Waverly Duck, No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing

Authors

Jascha Wagner, University of Delaware

Abstract

"No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing examines how the residents of “Lyford Street,” an impoverished Black neighborhood, organize for survival against the backdrop of “increasingly desperate circumstances.” Decades of deindustrialization and misguided social policies have left the neighborhood economically and socially isolated. Unemployment and poverty are rampant for young men of Lyford Street. Stripped of educational or economic opportunities, the drug trade has become their “principal employment.” However, against the “stereotypical image of the drug infested ghetto,” Waverly Duck compels us to see Lyford Street as a place with a unique social order that offers opportunities and even safety to its residents."

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Wagner, Jascha (2017) "Waverly Duck, No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing," Qualitative Criminology (QC): Vol. 5: No. 1, Article 8.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/qc/vol5/iss1/8