |
| Creators | Steiner, Audrey Moya |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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