ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at violence, prison/reentry, education, and the nonprofit complex as points of engagement to explore the complex barriers and challenges in their lives. It explores the value of a place-based, holistic, engaged ethnographic approach to exploring the lives of these men, where one issue bleeds into another and they all impact their lives. The chapter also explores intersection for intervention as an engaged anthropologist whose purpose is not only to document but also to be an active participant in creating change in these situations. It shows that minority males in disadvantaged communities disproportionately face challenges in multiple areas of their lives. Philadelphia is a complicated city, and its current condition is unquestionably the product of its history; in turn its current residents live lives that are constantly responding to the neighborhoods that have been shaped by these complicated histories.
