Last Thursday, Rowan and I rose before the crack of dawn to participate in the Redlands point-in time homeless count. We drove to a LDS church on Wabash Ave and were both assigned to a team of four comprised of ourselves and two Mormon men working to complete their missions. The organizers at the church designated us to a particular spot (a rectangle bounded by Lugonia Ave, Redlands Blvd, Nevada St, and Alabama St) in which we were supposed to drive around and scour the landscape for unhoused individuals. Once we were given a clipboard with a bunch of surveys, bright orange safety vests, and supply bags intended to be given to unhoused people after answering our survey questions, we were on our way, ready to locate unhoused people.

Our group ended up finding/encountering about 7 or 8 unhoused people inside the bounds of our assigned area. We located some unhoused people living beside the abandoned railroad track, and others either panhandling or walking around. Most were willing to answer the questions listed in the surveys we as volunteers asked to them, though some chose not to do so. The ones who did choose to engage with us seemed to believe that providing their information and contributing to research on unhoused people was an effort that would ultimately benefit themselves and others who were going through experiences similar to their own.

I imagine that those who chose not to engage with us did so because, in their cases, divulging information such as one’s gender, race, age, and medical history to volunteers explicitly saying that they’re interested in collected data about homeless people would feel like a blatant reminder of how their existence is unfortunate. Generally, I found the the way in which the survey stood as a reminder of people’s plight interesting, but I still enjoyed participating in the count nonetheless. I was able to engage in conversations with almost every individual we met who was living on the streets, which was really quite rewarding.

In our discussion last Wednesday, I remember that we made distinction between Ehrenreich’s approach to investigating the predicaments of poverty and those utilized by ethnographers. In contrast to the way in which Ehrenreich wrote mostly about her own experiences in Nickel and Dimed, some of us argued that ethnographers seem to focus more on describing the experiences of their “subjects” than their own stories. We ultimately seemed to conclude that ethnographers’ investigative methods are superior to the “let me try that” style of investigative journalism employed by Ehrenreich because it is probably more conducive to capturing the “truth” of realities such as poverty and homelessness.
Yet, according to Gans in “Positive Functions of Poverty,” we could also argue that the two seemingly contrasted approaches share an important similarity in that they are both modes through which middle or upper class professionals benefit from the predicaments of poverty. This argument might then lead us to question the morality of anthropology—how can those in more privileged circumstances approach anthropology or investigative journalism tactfully and justly? I think that we alluded to similar inquiries in our discussion on Wednesday too, and from what I remember, Professor Spickard brought up the utilitarian perspective as a means of determining morality in anthropology or investigative journalism, meaning that a work of anthropology can be justified if it ultimately benefits more people than it harms (like an ends justify means sort of reasoning).
I like the utilitarian perspective because it evaluates overall social benefit, but I also find the way it which it might encourage people to live over-examined lives problematic. For example, should a musical artist who creates disturbing music videos steer away from doing so because he might be initiating more societal harm than good; should a tattoo artist decide to pursue another profession on the grounds that they ultimately capitalize on other peoples’ hapless searches for meaning in their lives? To bring this back to our discussion, isn’t an anthropologist’s obvious motivation to pursue their craft enough of a justification?