FLOATING CITY
Sudhir Venkatesh
Allen Lane; 278 pages
Sudhir Venkatesh shot to fame with his book Gang Leader for a Day and with his contributions to the chapters in Freakonomics in which he analysed the behaviour of drug peddlers and sex workers. Gang Leader for a Day was a departure from the usual works of sociology - from known frameworks of social structures towards a participative, ethnographic work. It was groundbreaking in many ways: because of the methods; the ethical dilemma that these methods raised; and the subject, which looked deeply into Chicago's underground drug economy. This work was a result of a much younger Venkatesh, a relatively unknown student trying to get going on his doctoral thesis and not trapped by fame.
So, when Mr Venkatesh's next book came out, which looked at a different trade and a different city, he had already set the benchmark with Gang Leader for a Day and was expected to transcend that pinnacle. Floating City, however, disappoints. It is not rich in either content or insights, leaving us to wonder whether Mr Venkatesh is a one-project wonder.
To be sure, the book has its contributions. The most significant insight it provides is that the underground economy is not restricted to the poor but has a seamless connection with the wealthy and the sophisticated. In addition, we find strivers trying to move from a street-side segment of the underground economy to the more sophisticated sections.
The dissonance with Floating City arises on account of the unorganised nature of the trade that Mr Venkatesh studies. Unlike the drug peddlers of Chicago, who seem to be part of a well-knit hierarchy - they are almost like a corporate empire and live in close proximity - the author's subjects in New York come from smaller networks and diverse residential settlements. In Gang Leader for a Day, Mr Venkatesh discovered the relations between different players after understanding the network. In New York, unfortunately, he is lost, because he is using inter-relations between the different sets of people with whom he speaks to map the network. That is always much tougher.
Also, unlike the carefree author of Gang Leader for a Day, here is a tenured Columbia University professor who needs to worry about his reputation. In the earlier book, he showed the pressure to wind up his study only towards the end of the book. Now he is no longer the rogue sociologist and is very much part of the establishment. He has requirements to teach and publish, irrespective of whether he agrees with the type and nature of publications that are academically recognised and rewarded. It is evident through the book that his personal problems - of tenure, his divorce and the professional insecurities - come in the way of the narration to a considerable degree. He is no longer an outside analyst - or a fly on the wall - who is watching the situation unfold. Instead, he is, by choice, an active participant in the deliberations.
The problem with the book lies in Mr Venkatesh's inability to draw the line between the sociological elements that he needs to study as an outsider and the autobiographical elements that come in as a counterpoint. He could have chosen to write the book using greater autobiographical elements. But then the book would have taken a different shape. A good example is Aman Sethi's A Free Man. Mr Sethi approaches, as a journalist, the lives of Delhi's poor pavement dwellers and, in the process, narrates what it means to him. Mr Venkatesh, unfortunately, constantly inserts his scholarly dilemmas into the narrative, thereby never allowing the reader to forget for a moment that the author is ultimately a sociologist and that this project is an academic work.
Studies such as this one are complex and cannot have a framework or a premeditated script. It is almost like writing a script for a documentary - you can only plan the subject, how you would conduct interviews and whom you would meet; nobody can write the dialogue in advance or have a clear expectation of what would emerge from the filming. When one does not have a clear frame, the danger lies in child-in-a-toy shop-like wonderment. If every person Mr Venkatesh meets is adding to the n (that is, the sample size), then there is a problem.
Mr Venkatesh, unfortunately, is a victim of his image - his own and the one constructed in our minds. This could have been a fascinating book if only he had shed his past. It could have been as fascinating if he had teamed up with someone younger and unknown who could penetrate deeper into the underground economy.
The reviewer is with the Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
mssriram@gmail.com
mssriram@gmail.com
