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Appendix Getting In and Out of Beltway It is something of a tradition in ethnographic studies to have a methods appendix in which the author expounds on his or her field experiences. While I am keeping up the tradition, perhaps we should take these stories a little more seriously and not practically hide them away in an appendix. That said, I am hardly blazing the trail for change, though I consider the recounting of the field experience to be of the utmost importance. In the following pages I elaborate on how Maria Kefalas and I began our research and how my fieldwork evolved over time. I do this in order to more fully explicate how I completed the research and to provide examples of field methods in action. Getting In I came to meet up with the Beltwayites with whom I spent five years studying informal social control as the result of a number of happy coincidences . After Beltway was chosen as one of the sites for the Comparative Neighborhood Study, it was up to Maria Kefalas and me to make our way in the neighborhood and to get to know some of the key individuals: a simple task, or so it seemed. We had spent a good deal of time roaming the neighborhood, getting a feel for the place, and we decided that perhaps the best way to make a first contact would be to identify a key resident and ask to speak with him or her. While browsing through the local weekly paper, I noticed that there was a column on Beltway, with a smiling picture and a contact number for the scribe, Mary Winchester. I called Mary and told her about the CNS and my interest in the neighborhood, and I asked if she wouldn’t mind meeting with Maria and me to talk generally about the area. To my dismay, Mary was very reluctant to talk to 161 me, and she told me that she didn’t feel qualified to talk knowledgeably about Beltway. This was not going very well for a first contact. I assured her that whatever she knew was a great deal more than my own knowledge , yet she insisted that she would not be the best person with whom to talk. I was feeling a little mystified that someone who looked out so benevolently from her column should know so little about the very place she writes about each week, but I put it down to a prudent caution about researchers who call up out of the blue asking to meet with people. I tried to reassure her that the project was only in its initial stages and that I just wanted to talk in vague generalities about Beltway. Finally, she said that she would call Ron Zalinsky, the president of the Beltway Civic League, and ask him to call me. She wanted us to meet Ron because, in Mary’s words, “he just knows so much more about Beltway than I do, and he’s better at talking about it.” I hung up the phone and waited for Ron to call, which he did after ten anxious minutes, and we set up a meeting for the next day at Mary’s house. I hung up, grateful that I had not botched my very first official contact. Maria and I set off for our first meeting, and we pulled up at the appointed time outside the Winchesters’ home, a beautifully maintained Chicago bungalow on Fifth Avenue, the main thoroughfare through the neighborhood. Mary’s house is bordered by a small lot that has lush green grass and an assortment of flowers blooming along its neatly trimmed edges. We rang the front door bell and were greeted by Mary, who had seen us arrive. Ron also arrived just as we had alighted from our car, and we went in together. The front door of the house led directly into a bright and beautifully appointed living room. Later we learned that people usually enter Beltway houses through the back door, and only formal guests are received through the front door. Mary ushered us in warmly, and she seemed to be relieved that we seemed normal. Her husband, Fred, joined us shortly after we sat down. Fred describes himself as a retired blue-collar worker who likes to stay active in the neighborhood. Ron is a thin, wiry man in his midsixties who is full of nervous energy. He has a booming...

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