In this powerful volume, ten original ethnographies explore two important issues: the ways in which people confront the threats and disruptions of contemporary life, and the ways in which researchers can most effectively study the modern metropolis. With its twofold agenda, the volume emerges as a multi-layered dialogue between researcher and researched, participant and observer, educator and educated.

These essays, produced in a refreshing collaborative effort by a senior scholar and ten graduate students, examine many facets of American urban life, among them new social movements that...