ABSTRACT
Ethnography is likely to require that the fieldworker enter unfamiliar and anxiety-generating situations. Ethnography requires that observers establish social roles acceptable to informants. In many urban areas there are also radio stations specializing in the rather distinctive musical styles followed by the blue-collar Negro and white. The Negro community we nevertheless ventured to study is located in two adjacent public housing projects near the St. Louis downtown area known as Pruitt-Igoe. Community service agencies or caretakers may be used to obtain access to lower-class communities. Living in the community provides a rather clear means of integrating one's role as observer and participant in the community. One of the principal sources of information on a slum community, particularly the Negro community, is found in special argot or slang, music, folklore, newpapers, and occasional self-studies. Involvement of researchers in the ghetto community has a staggering effect on their ability to think in an objective manner about sociological aspects of the data.
