The tattered social safety net in the United States allows many people with needs to slip through its holes. In this paper, I give case examples from my own life and my social work practice, which led me to question how social work practice and research is conducted. As a social worker, I wondered how other practitioners knew about poor people and now as a doctoral student, I question the assumptions we as researchers make about poverty and the poor. This discussion also sheds light on my nascent journey toward uncovering my ontology and epistemology of social work knowledge.
AddamsJ (1899) The subtle problems of charity. Atlantic Monthly83(496): 163–178.
2.
BakshB (2016) Clarity and confusion: A Muslim student’s struggle with identity and epistemology in academia. Qualitative Social Work.
3.
CollinsPH (1986) Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of black feminist thought. Social Problems33(6): s14–s32.
4.
FergusonH (2010) Walks, home visits and atmospheres: Risk and the everyday practices and mobilities of social work and child protection. British Journal of Social Work40(4): 1100–1117.
5.
FergusonH (2014) Researching social work practice close up: Using ethnographic and mobile methods to understand encounters between social workers, children and families. British Journal of Social Work46(1): 153–168.
6.
FisherGM (2007) An overview of recent work on standard budgets in the United States and other Anglophone countries, US Department of Health and Human ServicesAvailable at: http://aspe.dhhs.gov/poverty/papers/std-budgets/report.pdf (accessed 2 February 2016).
7.
FreireP (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum.
8.
HuttoNWaldfogelJKaushalN (2011) Improving the measurement of poverty. Social Service Review85(1): 39–74.
9.
KissaneRJ (2010a) Administrative challenges facing nonprofit worksites providing work or work-like experiences for welfare recipients. Sociological Perspectives53(3): 373–396.
10.
KissaneRJ (2010b) “We call it the badlands”: How social-spatial geographies influence social service use. Social Service Review84: 3–28.
11.
LaderchiCRSaithRStewartF (2003) Does it matter that we do not agree on the definition of poverty? A comparison of four approaches. Oxford Development Studies31(3): 243–274.
12.
LipskyM (1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service, 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition (30 Anv Exp), New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
13.
LythIM (1988) Containing Anxiety in Institutions: Selected Essays, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia: Free Association Books.
PearceDM (2001) The self-sufficiency standard: A new tool for evaluating anti-poverty policy. Poverty and Race10(2): 3–7.
16.
SenA (1999) Development as Freedom, New York: Knopf.
17.
SongW (2016) A new face of homelessness? Researching the experience of “home” with Chinese high school students in Canadian homes. Qualitative Social Work.
18.
Spicker P (2007) Definitions of poverty: Twelve clusters of meaning. In: Paul spicker S, Alvarez L and David G (eds) Poverty: An International Glossary. London: Zed Books, pp.229–243.
19.
Watkins-HayesC (2009a) Race-Ing the bootstrap climb: Black and Latino bureaucrats in post-reform welfare offices. Social Problems56(2): 285–310.
20.
Watkins-HayesC (2009b) The New Welfare Bureaucrats: Entanglements of Race, Class, and Policy Reform, 1st ed. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
