Righteous Dopefiend

Having explored the inner world of the Edgewater unhoused community and social network, Bourgois and Schonberg end on the question, “So what?” Their final thoughts tie together the theoretical lenses they’ve drawn on throughout the book—Foucault’s discourse on biopower, Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence, Marx’s philosophy around power and class, and their own theory of lumpen abuse. The harm of neoliberalism, the War on Drugs, and the criminalization of poverty contribute the most to the harm experienced by the Edgewater unhoused population by directing blame for their situation onto individuals rather than acknowledging the systematic discrimination they run into at every turn and the violence that besets them.