Poverty knowledge has made a long-term contribution to the images and representations of people in poverty. Yet one can find only limited analysis of poverty knowledge and the politics of representation. This article describes current directions in poverty knowledge and analyses the degree of their enhancement or their challenging of Othering towards people who live in poverty. Specifically, the article refers to the hegemonic narrative, which reflects and creates stigmatized and punitive representations of people in poverty, and to three counter-narratives that try to challenge these reductionist images: the structural/contextual counter-narrative, the agency/resistance counter-narrative and the counter-narrative of voice and action. The analysis highlights the critical value of each of the counter-narratives, while pointing to the possibility that specific usages of these stances of investigation carry the risk of themselves producing Othering and social distancing. The article concludes by referring to several approaches to poverty research which encourage a resistance to Othering through combining components of the three counter-narratives.
Abramovitz, M. ( 1996) Under Attack, Fighting Back: Women and Welfare in the United States. New York: Monthly Review Press.
2.
Anderson, E. ( 1999) Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York: W. W. Norton.
3.
Aptheker, B. ( 1989) Tapestries of Life: Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness, and the Meaning of Daily Experience. Cambridge, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press.
4.
ATD Fourth World (1991) The Wresinski Approach: The Poorest Partners in Democracy. London: Fourth World Publications.
Bales, K. ( 2003) ‘Because She Looks Like a Child’, in B. Ehrenreich and A. R. Hochschild (eds) Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, pp. 207-30. New York: Metropolitan/Owl Books.
7.
Beresford, P. ( 1997) It’s Our Welfare: Report of the Citizens’ Commission on the Future of the Welfare State. London: National Institute for Social Work.
8.
Beresford, P. ( 2000) ‘Service Users’ Knowledges and Social Work Theory: Conflict or Collaboration?’, British Journal of Social Work30(4): 489-503.
9.
Beresford, P., Green, D., Lister, R. and Woodward, K. ( 1999) Poverty First Hand: Poor People Speak for Themselves. London: Child Poverty Action Group.
10.
Blank, M.R. ( 1997) It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
11.
Bradshaw, J. and Holmes, H. ( 1989) Living on the Edge: A Study of Living Standards of Families on Benefit in Tyne and Wear. Tyneside: Child Poverty Action Group.
12.
Brooks-Gunn, J., Duncan, G.J. and Maritato, N. ( 1997) ‘Poor Families, Poor Outcomes: The Well-Being of Children and Youth’, in J. G. Duncan and J. Brooks-Gunn (eds) Consequences of Growing up Poor, pp. 1-17. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
13.
Buchanan, J. and Young, L. ( 2000) ‘Examining the Relationship between Material Conditions, Long Term Problematic Drug Misuse and Social Exclusion: A New Strategy for Social Inclusion’, in J. Bradshaw and R. Sainsbury (eds) Experiencing Poverty: Studies in Cash and Care, pp. 120-43. Aldershot: Ashgate.
14.
Bullock, H.E. ( 1995) ‘Class Acts: Middle-Class Responses to the Poor’ , in B. Lott and D. Maluso (eds) The Social Psychology of Interpersonal Discrimination, pp. 118-59. New York: Guilford Press.
15.
Caragata, L. ( 2003) ‘Neoconservative Realities: The Social and Economic Marginalization ofCanadian Women’, International Sociology18(3): 559-80.
16.
Catanzarite, L. and Ortiz, V. ( 1996) ‘Family Matters. Work Matters? Poverty among Women of Color and White Women’, in D. Dujon and A. Withorn (eds) For Crying Out Loud: Women’s Poverty in the United States, pp. 122-39. Boston, MA: South End Press.
17.
Chataway, J.C. ( 2001) ‘Negotiating the Observer-Observed Relationship: Participatory Action Research’, in L. D. Tolman and M. Brydon-Miller (eds) From Subjects to Subjectivities: A Handbook of Interpretative and Participatory Methods, pp. 239-55. New York: New York University Press.
18.
Chubb, E.J. and Moe, M.T. ( 1996) ‘Politics, Markets, and Equality in Schools’ , in R. Michael (ed.) Reducing Poverty in America: Views and Approaches, pp. 121-53. Thousand Oaks, CA and London: Sage.
19.
Daly, M. and Leonard, M. ( 2002) Against all Odds: Family Life on a Low Income in Ireland . Dublin: Institute of Public Administration .
20.
Darling, N. and Steinberg, L. ( 1997) ‘Community Influences on Adolescent Achievement and Deviance’, in J. G. Duncan, J. L. Aber and J. Brooks-Gunn (eds) Neighborhood Poverty: Policy Implication in Studying Neighborhoods, pp. 120-31. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
21.
De Beauvoir, S. ( 1949) The Second Sex. Harmondworth: Penguin.
22.
De Botton, L., Puigvert, L. and Sanchez-Aroca, M. ( 2005) The Inclusion of Other Women: Breaking the Silence through Dialogic Learning. New York: Springer .
23.
Duneier, M., Hasan, H. and Carter, O. ( 1999) Sidewalk. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
24.
Edin, K. and Lein, L. ( 1997) Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
25.
Fine, M. ( 1994) ‘Working the Hyphens: Reinventing Self and Other in Qualitative Research’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 70-82. London: Sage.
26.
Fine, M. ( 2007) ‘Feminist Designs for Difference’, in S. Hesse-Biber (ed.) Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis, pp. 613-20. London: Sage.
27.
Fine, M., Torre, M.E., Boudin, K., Bowen, I., Clark, J., Hylton, D., Martinez, M. ‘Missy’, Roberts, R.A., Smart, P. and Upegui, D. ( 2001) Changing Minds: The Impact of College in a Maximum Security Prison. Montclair, NJRonald Ridgeway Inc.
28.
Fine, M., Roberts, R., Torre, M., Bloom, J., Chajet, L., Guishard, M. and Payne, Y. ( 2004) Echoes of Brown: Youth Documenting and Performing the Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: Teachers College Press.
29.
Flippen, C. and Tienda, M. ( 2000) ‘Pathways to Retirement: Patterns of Labor Force Participation and Labor Market Exist among the Pre-Retirement Populations by Race, Hispanic Origin, and Sex’, Journal of Gerontology: Psychology and Social Sciences55(1): 14-27.
30.
Fox Piven, F. and Cloward, A.R. ( 1977) Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Pantheon Books.
31.
Fraser-Wyche, K. ( 1998) ‘ "Let me Suffer so my Kids Won’t": African American Mothers Living with HIV/AIDS’, in C. Garcia-Coll, L. J. Surrey and K. Weingarten (eds) Mothering Against the Odds: Diverse Voices of Contemporary Mothers, pp. 173-89. New York: Guilford Press.
32.
Gans, J.H. ( 1995) The War against the Poor: The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy. New York: Basic Books.
33.
Gilens, M. ( 2004) ‘Poor People in the News: Images from the Journalistic Subconscious’, in D. Heider and D. B. Heider (eds) Class and News, pp. 44-61. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
34.
Gonyea, G.J. and Hooyman, R.N. ( 2005) ‘Reducing Poverty among Older Women: Social Security and Gender Equity’, Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services86(3): 338-47.
35.
Goodwin, L. ( 1972) Do the Poor Want to Work? A Social-Psychological Study of Work Orientations. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
36.
Groupe de Recherche Quart Monde (1999) Le Croisement des savoirs: Quand le quart monde et l’universite pensent ensemble [The Knowledge Crossroads: When the Quarter World and the University Think Together]. Paris: Editions de l’Ateliers Edition Quart Monde.
37.
Hancock, A.M. ( 2004). The Politics of Disgust: The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen. New York: New York University Press.
38.
Hill Collins, P. ( 1990) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.
39.
Hill Collins, P. ( 2005) Black Sexual Politics: African-Americans, Gender and the New Racism. New York: Routledge .
40.
Holden, D. ( 1997) ‘On Equal Ground: Sustaining Virtue among Volunteers in a Homeless Shelter’, Journals of Contemporary Ethnography26(2): 117-45.
41.
hooks, b. ( 1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom . New York: Routledge.
42.
Huff Stevenson, M. and Donovan, E. ( 1996) ‘How the US Economy Creates Poverty and Inequality’ , in D. Dujon and A. Withorn (eds) For Crying Out Loud: Women’s Poverty in the United States, pp. 67-77. Boston, MA: South End Press.
43.
Jarrett, L.R. ( 1994) ‘Living Poor: Family Life among Single Parent, African-American Women’, Social Problems41(1): 30-49.
44.
Johnson-Dias, J. and Maynard-Moody, S. ( 2007) ‘For-Profit Welfare: Contracts, Conflicts, and the Performance Paradox’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory17(2): 189-211.
45.
Kalleberg, A., Reskin, B. and Hudson, K. ( 2000) ‘Bad Jobs in America: Standard and Nonstandard Employment Relations and Job Quality in the United States’, American Sociological Review65(2): 256-78.
46.
Katz, B.M. ( 1989) The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare. New York: Pantheon Books .
47.
Katz, B.M. ( 1995) Improving Poor People: The Welfare State, the ‘Underclass’ and Urban Schools as History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
48.
Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. ( 2000) ‘Participatory Action Research’, in K. N. Denzin and S. Y. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd edn, pp. 567-605. Thousand Oaks, CA and London: Sage.
49.
Kempson, E. ( 1996) Life on a Low Income. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
50.
Kennedy, M. ( 1996) ‘A Hole in My Soul: Experiences of Homeless Women’ , in D. Dujon and A. Withorn (eds) For Crying Out Loud: Women’s Poverty in the United States, pp. 41-56. Boston, MA: South End Press.
51.
Kristeva, J. ( 1991) Strangers to Ourselves. New York: Columbia University Press.
52.
Krumer-Nevo, M. ( 2005) ‘Listening to "Life Knowledge": A New Research Direction in Poverty Studies’, International Journal of Social Welfare14(2): 99-106.
53.
Krumer-Nevo, M., Slonim-Nevo, V. and Hirshenzon-Segev, E. ( 2006) ‘Social Workers and their Long-Term Clients: The Never Ending Struggle’, Journal of Social Service Research33(1): 27-38.
54.
Lewis, O. ( 1968) La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty . New York: Random House.
55.
Lister, R. ( 2004) Poverty. Cambridge: Polity.
56.
Lykes, M.B. and Coquillon, E. ( 2007) ‘Participatory and Action Research and Feminisms: Toward Transformative Praxis’, in N. S. Hesse-Biber (ed.) Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis, pp. 297-326. Thousand Oaks, CA and London: Sage.
57.
MacDonald, R. and Marsh, J. ( 2002) ‘Crossing the Rubicon: Youth Transitions, Poverty, Drugs and Social Exclusion’, International Journal of Drug Policy13(1): 27-38.
58.
McFarland, A.D. ( 2004) ‘Resistance as a Social Drama: A Study of Change-Oriented Encounters’, The American Journal of Sociology109(6): 1249-318.
59.
McIntyre, L., Officer, S. and Robinson, L. M. ( 2003) ‘Feeling Poor: The Felt Experience of Low-Income Lone Mothers’, Affilia18(3): 316-31.
60.
Marecek, J., Fine, M. and Kidder, L. ( 1997) ‘Working between Worlds: Qualitative Methods and Social Psychology (Transforming Psychology: Interpretive and Participatory Research)’, Journal of Social Issues53(4): 631-45.
61.
Matsinhe, D.M. ( 2007) ‘Quest for Methodological Alternatives’, Current Sociology55(6): 836-56.
62.
Miller, S.M. ( 1996) ‘The Great Chain of Poverty Explanations’ , in E. Oyen, S. M. Miller and S. A. Samad (eds) Poverty: A Global Review: Handbook on International Poverty Research, pp. 569-86. Stockholm: Scandinavian University Press.
63.
Moynihan, P.D. ( 1965) The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Washington, DC: Office of Policy Planning and Research, US Department of Labor.
64.
Munger, F. ( 2002) Laboring below the Line: The New Ethnography of Poverty, Low-Wage Work and Survival in the Global Economy. New York : Russell Sage Foundation.
65.
Murray, C. ( 1984) Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980. New York: Basic Books.
66.
Naples, N. ( 1989) Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community Work, and the War on Poverty. New York and London: Routledge.
67.
Naples, N. ( 2003) Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research. NewYork and Abingdon: Routledge.
68.
Narayan, D., Patel, R., Schafft, K., Rademacher, A. and Koch-Schulte, S. ( 2000) Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us?Oxford: Oxford University Press and World Bank.
69.
Newman, K.S. ( 1999) No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City . New York: Russell Sage Foundation and Knopf.
70.
O’Connor, A. ( 2001) Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy and the Poor in Twentieth Century US History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
71.
Peters, H.E. and Mullis, C.N. ( 1997) ‘The Role of Family Income and Sources of Income in Adolescent Achievement’, in J. G. Duncan and J. Brooks-Gunn (eds) Consequences of Growing up Poor, pp. 340-81. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
72.
Pickering, M. ( 2001) Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation. New York: Palgrave.
73.
Pleace, N. ( 1998) ‘Single Homelessness as Social Exclusion: The Unique and the Extreme’, Social Policy and Administration32(1): 46-59.
74.
Quigley, P.W. ( 2003) Ending Poverty as We Know it. Philadelphia , PA: Temple University Press.
75.
Rainwater, L. ( 1970) ‘Neutralizing the Disinherited: Some Psychological Aspects of Understanding the Poor’, in L. V. Allen (ed.) Psychological Factors in Poverty, pp. 9-28. London: Academic Press.
76.
Randall, J. and Cunningham, P.B. ( 2003) ‘Multi-Systemic Therapy: A Treatment for Violent Substance-Abusing and Substance-Dependent Juvenile Offenders’, Addictive Behaviors28(9): 1731-9.
77.
Rank, R.M. ( 2005) One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
78.
Reid, L.L. ( 2002) ‘Occupational Segregation, Human Capital, and Motherhood’ , Gender and Society16(5): 728-47.
79.
Rodman, H. ( 1971) Lower-Class Families: The Culture of Poverty in Negro Trinidad. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
80.
Rosenfeld, M.J. and Tardieu, B. ( 2000) Artisans of Democracy: How Ordinary People, Families in Extreme Poverty, and Social Institutions Become Allies to Overcome Social Exclusion. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
81.
Rubin, B.L. ( 1992) Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working-Class Family. New York: Basic Books.
82.
Scheper-Hughes, N. ( 1993) Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
83.
Schwalbe, M., Godwin, S., Holden, D., Schrock, D., Thompson, S. and Wolkomir, M. ( 2000) ‘Generic Processes in the Reproduction of Inequality: An Interactionist Analysis’, Social Forces79(2): 419-53.
84.
Scott, C.J. ( 1985) Weapons of the Weak. New Haven, CT : Yale University Press.
85.
Sen, A. ( 1999) Commodities and Capabilities. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
86.
Smith, D.E. ( 1987) The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology . Toronto: University of Toronto .
87.
Smith, D.E. ( 2005) Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
88.
Smith, L.T. ( 1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous People . London: Zed Books.
89.
Stack, C. ( 1975) All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community . London: Harper Colophon Books .
90.
Stoecker, R. ( 1999) ‘Are Academics Irrelevant? Roles for Scholars in Participatory Research’, American Behavioral Scientist42(5): 840-54.
91.
Strier, R. ( 2005) ‘Gendered Realities of Poverty: Men and Women’s Views of Poverty in Jerusalem’, Social Service Review79(2): 344-67.
92.
Thomas, L.S. ( 1994) Gender and Poverty. New York: Garland Publishing.
93.
Tobin, J. ( 1994) ‘Poverty in Relation to Macroeconomic Trends, Cycles, Policies’, in H. S. Danzinger, D. G. Sandefur and H. D. Weinberg (eds) Confronting Poverty: Prescriptions for Change . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
94.
Valentine, A.C. ( 1971) ‘Deficit, Difference, and Bicultural Models of Afro-American Behavior’, Harvard Educational Review41(2): 137-57.
95.
Wacquant, L. ( 2002) ‘Scrutinizing the Street: Poverty, Morality, and the Pitfalls of Urban Ethnography’, American Journal of Sociology106(7): 1468-532.
96.
Whyte, F.W., Greenwood, J.D. and Lazes, P. ( 1991) ‘Participatory Action Research: Through Practice to Science in Social Research’, in F. W. Whyte (ed.) Participatory Action Research, pp. 19-55. London : Sage.
97.
Wilson, J.W. ( 1987) The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
98.
Wilson, J.W. ( 1996) When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor . New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
99.
Wresinski, J. ( 1994) Chronic Poverty and Lack of Basic Security: A Report of the Economic and Social Council of France. London: Fourth World Publications.
100.
Wright, S.E. ( 1993) ‘Blaming the Victim, Blaming Society or Blaming the Discipline: Fixing Responsibility for Poverty and Homelessness’ , The Sociological Quarterly34(1): 1-16.
101.
Wu, K.B. ( 2003) Poverty Experience of Older Persons: A Poverty Study from a Long-Term Perspective. Washington, DC: AARP (American Association for Retired Persons).
102.
Zeytinoglu, I.U. and Muteshi, K.J. ( 2000) ‘Gender, Race and Class Dimensions of Nonstandard Work’, Relations Industrielles55(1): 133-67.
