Alice Goffman’s star fell almost as fast as it rose a few years back, as sociologists divided over her controversial book, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, and allegations that it eschewed crucial disciplinary norms. Some of Goffman’s supporters maintained that her six-year embed with inner-city Philadelphia youths pushed ethnography forward in important ways. But others questioned her unusual methods — including the destruction of records she said could one day compromise her subjects, to whom she was unusually close.
Office of Strategic Communication