College basketball experienced its greatest rise in popularity during the eighties, becoming one of the most commercially successful spectator sports in America. With this rise came an era of scandal: recruiting violations, spurious admittance practices, and controversial treatment of student athletes. Within this guarded context of scrutiny, allegations of improprieties, and media celebrity, Patricia and Peter Adler penetrated the public front of a top twenty basketball team. The result of their efforts, Backboards and Blackboards: College Athletes and Role Engulfment, is a compelling inside...

Wheeling and Dealing is a vivid account of the world inhabited by "wholesale" illicit drug traffickers. Based on six years of participant observation, fieldwork, and extensive interviews in an elite Southern California community of dealers, the book gives a rare glimpse into the decadent yet fascinating "subculture of drug trafficking and unending partying, mixed with occasional cloak-and-dagger subterfuge."

This second edition brings the story up to date by revealing the fate of several of Adler's key informants. By tracing their lives over a fifteen-year span, Adler offers a...

Resorts have become important to American society and its economy; one in eight Americans is now employed by the tourism industry. Yet despite the ubiquity of hotels, little has been written about those who labor there. Drawing on eight years of participant observation and in-depth interviews, the renowned ethnographers Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler reveal the occupational culture and lifestyles of workers at five luxury Hawaiian resorts.These resorts employ a workforce that is diverse in gender, class, ethnicity, and nationality. Hawaiian resort workers, like those in nearly all resorts,...

There are a range of possible roles that can be played by ethnographers in field research, from the detached observer to the the fully-fledged participant. The choice of role will affect the type of information available to the researcher and the kind of ethnography written. The authors discuss the problems and advantages at each level of involvement and give examples of modern ethnographic studies.

Resorts have become important to American society and its economy; one in eight Americans is now employed by the tourism industry. Yet despite the ubiquity of hotels, little has been written about those who labor there. Drawing on eight years of...

Wheeling and Dealing is a vivid account of the world inhabited by "wholesale" illicit drug traffickers. Based on six years of participant observation, fieldwork, and extensive interviews in an elite Southern California community of dealers, the book gives a rare glimpse into the decadent yet fascinating "subculture of drug trafficking and unending partying, mixed with occasional cloak-and-dagger subterfuge."

This second edition brings the story up to date by revealing the fate of several of Adler's key informants. By tracing their lives over a fifteen-year span, Adler offers a...