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| vii Acknowledgments While whatever fault lies in this manuscript is my own, the possibility to write it, in all its stages, occurred only out of a confluence of others’ goodwill. First and foremost, I thank the young people at Choices Alternative Academy (CAA [pseudonym]), who shared with me both their lives at the school and their life histories, teaching me more about my society and myself than I could put into words. Second, I thank the administrators, teachers, and staff at CAA and the attached nonprofit for graciously providing me access and responding to my naive questions. For guiding my development as an ethnographer, I am grateful to Bob Emerson, Linda Shaw, Rachel Fretz, Jack Katz, Mel Pollner, and Harold Garfinkel , and I benefited from contact with others such as Jeffrey Alexander, Rogers Brubaker, Saul Friedlander, David Halle, John Heritage, Bill Roy, Emanuel Schegloff, Ivan Szelenyi, Diego Vigil, and Roger Waldinger. Many fellow students shared the journey, such as Terri Anderson, Rosie Ashamalla, Byron Burkholt, the late Evan Childs, Lori Cronyn, Cynthia Cruz, Derrick Gilbert, Pepper Glass, Yvette Guerra, Alexes Harris, Curtis Jackson-Jacobs, Maggi Kusenbach, Eric Magnusen, Saa Meroe, Fred Pritchard, Jennifer Reynolds , Erik Rivera, Dana Rosenfeld, Lakshmi Shrivnas, Tamara Sniezek, Cynthia Strathman, Linda Van Leuven, Darin Weinberg, and Sal Zerilli. I have been fortunate to find a supportive and nurturing environment at John Jay College that includes Rosemary Barberet, Mucahit Bilici, David Brotherton, Ric Curtis, Gayle Garfield, David Green, Andrew Karmen, David Kennedy, Danny Kessler, Lou Kontos, Kyoo Lee, Anthony Lemelle, Ariel Lubin, Susan Opotow, Valli Raja, Teresa Rockett, Barry Spunt, Douglas Thompkins, Lucia Trimbur, Susan Will, and Jock Young. Also, thanks to supportive colleagues such as Leon Anderson, Peter Becker, Tim Berard, Stacy Burns, Rob Collins , Paul Colomy, Sarah Beth Estes, Brigittine French, Joby Gardner, Doug Harper, Tony Jefferson, Donna Kaufman, Stephen Lyng, Martha Mazzarella, Norma Mendoza-Denton, Valentina Pagliai, Luca Palmas, Rafael Reyes-Ruiz, Annegret Staiger, Deana Wilkinson, and Rhys Williams. At NYU Press, Ilene viii | Acknowledgments Kalish, her anonymous reviewers, and Elisabeth Magnus, my assiduous copy editor, have been most helpful. The UCLA Leroi Neimann Center and various funds at John Jay provided support for writing. My wife’s family has been wonderfully helpful, sustaining us during certain periods of writing, and my parents, Jim and Diana, have been there every step of the way. Thanks to Valentina, Elena, and Tristan for the insights and distractions. This project is dedicated to three remarkable people who passed away during the course of this project: my sister, Michelle; my advisor, Mel; and my good friend Mr. Mills. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publishers for permission to reprint sections of previously published materials: “Reconsidering Retaliation: Structural Inhibitions, Emotive Dissonance, and the Acceptance of Ambivalence among Inner-City Young Men,” Ethnography 10 (1): 63–90; “Non-violence in the Inner-City: ‘Decent’ and ‘Street’ as Strategic Resources,” Journal of African American Studies 10 (4): 94–111; “‘Where You From!’: Gang Identity as Performance,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 36 (1): 50–84; (with Jack Katz), “Provocative Looks: The Enforcement of Dress Codes and the Embodiment of Dress in an Inner-City Alternative School,” Ethnography 4 (3): 415–48; and “Inner-City Teens and Face-Work: Avoiding Violence and Maintaining Honor,” in A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication : Essential Readings, edited by Leila Monaghan and Jane Goodman, 294−317 (Cambridge: Blackwell, 2007). ...

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