Barrio Professors

Prize-winning sociologist Lloyd H. Rogler, a founder of cultural psychiatry, gives us an intimately revealing, brilliantly narrated account of fieldwork from San Juan, Puerto Rico to inner-city New Haven. Using his decades of field experience and creative fiction he explores the daily reality of his "informants"—the Barrio Professors—and uncovers the clash between scientific models and local experience over schizophrenia, the political workings of community, and the power of serendipity. Rogler''s multi-layered exploration of the relationship between researcher and community, as well as his candid assessment of field strategies, make the book useful also for methods courses. Barrio Professors is engrossing enough for the general public and an excellent text for courses in ethnic studies, sociology, qualitative methods, psychiatry, public health, anthropology, and social work.