preview

The Cocaine Kids Summary

Good Essays

In his book “The Cocaine Kids” Williams (1989) suggests that implementing ethnographical research is significant in order to disclose a detailed account of the cocaine kids, and their lifestyle. On a broad scale, ethnography is a research method that studies the culture of the subject at hand. When looking deeper, it also analyzes key social dynamics that can stem from structural factors such as hierarchical systems present in the community being researched. Similar to observational research, Williams made notes of the cocaine kids in their natural setting, while doing what they would normally do. This is to ensure that his presence does not raise suspicion and allows for quantitative measures including basic details of age, sex, and race; …show more content…

Williams suggests that due to the deviant lifestyle of his subjects, the cocaine kids, this interviewing stage can delay the time between interviews (1989). That being said, Williams seems to strongly support this method of research because it not only helps him get answers to his questions, but also allows the interview to branch and bring up relevant topic that he had not thought of before. Beyond this, Williams tried his best to understand sub-communications such as the subjects’ body language, including emotions, discreet forms of communication via hand signs, and attire. He did this to ensure he also observed instances that are generally under-the-radar, but still have meaning. Williams reveals his limitation in studying the verbal language and speech of the cocaine kids. This is due to the hectic environment, and if he were to use a recorder, it would render the voices of his subjects incomprehensible. Also, taking direct notes in front of his subjects could have potentially triggered some sort of observer effect, whereby the cocaine kids would behave differently than they normally would. This is more severe in scenarios where others are present such as buyers and groupies (Williams 1989). Thus, a key part of Williams’ work was to not look like he was actually working as an …show more content…

Overall, Williams claims he was able to overcome these barriers and still accumulate a collection of observations on each cocaine kid’s behaviour, and their business operation including production, packing, selling, profits, and cocaine consumption (1989). Williams’ book is based on his ethnographical research on eight teenagers who are involved in the cocaine market, their role being sellers. This is the first weakness of Williams’ work because his sample size is relatively small. In other words, his findings on eight cocaine dealers is limited in numbers and in terms of geographical locations – Bronx, Harlem and Washington Heights. Thus they are not universally applicable, and general conclusions cannot be made. That being said, Williams has done his best in collecting both quantitative and qualitative observations on his subjects, the cocaine kids. This was executed by forming relationships – he would even call it friendship at times, with the cocaine kids (1989). Nonetheless, the relationship had strengthened over the four years of his research, encouraging the cocaine kids’ behaviour to remain natural during his presence. This worked in favour of Williams because it supports his research method, where his objective is to get the most clear-cut observations on the cocaine kids’ lifestyle which revolves around the drug market, and all

Get Access