Volume 10 – Issue 4 – 2006
Gerard Huiskamp and Lori Hartmann-Mahmud
“As Development Seeks to Empower: Women from Mexico and Niger Challenge Theoretical Categories”
Gerard Huiskamp
Wheaton College
and
Lori Hartmann-Mahmud
Centre College
Abstract: Through analysis of original fieldwork conducted in Mexico and Niger, this article examines women’s participation in local development initiatives. It is argued that poor women are motivated to collective action by both materialist and post-materialist aspirations. Political participation and self-actualization are an integral part of strategizing to address poverty and material deprivation (or the satisfaction of basic needs). The realization that practical gender interests (PGI) and strategic gender interests (SGI) are mutually constitutive leads to more meaningful and effective development interventions. The conclusion draws out some of the practical implications of our findings for the empowerment of women in the low-income countries.
“‘Go It Alone’ Poverty in a Small City: Pockets of Poor Housing, the Scrutiny of ‘Busy Bodies,’ and Difficulty Accessing Support”
Brenda Solomon
University of Vermont
Abstract: From narratives of five women (who were leaving welfare for work and part of a larger ethnographic study), the author revisits interactions between welfare ideology, place and space, and women’s choices regarding social isolation and help. Findings suggest that for these women pockets of poor housing across the small city aid in producing real and potential scrutiny by neighbors and difficulties accessing help from family and friends across town. Physical distance from family and friends create conditions for the women’s belief in self-reliance. Close proximity to those who may be watching them creates conditions for the women to protect themselves from trouble and mediates how they look for and accept help.
“Of Witches, Welfare Queens, and the Disaster Named Poverty: The Search for a Counter-Narrative”
Shawn A. Cassiman
University of Wisconsin
Abstract: The goals of this paper are to explore the utility of a narrative policy analysis, to locate the origins of the dependency narrative in poverty policy, examine social work’s contribution to the narrative, and to discuss the potential for advancing a strong counter-narrative, organized within a trauma paradigm. This paper incorporates a historical review of the development of the dependency narrative and the construction of the deviant “welfare queen.” The conclusion offers an example of a compelling counter-narrative integrating economic/structural violence (poverty) and the trauma paradigm and offers a framework for reconceptualizing social welfare policy.
State Minimum Wage Laws: Examining the Case of Illinois”
H. Luke Shaefer
University of Chicago
Abstract: As of August 2005, seventeen states have raised their minimum wages above the federal level of $5.15. Using Kingdon’s agenda setting model, this paper analyzes lessons from a case study of Illinois, the first Midwestern state to raise its minimum, up to $6.50 in January 2005. This legislative success was a result of a mix of factors including a change in the State’s political environment with the election of a new governor, and collaboration between advocates and researchers who provided a rigorous analysis of the potential effects of raising the minimum wage. The paper makes recommendations for future research, as efforts are underway in multiple states to consider wage raises through open referendums and traditional legislative channels in 2006.
“Ongoing Challenges in the Understanding of Rural Poverty”
Margaret K. Nelson
Middlebury College
Abstract: This paper draws on two projects by the author to draw some general conclusions about ongoing challenges in the understanding of poverty. In the first project, the author examined the survival strategies of married couple families in a rural county and concluded that access to good work enabled enrichment of those strategies. In the second project, located in the same rural county, the author concluded that single mothers were less able than the members of married couples to engage in enrichment activities and drew more heavily on others for survival. Drawing on these comparative data, the author then argues first, that research should focus more fully on the broad variety of ways in which the members of communities make ends meet in order to understand the relative poverty of those unable to engage in a varied survival strategy, and second, that research must also examine the consequences of social support for those who give as well as for those who receive it.
Thoughts on Poverty and Inequality
“The Culture of Collateral Damage: A Genealogy”
Glen A. Perice (Portland State University)
Abstract: American culture makes divisions between worthy and worthless lives. This distinction is justified by a cultural logic that deflects the murder of people as the unintended consequences of social and foreign policy. The phrase “collateral damage,” first developed by the United States military to deflect civilian deaths caused by aerial bombing, is now seen as metaphor for the larger social policy of the American government both at home and abroad.