So, I am also taking Criminal Investigations this semester, and Dr. McGuire had us read Donnie Brasco. The entire time reading it, I couldn't help but think about this class. Granted, Agent Pistone was not an anthropologist or sociologist, he was an FBI agent. In the beginning of the book, he discusses how he got "in" with the mob. Luckily, he knew somewhat how things worked in the mob, at least enough to know that he should not look too eager to hang around the wiseguys. He did what was acceptable, and that was to start showing his face around the places that the wiseguys hung out. He made sure that at some point someone knew he was a thief, so that word would get back to the mobsters. After a few months of a lot of patience, Donnie Brasco was hanging out with "connected guys," and even further down the line, he got in with some "made guys."
Even after he has made it in, he has to continue to adapt. He has to talk like the mob guys, walk like them, and even dress like them. Lefty, his good friend in the mob, tells him how to dress - he's no longer allowed to wear jeans. After Lefty goes on the record and claims Donnie, he has to shave his mustache because connected guys don't wear mustaches.
Although Agent Pistone (a.k.a. Donnie Brasco) was not an anthropologist, his undercover efforts in the mob were very similar to an ethnography.
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Right on! Undercover agents and detectives have a lot in common with anthropologists. The advantage they have (if you want to call it an advantage) is that they are SUPPOSED to be under cover -- covert.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a book by Norah Vincent called My Life as a Man (something like that) where she dressed in drag and lived as a man for a year or so to see what it was like. It was hard to keep it up, as you can imagine.
There was a documentary out similar to that novel. I can't remember what the program was called but it featured a male interested in levels of socially accepted drag. He first took the stance in "regular drag" a male dressing like a female. He kept a video diary of his interactions at bars and with people on the street. He then switched roles and tried pretending to be a female and dressing like a male. He documented this the same was as the previous, by going to the same bars and approaching the same type of people on the street. I found the findings opposite than I would have expected. Strangely enough he found that it was a lot harder for a female to act and dress masculine. People were less acceptable of this situation. He found that he was more accepted as a man dressed as a female that it was easier to pass as feminine. These are bases off of stereotypical ideas of gender keep in mind. I personally found this very interesting. And as i was looking at blogs Dr. Fathman's comment reminded me of this.
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