The forgotten people of the American dream
While the “American dream” keeps its power of attraction, Nicolas Duvoux has undertaken an ethnographic survey of philanthropic foundations and associations that try to overcome the decay of poor and minority neighborhoods of a major metropolis in the north of the United States: Boston. A true social science laboratory of the 21st century, Boston, better than any other, shows the coexistence of wealth and openness with poverty and racial segregation. The survey was conducted among those who live on the wrong side of the American myth, made of poverty, socio-political marginality and violence, as well as among those who help them. It contributes to identifying the form and limits of the community organization that seeks to recreate itself around philanthropic giving. It shows how, on the remnants of the ghetto, philanthropists seek to regenerate the community essential to make the American dream live and justify their own success.