Invisible in Austin: Life and Labor in an American City - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1477303650 ISBN 13: 9781477303658

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2015

Synopsis

Austin, Texas, is renowned as a high-tech, fast-growing city for the young and creative, a cool place to live, and the scene of internationally famous events such as SXSW and Formula 1. But as in many American cities, poverty and penury are booming along with wealth and material abundance in contemporary Austin. Rich and poor residents lead increasingly separate lives as growing socioeconomic inequality underscores residential, class, racial, and ethnic segregation.In "Invisible in Austin," the award-winning sociologist Javier Auyero and a team of graduate students explore the lives of those working at the bottom of the social order: house cleaners, office-machine repairers, cab drivers, restaurant cooks and dishwashers, exotic dancers, musicians, and roofers, among others. Recounting their subjects life stories with empathy and sociological insight, the authors show us how these lives are driven by a complex mix of individual and social forces. These poignant stories compel us to see how poor people who provide indispensable services for all city residents struggle daily with substandard housing, inadequate public services and schools, and environmental risks. Timely and essential reading, "Invisible in Austin" makes visible the growing gap between rich and poor that is reconfiguring the cityscape of one of America s most dynamic places, as low-wage workers are forced to the social and symbolic margins."

About this title

Review:

"Who does the hard work that keeps groovy Austin going, and what does it feel like? These multidimensional life stories show us that it’s a diverse group, but almost everyone has come from elsewhere to chase the Austin Dream, with its glimmers of postindustrial pleasure and promise. From the chicken-processing plant to the strip club, from the delight of intoxication and the simulation of aspirational class ascendency in the glamour zone of glitzy hotels, to the mundane daily routines and bodily brutality of addiction, accidents and injuries, it’s a hard fall and a revolving door of disappointments. Kudos to Javier Auyero and the talented group at the UT Austin sociology ethnography lab for bringing back from margin to center the life story method and workers’ everyday struggles and for keeping alive the promise of the sociological imagination." Author:

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, author of Paradise Transplanted: Migration and the Making of California Gardens

About the Author:

Javier Auyero is the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Professor in Latin American Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he directs the Urban Ethnography Lab. He is the author of five previous books, including the award-winning Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown (with Débora Swistun).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1477303650
• ISBN 13: 9781477303658
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280
• Editor: Auyero Javier