Buskers of New Orleans: Transgressive Sociology in the Urban Underbelly

What is it about?

This article is based on extensive ethnographic research involving living and working on the urban fringes of the postindustrial, tourist-intensive economy of New Orleans. As this late modern metropolis has experienced great structural transformations, and as new urban dwellers have emerged with their own unique cultural solutions to the structural problems posed in late modernity, this work captures the culture of urban dwellers living on the social periphery of New Orleans. The analysis reveals the less-seen spaces of New Orleans, intimately depicting the social life of the new creative urban dwellers.

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Why is it important?

This article reveals how both willfully and socially excluded members of the under-and near-underclasses find creative cultural solutions to make money and find work that grants social status in a postindustrial economy that denies such prosperity and dignity. This article reveals one type of creative response people have to the conditions of widespread economic restructuring that has exacerbated the inequalities between the wealthier and poorer classes. The buskers discussed in this research showcase the refusal of people to simply accept the structural conditions imposed upon them, rather, they find unique solutions to their collectively experienced problems. The question remains if this showcases human agency or the undying nature of the human spirit to refuse subordination and succumbing to power and domi- nation.

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