Description
Book SynopsisAn illuminating and personal journey through Jeff Ferrell''s eight month odyssey of living off the streets
Patrolling the neighborhoods of central Fort Worth, sorting through trash piles, exploring dumpsters, scanning the streets and the gutters for items lost or discarded, I gathered the city''s degraded bounty, then returned home to sort and catalogue the take.from the Introduction
In December of 2001 Jeff Ferrell quit his job as tenured professor, moved back to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, and, with a place to live but no real income, began an eight-month odyssey of essentially living off of the street. Empire of Scrounge tells the story of this unusual journey into the often illicit worlds of scrounging, recycling, and second-hand living. Existing as a dumpster diver and trash picker, Ferrell adopted a way of life that was both field research and free-form survival. Riding around on his scrounged BMX bicycle, Ferrell investigated the million-dollar
Trade Review
A firecracker of a book. Prepare yourself for total immersion. It reads like Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell with a sense of fun; it has all the detail and magic of James Agee. A pleasure to read: anarchic, irreverent and totally relevant. -- Jock Young,co-editor of The New Politics of Crime and Punishment
By turns moving, funny, and shocking. Particularly sobering are the books implications for modern consumer life, and the incomprehensible amounts of junk, waste and surplus generated by a modern city. -- Philip Jenkins,author of Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America
I love this book! It's engaging, witty, and jarringevery page is filled with new treasures and powerful analyses of our throwaway culture. Ferrell opens a rare and vivid window on the raw aftermath of our society's conspicuous consumption and wasteful behavior, and he offers real possibilities for reflection, meditation, and redemption. -- David Naguib, author of Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago
In Empire of Scrounge, Jeff Ferrell serves as an unassuming guide into the netherworld of our own garbage. Ferrell suggests that such urban prospecting is possibly far more than simple recyclingit is a form of politics that consciously opts out of a vapid consumer culture. It's a must read! -- Meda Chesney-Lind, co-editor of Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment
Outstandingly well written, gripping, and hugely entertaining. Destined to become a classic, this anarchy of consumerism turns one man's 'trash' into a treasure: an insightful, colorful, imaginative and playful window on the underground economy of scavenging for a living among other people's cast offs. -- Stuart Henry, co-author of Essential Criminology
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments 1 Sordid Signs 2 Street Life3 Street Knowledge 4 Salvage Operations 5 Scrapped Together 6 Scrunge City 7 Scrounging Zen Coda: Improvisations on the Everyday Notes Index About the Author
