Poverty and precarity Books
The University of Chicago Press Lives on the Edge Single Mothers and Their
Book SynopsisOne out of five children, and one out of two single mothers, lives in destitution in America today. The feminization and infantilization of poverty have made the United States one of the most dangerous democracies for poor mothers and their children to inhabit. Why then, Valerie Polakow asks, is poverty seen as a private issue, and how can public policy fail to take responsibility for the consequences of our politics of distribution? Written by a committed child advocate, Lives on the Edge draws on social, historical, feminist, and public policy perspectives to develop an informed, wide-ranging critique of American educational and social policy. Stark, penetrating, and unflinching in its first-hand portraits of single mothers in America today, this work challenges basic myths about justice and democracy.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Disciplining the Poor
Book SynopsisLays out the underlying logic of contemporary poverty governance in the United States. This book argues that poverty governance - how social welfare policy choices get made, how authority gets exercised, and how collective pursuits get organized - has been transformed in the United States by two significant developments.Trade Review"Disciplining the Poor is a landmark book on the governance of poverty in the United States, the most important such work since Piven and Cloward's Regulating the Poor, written a generation ago, and an exemplar of multi-method social science research." (Andrea Louise Campbell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)"
£76.95
The University of Chicago Press Living Faith Everyday Religion and Mothers in
Book SynopsisScholars have made urban mothers living in poverty a focus of their research for decades. Offering an analysis of how faith both motivates and at times constrains poor mothers' actions, this book reveals the ways it serves as a lens through which many view and interpret their worlds.Trade Review"Living Faith offers a thoughtful parsing of religious 'coping' as a multidimensional and multidirectional phenomenon. It usefully conceptualizes religious practices that are salient to the book's subjects as well as to broader religious publics. This highly original treatment of the role of religion in the lives of low-income women will be read widely, and for a very long time, by students of inequality, religion, gender, urban institutions, welfare policy, and more." (Omar McRoberts, University of Chicago)"
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press The Death Gap
Book Synopsis
£18.05
The University of Chicago Press Welfare for Markets
Book SynopsisA sweeping intellectual history of the welfare state's policy-in-waiting. The idea of a government paying its citizens to keep them out of povertynow known as basic incomeis hardly new. Often dated as far back as ancient Rome, basic income's modern conception truly emerged in the late nineteenth century. Yet as one of today's most controversial proposals, it draws supporters from across the political spectrum. In this eye-opening work, Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas trace basic income from its rise in American and British policy debates following periods of economic tumult to its modern relationship with technopopulist figures in Silicon Valley. They chronicle how the idea first arose in the United States and Europe as a market-friendly alternative to the postwar welfare state and how interest in the policy has grown in the wake of the 2008 credit crisis and COVID-19 crash. An incisive, comprehensive history, Welfare for Markets tells the story of how a fringe idea conceived in economics seminars went global, revealing the most significant shift in political culture since the end of the Cold War.Trade Review"The strengths of Jäger and Zamora’s historical approach are indisputable. They amply demonstrate what others have only hinted at—the depths of the political-economic and cultural shifts that led to the ascendence of market fundamentalism in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Their history is both broad and deep. Certainly it will become the authoritative account of the origins of UBI." * Jacobin *"Though meticulously researched, Welfare for Markets is a slim volume of succinct and lucid argumentation." * Boston Review *"Welfare for Markets [dismantles] the mythological history of UBI, which presents it as a timeless ideal of social justice backed by enlightened thinkers through the ages: Thomas More, Thomas Paine, Orestes Brownson, Charles Fourier and GDH Cole, among others. According to Jäger and Zamora Vargas, the supposed progenitors of basic income were anything but." * New Statesman *"[There] are vital insights that can be gleaned from Welfare for Markets, which deftly surveys many of the philosophical and political quandaries that basic income poses." * American Affairs *"Welfare for Markets [describes] how shocks to twentieth-century capitalism turned basic income into an ideal tool for deconstructing and rethinking social policy." * Journal of Economic Literature *"Welfare for Markets is a well-chosen title for an illuminating analysis of the intellectual history of basic income." * Counterfire *"[Jäger and Zamora Vargas] have teamed up again with this carefully researched historical reference that examines public welfare proposals from diverse ideological perspectives. They show that capitalist free markets do not benefit all individuals...This eye-opening work should be considered as a first purchase." * Library Journal *"Welfare for Markets is a stimulating and comprehensive book that fulfils the promise of offering 'a global history of basic income'...Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas explore, in time and space, the different proposals for guaranteed income in order to unfold the worldviews that underpin them." * Œconomia *"At once a fascinating intellectual history of the idea of Universal Basic Income, and a trenchant but well-reasoned and nuanced critique of it: this book must be read by anyone who is interested in or affected by one of the central policy tropes of our times." -- Jayati Ghosh | University of Massachusetts Amherst"No book in recent memory offers a comparable analysis of the multiple, sometimes outright contradictory uses of social policy in modern capitalism: the incredible variety of purposes, left and right, progressive and reactionary, to which social reformism can be put. This is history of ideas in its best, embedded in a social history that does not shy away from taking on the vexing relationship between ideas and interests — full of surprising turns, and great fun to read." -- Wolfgang Streeck | Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies"From Gracchi to Trump, leftists to rightists, monarchists to republicans, legalists to revolutionaries, one idea has been supported by these diverse thinkers, politicians and philosophers in some form or at some time. It is the idea of guaranteeing minimal income to all citizens. It was utopian in poor societies, it is feasible in today's rich societies, and it already exists in some variation. But can it be pushed further, to include all and be delivered regardless of circumstances? Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora take us into an intellectual journey on which we shall meet almost every thinker we know, but they will be, most of the time, traveling with rather unexpected intellectual companions. Enjoy the ride!" -- Branko Milanovic | City University of New York"While pundits focus on enemies such as central planning, trade unions, and public ownership, they evade conversations on the limits and contradictions of capitalism but Welfare for Markets does not hold back. This brilliant book on the intellectual history of basic income is a necessary step and a must-read!" -- Carolina Alves | Girton College, University of Cambridge"On the surface, this book is an intellectual history of the concept of universal basic incomes. And the book is indeed a brilliant account of the genealogy of just this idea. But far beyond that, Welfare for Markets is an analysis of the relation between social welfare, the real production and provisioning of goods, and money. Welfare for Markets is a beautifully written book that allows us to step outside our troubled times to see visions for the future with new eyes." -- Isabella Weber | author of "How China Escaped Shock Therapy" | University of Massachusetts Amherst"Welfare for Markets is a brilliant historical account of universal basic income as the Trojan Horse for politics seeking to dismantle the welfare state and to replace the collective provision of public goods with grants for markets." -- Daniela Gabor | University of the West of England, BristolTable of ContentsIntroduction: Welfare without the Welfare State Chapter 1 An Anti-Mythology Chapter 2 Milton Friedman’s Negative Income Tax and the Monetization of Poverty Chapter 3 Cash Triumphs: America after the New Deal Order Chapter 4 The Politics of Postwork in Postwar Europe Chapter 5 Rethinking Global Development at the End of History Epilogue: Basic Income in the Technopopulist Age Acknowledgments Notes Archives Consulted Index
£23.75
McGill-Queen's University Press LateLife Homelessness
Book SynopsisLate-Life Homelessness is the first Canadian book to address this often neglected issue. Drawing from a four-year ethnographic study of late-life homelessness in Montreal, Canada, Amanda Grenier uses a critical gerontological perspective to explore life at the intersection of older age and homelessness.Trade Review"Amanda Grenier critically and intelligently unpacks how declining social commitments and responses has led to disadvantage that culminates in unequal aging. This book is a clarion call to pay attention to an issue many refuse to acknowledge: the growing group of aging homeless Canadians. The scholarship and methodology used are exceptional. In fact, it is one of the best ethnographies I have read in a long time." Kelli Stajduhar, University of Victoria
£91.80
John Wiley & Sons LateLife Homelessness Experiences of
Book SynopsisLate-Life Homelessness is the first Canadian book to address this often neglected issue. Drawing from a four-year ethnographic study of late-life homelessness in Montreal, Canada, Amanda Grenier uses a critical gerontological perspective to explore life at the intersection of older age and homelessness.Trade Review"Amanda Grenier critically and intelligently unpacks how declining social commitments and responses has led to disadvantage that culminates in unequal aging. This book is a clarion call to pay attention to an issue many refuse to acknowledge: the growing group of aging homeless Canadians. The scholarship and methodology used are exceptional. In fact, it is one of the best ethnographies I have read in a long time." Kelli Stajduhar, University of Victoria
£27.90
Columbia University Press People Plans and Policies Essays on Poverty
Book SynopsisThe primary theme of this collection of essays is that the cities' basic problems are poverty and racism, and until these concerns are addressed by bringing about racial equality, creating jobs, and instituting other reforms, the generally low quality of urban life will persist. Gans argues that the individual must work to alter society. He believes that not only must parents have jobs to improve their children's school performance, but that the country needs a modernized New Deal, a more labor-intensive economy, and a thirty-two hour work week to achieve full employment. Other controversial ideas presented in this book include Gans's opposition to the whole notion of an underclass, which he feels is the latest way for the nonpoor to unjustly label the poor as undeserving. He also believes that poverty continues to plague society because it is often useful to the nonpoor. He is critical of architecture that aims above all to be aesthetic or to make philosophical statements, is doubtfu
£101.70
Columbia University Press The Aid Trap
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAnyone who wants to end poverty should take seriously the powerful and provocative arguments of The Aid Trap. Even if R. Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan don't convince you to embrace their new Marshall Plan, you will come away with a deeper appreciation for the limits of charity, the dangers of top-down planning, and the importance of creating a vibrant and open business sector. -- J. Gregory Dees, Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business R. Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan make a persuasive case that international aid flows have been grossly misdirected. In trying to do good, those in the developed world may actually have ended up doing substantial harm to the developing world. Hubbard and Duggan instead argue that aid flows should be redirected towards encouraging business and entrepreneurship. This is a timely and readable book about how to solve one of the most challenging problems of our time. -- Raghuram G. Rajan, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business The authors' willingness to confront conventional wisdom and examine and energetically attack the problem are refreshing and necessary. Publishers Weekly The Aid Trap is not about the failure of conventional aid but provides the outline of a solution that can work if taken seriously. It is that rare prescriptive book, and the world must pay attention. -- Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan's considered analysis of The Aid Trap adds a new and important dimension to the on-going development debate. This book, grounded in logic and supported by evidence, presents reasonable and sustainable steps that will move Africa forward. -- Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid: Why Aid In Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa A few years ago, we in Mauritius set out to make it easier for our own people and foreign companies to do business in our country. The result has been far more prosperity for our people. Other countries want to learn from our experience. I am pleased to see that there is now a book that can help. The Aid Trap makes a strong case and offers concrete steps for countries not to rely exclusively on the aid world and join the business world instead. I hope this book has a wide impact on the minds, hearts, and actions of national leaders, multinational and local businesses, aid agencies, and concerned citizens around the world. -- Honorable Navinchandra Ramgoolam, Prime Minister of Mauritius Offers a different and logical, if emotionally counter-intuitive, approach to foreign aid. -- Sarah Lynch Forbes The authors point to the burgeoning economies of China and India as evidence that thriving businesses are the key to ending poverty. Chronicle of Philanthropy The Aid Trap articulates a constructive set of ideas about how to reform foreign aid. Economist The Aid Trap does a good job of both highlighting problems with the current aid structure and prescribing solutions. -- Reuben Abraham Alliance Magazine The Aid Trap the well-entrenched myth that development aid willerase global poverty. d-sector.org [The Aid Trap] offers a refreshing perspective on the current effort to end world poverty. -- Bennett Grill African Affairs The Aid Trap is a concise, beautifully written, stimulating, profound, and up-to-date reminder to all of us who are deeply concerned as to just why our traditional aid programs continue to fail us. -- Joseph Keckeissen Journal of Markets & Morality
£17.09
Columbia University Press New Strategies for Social Innovation
Book SynopsisThis book is the first to assess emerging market-based social change approaches comparatively, focusing specifically on social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, fair trade, and private sustainable developmentTrade ReviewA timely and original conceptualization, this groundbreaking book analyzes the most recent trends in market-oriented approaches to social development. Through a rigorous assessment of corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, private sustainable development, and fair trade, Steven G. Anderson delivers a sound understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches. A stimulating analysis full of invaluable insights, this work is a must-read for social change agents. -- Neil Gilbert, University of California, Berkeley This is a terrific book that brings social entrepreneurship into perspective as one of many ways to achieve social impact and innovation. Anderson has done a masterful job in pulling together the fragmented literature on social innovation. He avoids the standard cheerleading that characterizes so many market-based approaches to solving global poverty and other seemingly intractable problems. Not only does he offer a set of clear-headed recommendations for harvesting thoughtful interventions but he is respectful toward all sides of the ongoing debate about what does and does not merit consideration as social innovation. -- Paul C. Light, New York University There is nothing quite like this book. It should make an important contribution to the academic literature on markets and social change and to our broader thinking about social policy and the comparative advantages of businesses, nonprofit organizations, and hybrids. -- Diane Kaplan Vinokur, University of Michigan A useful guide for scholars who are interested in the implications of public-private partnerships and various market-based strategies for nonprofits or social service organizations. -- Wonhyung Lee Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector QuarterlyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction to Market-Oriented Social Development Approaches 2. Developing Social Change Models 3. Corporate Social Responsibility 4. Social Entrepreneurship 5. Private Sustainable Development 6. Fair Trade 7. Market-Based Social Change Models: Reflections on Strengths, Limitations, and Directions for Social Change Advocates Notes References Index
£29.75
Columbia University Press Proposing Prosperity
Book SynopsisThrough interviews with couples and observations and participation in marriage education courses, Jennifer M. Randles challenges assumptions about marriage and critically examines the effects of such classes. She ventures inside healthy marriage classrooms to reveal how they reflect broader issues of culture, gender, governance, and inequality.Trade ReviewA useful, policy-relevant, and balanced treatment of how government-funded marriage and relationship education really works on the ground. -- Shawn Fremstad, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress The growing income gap in America has brought with it a marriage gap. Children are born at every class level but increasingly the rich marry and the poor don't. In 2002 President Bush set up the Healthy Marriage Initiative to teach poor unmarried parents to show empathy, listen actively, avoid violence, and marry. Participants loved and learned from the program, but discovered in its underlying ideology a focus on choice (to be or not to be nice to your partner) and silence about options (to get useful training and well paid work). In this beautifully researched, wise, important book, Randles tackles one of America's most important dilemmas and points to urgently needed solutions. -- Arlie Hochschild, author of The Second Shift and Strangers in Their Own Land This monograph is a must read for a sophisticated analysis of America's attempt to promote marriage as a poverty reduction strategy. With in-depth ethnographic research and smart theoretical arguments, Randles shows that the classes themselves were often operationalized differently than policymakers had intended. But in the end, even improved relationships have to contend with the lack of jobs and opportunities, which are the root cause of poverty. -- Barbara J. Risman, professor of sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago Jennifer Randles's Proposing Prosperity is crucial reading for scholars of family and social policy. She combines essential policy background with ethnography of marriage promotion classes that just might help "true believers" recognize what is sorely missing from these seemingly kind-hearted projects. Bonus: Her clear and vivid text means my college students in family and social policy classes will read it this year. -- Virginia Rutter, co-editor, Families as They Really Are An eye-opening account of what federal marriage education programs look like on the ground and why they have been so ineffective in their goal of strengthening marriage. A well-researched and highly useful book. -- Andrew Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University Randles's astute interviews and observations reveal why, despite good intentions on all sides, classes designed to 'improve' the relationship skills of low-income couples fail to address their real-life barriers to intimacy and stability. An incisive, compassionate, and engrossing work. -- Stephanie Coontz, author, Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage In this important and valuable book, Jennifer Randles immerses herself in state-run relationship classes, and shows they teach more about the politics and ideology of marriage promotion than about solving the pressing problems poor families face. She exposes the irony that, although relationship skills training may be useful, it won't address the problems of family inequality. -- Philip Cohen, University of MarylandTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction: Learning and Legislating Love 2. Rationalizing Romance: Reconciling the Modern Marriage Dilemma through Skilled Love 3. Teaching Upward Mobility: Skilled Love and the Marriage Gap 4. Intimate Inequalities and Curtailed Commitments: The Marriage Gap in a Middle-Class Marriage Culture 5. The Missing "M Word": Promoting Committed Co-Parenting 6. Men, Money, and Marriageability: Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Through Marital Masculinity 7. "It's Not Just Us": Relationship Skills and Poverty's Perpetual Problems 8. Conclusion: Family Inequality and the Limits of Skills Notes References Index
£46.75
Columbia University Press Rural Poverty in the United States
Book SynopsisIn a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis that extends from the Civil War to the present, this book seeks to isolate the underlying causes of persistent rural poverty. It take a hard look at current and past programs to alleviate rural poverty and uses their failures to suggest alternatives that could improve the well-being of rural Americans.Trade ReviewThis book covers the historical development of rural poverty research and policy, brings together the core theoretical literature, and addresses significant substantive issues including food insecurity, race, migration, and housing. The breadth is remarkable. No other volume exists today that draws the literature together so comprehensively and engagingly. -- Linda Lobao, The Ohio State UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I. Geography and Demography of Rural America1. Where Is Rural America and Who Lives There?, by Kenneth M. Johnson2. Poverty in Rural America Then and Now, by Bruce Weber and Kathleen MillerPart II. Key Concepts and Issues for Understanding Rural Poverty3. Measures of Poverty and Implications for Portraits of Rural Hardship, by Leif Jensen and Danielle Ely4. How to Explain Poverty?, by Ann R. Tickamyer and Emily J. WornellPart III. Vulnerable Populations in Rural Places5. Changing Gender Roles and Rural Poverty, by Kristin SmithCase Study: In re Bow, Nevada Supreme Court (1997), by Lisa R. Pruitt6. Racial Inequalities and Poverty in Rural America, by Mark H. HarveyCase Study: Engaging Black Geographies—How Racism Continues to Produce Poverty within the Black Belt South, by Rosalind P. Harris7. Immigration Trends and Immigrant Poverty in Rural America, by Shannon M. Monnat and Raeven Faye ChandlerCase Study: Immigration and New Rural Residents, by J. Celeste LayPart IV. Community and Societal Institutions8. Rural Poverty and Symbolic Capital: A Tale of Two Valleys, by Jennifer ShermanCase Study: Symbolic Capital and Sources of Division in “Golden Valley,” California, and “Paradise Valley,” Washington, by Jennifer Sherman9. The Old Versus the New Economies and Their Impacts, by Brian Thiede and Tim SlackCase Study: Buoyancy on the Bayou—Louisiana Shrimpers Face the Rising Tide of Globalization, by Jill Ann Harrison10. Food Insecurity and Housing Insecurity, by Alisha Coleman-Jensen and Barry SteffenCase Study: Food Insecurity and Hunger in the Rural West, by Sarah Whitley11. The Environment and Health, by Danielle Christine Rhubart and Elyzabeth W. EngleCase Study: The Environment and Health, by Michael Hendryx12. Education and Information, by Catharine Biddle and Ian MetteCase Study: Education, Economic Disadvantage, and Homeless Students in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Gas Region, by Kai A. Schafft13. Crime, Punishment, and Spatial Inequality, by John M. Eason, L. Ash Smith, Jason Greenberg, Richard D. Abel, and Corey SparksCase Study: Violence Against Women in America’s Heartland, by Walter S. DeKeseredy and Amanda Hall-SanchezPart V. Programs, Policy, and Politics14. The Safety Net in Rural America, by Jennifer Warlick15. The Opportunities and Limits of Economic Growth, by Gary Paul Green16. Politics and Policy: Barriers and Opportunities for Rural Peoples, by Ann R. Tickamyer, Jennifer Sherman, and Jennifer WarlickContributorsIndex
£29.75
Columbia University Press Life Underground
Book SynopsisBeneath the surface of Manhattan’s Riverside Park run railroad tunnels, disused for decades, where over the years unhoused people took shelter. The sociologist Terry Williams ventured into the tunnel residents’ world, seeking to understand life on the margins and out of sight.Trade ReviewIn Life Underground, Terry Williams meets Fyodor Dostoyevsky in the netherworld of New York City, unearthing the everyday lives of the city’s misbegotten bottom dwellers, immortalizing them for posterity. Richly observed and well-written, this book is a must-read for anyone who cares to truly understand the lives of those at the end of the line. -- Elijah Anderson, author of Black in White SpaceLife Underground provides unique documentation of the lives of homeless people living in underground tunnels and other spaces beneath the streets of New York City. No other work studies in so much detail the lives of people who might be considered the worst off of the city's worst off. -- Thomas J. Main, author of Homelessness in New York City: Policymaking from Koch to de BlasioTerry Williams has once again written a beautiful ethnographic piece, offering us a profound sociological work on 'shelterless life' below and at the margins of one of the richest but also socially polarized cities in the world: New York. Based on interviews, field notes, maps, journals, dream records, and a photographic register, Williams makes visible the living conditions of a population that is all too often invisibilized: homeless people. Their voices and life experiences are at the center of this research work together with the neoliberal transformations of said city. A fascinating and illuminating book that everyone should read, especially those who want to understand, challenge, and put an end to the housing crisis - in New York and globally. -- Ana Cárdenas Tomažič, Institute for Social Research (IfS), Goethe University FrankfurtTable of ContentsPrologueAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Descent2. Genesis3. Underground Ecology4. Men Underground: Bernard, Kal, and Jason5. Working Life6. Food: Restaurants and Soup Kitchens7. Women Underground: Tin Can Tina8. Beatrice and Bobo9. The Tagalong10. The Rabbit Hole 11. Reflections on Life Under the StreetEndnoteEpilogue: Mediating the Underground: Bernard’s ExitAppendix A: Income and Housing in New York City, 2002–2014Appendix B: Behavior Mapping and CartographyAppendix C: Interview Questions for Bernard, Princeton University, 2012Appendix D: Bernard’s Dream and PostcardAppendix E: Legacies of Harm: Policy and PolicingAppendix F: Where Are They Now?NotesIndex
£85.00
Columbia University Press Conservatorship
Book SynopsisThis book is an incisive and compelling portrait of the functioning—and failings—of California’s conservatorship system, drawing on hundreds of interviews with professionals, policy makers, families, and conservatees.Trade ReviewA heartbreakingly insightful ethnographic deep dive into the failure of mental health care in the United States that everyone refuses to pay for—and for which no public authority takes responsibility. Barnard strategically takes us through each dysfunctional interstice of California’s iconically mismanaged mental health system that manages to maximize costs, minimizes benefits, and tortures everyone involved—especially people with psychosis spectrum disorders whose lives are cut short by the public/private bureaucratic quagmire that has been waging war on itself for the past half century. -- Philippe Bourgois, author of In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio and co-author of Righteous DopefiendVivid case studies and probing interviews humanize this journey through the fraught terrain of involuntary care. Barnard pulls few punches in describing the more offensive stretches of the roadmap but avoids veering into unalloyed condemnation or praise. His thoughtful exploration yields reasons for hope that our better angels might prevail. -- Roderick Shaner, MD, former medical director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental HealthThe subject and title of Conservatorship is perhaps the most important yet least studied power of domestic governance. As Alex Barnard's meticulous study of California’s system for protecting those most disabled by mental illness shows, this power is left to a largely unaccountable and invisible system of local and market actors. At a time of much interest in new legal solutions to our severe crisis of unhoused, untreated, and mentally ill citizens, Barnard’s findings suggest the priority of addressing our even deeper crisis of authority. -- Jonathan Simon, author of Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of FearIn California, the state has abdicated its authority over the conservatorship process by delegating state functions to a fragmented field of actors. Cutting through overly simplistic accounts of conservatorship, Barnard uses rich data and sharp theory to delve into the pitfalls of this abdication of authority. -- Josh Seim, author of Bandage, Sort, and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Urban SufferingConservatorship delivers the kind of critical analysis that...would require California politicians, more comfortable with increasing budgets than investigating outcomes, to expose themselves to more blame. * City Journal *I recommend this very comprehensive book to anyone who is interested and ultimately frustrated by how our state has failed so many it purports a desire to help. * Southern California Psychiatrist *Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction: The Other Magna CartaPart I. The Conservatorship Continuum1. Outpatient2. Crisis3. Emergency Room4. Inpatient5. Public Guardian6. CourtPart II. Care and Coercion Under Conservatorship7. Locked In8. Stepped Down9. Neglect and Abuse10. Stabilization and RecoveryPart III. Reform11. Paving a New Pathway12. Asylum for the Dying13. Sharing Authority, Restoring AutonomyConclusion: Beyond MiraclesMethodological AppendixChronology of “Abdicated Authority”Glossary of Terms, Procedures, and FacilitiesAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£105.30
Columbia University Press Conservatorship
Book SynopsisThis book is an incisive and compelling portrait of the functioning—and failings—of California’s conservatorship system, drawing on hundreds of interviews with professionals, policy makers, families, and conservatees.Trade ReviewA heartbreakingly insightful ethnographic deep dive into the failure of mental health care in the United States that everyone refuses to pay for—and for which no public authority takes responsibility. Barnard strategically takes us through each dysfunctional interstice of California’s iconically mismanaged mental health system that manages to maximize costs, minimizes benefits, and tortures everyone involved—especially people with psychosis spectrum disorders whose lives are cut short by the public/private bureaucratic quagmire that has been waging war on itself for the past half century. -- Philippe Bourgois, author of In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio and co-author of Righteous DopefiendVivid case studies and probing interviews humanize this journey through the fraught terrain of involuntary care. Barnard pulls few punches in describing the more offensive stretches of the roadmap but avoids veering into unalloyed condemnation or praise. His thoughtful exploration yields reasons for hope that our better angels might prevail. -- Roderick Shaner, MD, former medical director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental HealthThe subject and title of Conservatorship is perhaps the most important yet least studied power of domestic governance. As Alex Barnard's meticulous study of California’s system for protecting those most disabled by mental illness shows, this power is left to a largely unaccountable and invisible system of local and market actors. At a time of much interest in new legal solutions to our severe crisis of unhoused, untreated, and mentally ill citizens, Barnard’s findings suggest the priority of addressing our even deeper crisis of authority. -- Jonathan Simon, author of Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of FearIn California, the state has abdicated its authority over the conservatorship process by delegating state functions to a fragmented field of actors. Cutting through overly simplistic accounts of conservatorship, Barnard uses rich data and sharp theory to delve into the pitfalls of this abdication of authority. -- Josh Seim, author of Bandage, Sort, and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Urban SufferingConservatorship delivers the kind of critical analysis that...would require California politicians, more comfortable with increasing budgets than investigating outcomes, to expose themselves to more blame. * City Journal *I recommend this very comprehensive book to anyone who is interested and ultimately frustrated by how our state has failed so many it purports a desire to help. * Southern California Psychiatrist *Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction: The Other Magna CartaPart I. The Conservatorship Continuum1. Outpatient2. Crisis3. Emergency Room4. Inpatient5. Public Guardian6. CourtPart II. Care and Coercion Under Conservatorship7. Locked In8. Stepped Down9. Neglect and Abuse10. Stabilization and RecoveryPart III. Reform11. Paving a New Pathway12. Asylum for the Dying13. Sharing Authority, Restoring AutonomyConclusion: Beyond MiraclesMethodological AppendixChronology of “Abdicated Authority”Glossary of Terms, Procedures, and FacilitiesAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£28.50
University of Notre Dame Press Avoiding Governors Federalism Democracy and
Book SynopsisFenwick analyzes poverty alleviation strategies in Brazil and Argentina to show how federalism affects the ability of a national government to sustain a conditional cash transfer program.Trade Review"This carefully crafted study offers us critical insights on how institutional design affects both governing elites and the poor. It deserves a broad audience among policy makers, academics, and activists." —Nancy Bermeo, Nuffield Chair of Comparative Politics, University of Oxford"Tracy Beck Fenwick makes a compelling argument about the conditions that either facilitate or retard one of the most important social policy innovations of the contemporary period, which is the turn toward the use of conditional cash transfers to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Her core interest in how different levels of government interact in the provision of social services has become a question of great import. With respect to the recent literatures on decentralization, federalism, and subnational governments in Latin America more generally, Avoiding Governors is by far the most sophisticated attempt yet to integrate municipal governments more directly into the theoretical frameworks we use to study intergovernmental relations.” —Kent Eaton, University of California, Santa Cruz"This book puts into stark relief an argument that has only been made implicitly so far: that governors are to be avoided if federal governments in Latin America are to successfully put forth antipoverty policies. The question or pursuit is well stated: to examine why Brazil and Argentina had differing outcomes from similarly designed CCTs. The answer the author provides is that differences in federalism are key: While the setup in Brazil is such that the federal government can bypass governors, the national government in Argentina does not have the opportunity within its federal system to truly bypass the provinces and put through national policy in an equitable fashion throughout the territory. Rather, municipalities in Argentina are captured by the provincial level." —Wendy Hunter, University of Texas at Austin“Fenwick’s very useful book compares the implementation of anti-poverty programs in Brazil and Argentina. . . Fenwick also makes the interesting (and counterintuitive) argument that the extreme party fragmentation in Brazil may have actually been an advantage there.” —Choice“Fenwick’s book is a superb example of the power of political science to offer penetrating insights by coordinating the nuances of policy, history, and institutional configuration.” —Hispanic American Historical Review
£20.69
University of Washington Press Skid Road On the Frontier of Health and
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Ensign's devotion to her subjects is palpable, as are the rigor of her research and the care she has shown in telling the stories of marginalized people long dead or still alive." * Crosscut *"[Skid Road] unearths the layers of Seattle history underlying our current housing crisis. Centering long-silenced perspectives of those in the margins of society, the provocative read is informed by Ensign's own lived experience of homelessness and over three decades of her work providing primary health care to unhoused populations." * Seattle Met *
£21.00
Yale University Press Worlds Apart
Book SynopsisFirst published in 1999, Worlds Apart examined the nature of poverty through the stories of real people in three remote rural areas of the United States: New England, Appalachia, and the Mississippi Delta. This edition provides fresh insights into the dynamics of poverty, politics and community change.Trade Review"What stories Mil Duncan has to tell! In this new edition of her classic Worlds Apart, she offers sage advice about how to begin to reverse the dangerously growing divide between rich and poor in our country."—Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis"A mosaic of intimate portraits revealing the social, economic, and political isolation of rural poverty, Worlds Apart is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the root causes of inequality in America."—Darren Walker, president, Ford Foundation"The classics don't get out of date. Cynthia Duncan's unflinching account of rural poverty, updated and still fresh, combines a journalistic punch and elegant analysis. The gripping stories of Appalachian feudalism, Mississippi racism, and Maine decency make this a book you can't put down."—Peter Edelman, author of So Rich, So Poor: Why It's So Hard to End Poverty in America"The impossible happened. The first edition of Worlds Apart, which has long been viewed as the classic introduction to rural poverty, is now an even more powerful demonstration of the role of local institutions in generating poverty. Another instant classic."—David B. Grusky, director, Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality
£19.99
LUP - University of Michigan Press Slaves to Fashion
Book SynopsisTable of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Sweatshops Are Where Hearts Starve Part 1. The Fall and Rise of Sweatshops in the United States Chapter 1. What Is a Sweatshop? Appendix 1. Estimating the Number of Sweatshop Workers in the United States in 2000 Chapter 2. Memory of Strike and Fire Chapter 3. The Decline of Sweatshops in the United States Chapter 4. The Era of Decency and the Return of the Sweatshop Part 2. Explaining the Rise of the New Sweatshops Chapter 5. Global Capitalism and the Race to the Bottom in the Production of Our Clothes Chapter 6. Retail Chains: The Eight-Hundred-Pound Gorillas of the World Trade in Clothing Chapter 7. Firing Guard Dogs and Hiring Foxes Chapter 8. Immigrants and Imports Chapter 9. Union Busting and the Global Runaway Shop Chapter 10. Framing Immigrants, Humiliating Big Shots: Mass Media and the Sweatshop Issue Appendix 2. Details of the Immigrant Blame Analysis Conclusion to Part 2: Producing Sweatshops in the United States Part 3. Movements and Policies Chapter 11. Combating Sweatshops from the Grass Roots Chapter 12. Solidarity North and South: Reframing International Labor Rights Chapter 13. Ascending a Ladder of Effective Antisweatshop Policy Chapter 14: Three Pillars of Decency Personal Epilogue: Hearts Starve Notes References Index
£20.85
The University of Michigan Press Human Capital versus Basic Income
Book SynopsisCombining cross-national quantitative research covering the entire region and in-depth case studies based on field research, Human Capital versus Basic Income challenges the conventional wisdom that these two transformations were unrelated.
£27.50
LUP - University of Michigan Press The Poverty Law Canon
Book SynopsisTakes readers into the lives of clients and lawyers who brought critical poverty law cases in the United States. These cases involved attempts to establish the right to basic necessities, as well as efforts to ensure dignified treatment of welfare recipients and to halt administrative attacks on federal programme benefit levels.Trade Review“The contributors include some of the best academics who writeand teach about poverty. The back stories of these cases aremultidimensionally interesting—the clients, the legal strategies, thelawyers themselves, the historical and political context, the effect on thelaw, the backstage of the Supreme Court and the role of the law clerks.” - Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center
£73.10
University of California Press Changing Inequality
Book SynopsisOffers a comprehensive analysis of an economic trend that has been reshaping the United States over the years: rapidly rising income inequality. This title provides an overview of how and why the level and distribution of income and wealth has changed since 1979, and investigates the forces that are driving it.Trade Review"I recommend this book ... to anyone interested in why income inequality has increased so markedly over the last 30 years." -- Patrick Flavin Political Science Quarterly "Blank offers insight on a topic of much current debate." -- R. S. Rycroft ChoiceTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Changes in Income and Earnings 1. A Broader Look at Changing Inequality 2. Changing Inequality in Annual Earnings and Its Components 3. Changing Inequality in Total Income and Its Components 4. Understanding These Changes Part II. Can Inequality be Reduced? 5. How Economic Shocks Change Income Distribution 6. Ways to Reduce Inequality (and Their Limits) 7. Changing Inequality in the United States Today Appendix 1. Details of the Chapter 2 Simulation and Appendix Figures Appendix 2. Income Components by Decile Appendix 3. Details of the Chapter 4 Simulations Appendix 4. Details of the Chapter 6 Simulations Notes References Index
£22.50
University of California Press Taxing the Poor
Book SynopsisLooks at the way we tax the poor in the United States, particularly in the American South, where poor families are often subject to income taxes, and where regressive sales taxes apply even to food for home consumption. This book argues that these policies contribute in unrecognized ways to poverty-related problems.Trade Review"Impressive ... straightforward, compelling, and well-documented... This is an important book-for lots of reasons." -- Daniel T. Lichter, Cornell University American Jrnl Of Sociology "Recommended." -- R.S. Rycroft ChoiceTable of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Tables Preface Acknowledgments 1. The Evolution of Southern Tax Structures 2. Barriers to Change: Inertia, Supermajorities, and Constitutional Amendments 3. The Geography of Poverty 4. Tax Traps and Regional Poverty Regimes 5. The Bottom Line Conclusion: Are We Our Brothers' Keepers? Appendix I. How Many Lags of X? by Scott M. Lynch Appendix II. Tables Notes Index
£22.50
University of California Press Its Not Like Im Poor
Book SynopsisDrawing on interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their kids to college.Trade Review"Humanizes the working poor in an unforgettable way." The Kansas City Star "An important contribution to poverty policy scholarship." -- Vanessa D. Wells Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare "It's Not Like I'm Poor inspires one to wonder whether there are existing educational interventions that, with changes to their delivery method, might lead to better experiences and outcomes for children and families... Not only did their work dispel many of the negative stereotypes of welfare-reliant mothers and present an honest picture of the financial realities these families faced, it also helped forecast the relative hardships families would face when the effects of welfare reform took shape." -- Celia J. Gomez Harvard Educational ReviewTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Family Budgets: Staying in the Black, Slipping into the Red 2. Tax Time 3. The New Regime through the Lens of the Old 4. Beyond Living Paycheck to Paycheck 5. "Debt--I Am Hoping to Eliminate That Word!" 6. Capitalizing on the Promise of the EITC Appendix A: Introduction to Boston and the Research Project Appendix B: Qualitative Interview Guide Notes Bibliography Index
£64.00
University of California Press Its Not Like Im Poor
Book SynopsisDrawing on interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their kids to college.Trade Review"Humanizes the working poor in an unforgettable way." The Kansas City Star "An important contribution to poverty policy scholarship." -- Vanessa D. Wells Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare "It's Not Like I'm Poor inspires one to wonder whether there are existing educational interventions that, with changes to their delivery method, might lead to better experiences and outcomes for children and families... Not only did their work dispel many of the negative stereotypes of welfare-reliant mothers and present an honest picture of the financial realities these families faced, it also helped forecast the relative hardships families would face when the effects of welfare reform took shape." -- Celia J. Gomez Harvard Educational ReviewTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Family Budgets: Staying in the Black, Slipping into the Red 2. Tax Time 3. The New Regime through the Lens of the Old 4. Beyond Living Paycheck to Paycheck 5. "Debt--I Am Hoping to Eliminate That Word!" 6. Capitalizing on the Promise of the EITC Appendix A: Introduction to Boston and the Research Project Appendix B: Qualitative Interview Guide Notes Bibliography Index
£22.50
University of California Press Cut Loose
Book SynopsisYears after the Great Recession, the economy is still weak, and an unprecedented number of workers have sunk into long spells of unemployment. This book provides an account of the experiences of some of these men and women, through the example of a historically important group: autoworkers.Trade Review"Rich... Chen constructs a skilled analysis of overlapping issues rising from differences of race, gender and family status." -- Angelia R. Wilson Times Higher Education "The book is full of accounts, many containing moving, first-person stories of the impact on individuals and families of difficult work... Recomended." -- C. K. Piehl CHOICE connect "Cut Loose is an illuminating look at the impacts of prolonged joblessness that accompanied economic restructuring for a group of long-term unemployed autoworkers in Michigan and Ontario in 2009-10." American Journal of Sociology "[Chen's] in-depth interviews are both empathetic and perceptive... Important." Contemporary SociologyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. They Had It Coming 2. All This Garbage from Life: Education and the Capital Speedup 3. Decline and Fall: Hardship, Race, and the Social Safety Net 4. Half a Man: Fragile Families and the Unmarriageable Unemployed 5. Vicious Circles: The Structure of Power and the Culture of Judgment 6. Loser: The Failures of the American Dream 7. There Go I Appendix: Research Methods and Policy Details Notes Index
£22.50
University of California Press The SelfHelp Myth
Book SynopsisCan philanthropy alleviate inequality? Do antipoverty programs work on the ground? In this book, the author focuses on these issues play out in California's Central Valley, which is one of the wealthiest agricultural production regions in the world and also home to the poorest people in the United States.Trade Review"Recommended." CHOICE "Too often, philanthropic and non-profit work is taken for granted as being inherently benevolent. Kohl-Arenas complicates these assumptions while also honoring the critiques presented by the Central Valley's nonprofit leaders and workers, who frequently hail from the communities they serve." Anthropology of Work ReviewTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments 1. Private Philanthropy and the Self-Help Myth 2. The Hustling Arm of the Union: Nonprofit Institutionalization and the Compromises of Cesar Chavez 3. Foundation-Driven Collaborative Initiatives: Civic Participation for What? 4. Selling Mutual Prosperity: Worker-Grower Partnerships and the "Win-Win" Paradigm 5. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
£22.50
University of California Press The Road Out
Book SynopsisCan one teacher truly make a difference in her students' lives when everything is working against them? Can a love for literature and learning save the most vulnerable of youth from a life of poverty? This book deals with these questions.Trade Review"It's become a standard book and movie trope: An idealistic teacher walks into a classroom of hardened, at-risk students and strives to reach them.But the outlines of the story, while familiar, can still surprise and inspire." Boston Globe Book Section "A valuable look at the intellectual lives (and fragile potential) of girls buffeted by American social realities, and an excellent reflection on the challenges of teaching." Kirkus ReviewsTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Author's Note Introduction: A Teacher on a Mission Part I. Childhood Ghosts 1. Ghost Rose Speaks 2. Elizabeth Discovers Her Paperback 3. We're Sisters! Part II. My Life as a Girl 4. Girl Talk 5. A Magazine Is Born 6. Mrs. Bush Visits (But Not Our Class) 7. A Saturday at the Bookstore 8. Jessica Finds Jesus, and Elizabeth Finds Love 9. Blair Discovers a Voice Part III. Leavings 10. At Sixteen 11. Girlhood Interrupted 12. I Deserve a Better Life 13. The Road Out Epilogue Notes Index
£22.50
University of California Press More Than Just Food
Book SynopsisFocusing on the work of several food justice groups - including Community Services Unlimited, a South Los Angeles organization founded as the nonprofit arm of the Southern California Black Panther Party - this title explores the possibilities and limitations of the community-based approach, and more.Trade Review"More Than Just Food offers critical perspectives on food justice projects-from what Broad characterizes as more obviously flawed white-savior-outsider-led endeavors to the more sympathetically portrayed but still imperfect CSU." International Journal of CommunicationTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Food Justice and Community Change 1 • Networks, Narratives, and Community Action 2 • Food Systems, Food Movements, Food Justice 3 • In a Community Like This 4 • The Youth Food Justice Movement 5 • From the Black Panthers to the USDA 6 • Competing Visions and the Food Justice Brand Conclusion Appendix: A Note on Theory and Method Notes References Index
£64.00
University of California Press More Than Just Food
Book SynopsisExplores the possibilities and limitations of the community-based approach, offering a networked examination of the food justice movement in the age of the non-profit industrial complex.Trade Review"More Than Just Food offers critical perspectives on food justice projects-from what Broad characterizes as more obviously flawed white-savior-outsider-led endeavors to the more sympathetically portrayed but still imperfect CSU." International Journal of CommunicationTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Food Justice and Community Change 1 • Networks, Narratives, and Community Action 2 • Food Systems, Food Movements, Food Justice 3 • In a Community Like This 4 • The Youth Food Justice Movement 5 • From the Black Panthers to the USDA 6 • Competing Visions and the Food Justice Brand Conclusion Appendix: A Note on Theory and Method Notes References Index
£22.50
University of California Press Dispossessed How Predatory Bureaucracy Foreclosed
Book SynopsisIn the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, more than 14 million U.S. homeowners filed for foreclosure. Focusing on the hard-hit Sacramento Valley, Noelle Stout uncovers the predacious bureaucracy that organized the largest bank seizure of residential homes in U.S. history. Stout reveals the failure of Wall Street banks' mortgage assistance programsbacked by over $300 billion of federal fundsto deliver on the promise of relief. Unlike the programs of the Great Depression, in which the government took on the toxic mortgage debt of Americans, corporate lenders and loan servicers ultimately denied over 70 percent of homeowner applications. In the voices of bank employees and homeowners, Stout unveils how call center representatives felt about denying appeals and shares the fears of families living on the brink of eviction. Stout discloses the impacts of rising inequality on homeownersfrom whites who felt their middle-class life unraveling to communities of color who experienced a more precipitous and dire decline. Trapped in a Kafkaesque maze of mortgage assistance, borrowers began to view debt refusal as a moral response to lenders, as seemingly mundane bureaucratic dramas came to redefine the meaning of debt and dispossession.Trade Review"Building on existing research about the Great Recession, [Stout] offers intimate interviews with a dozen families who lost their homes in the Sacramento Valley. . . . Highly recommended." * CHOICE *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction. Once Sold, Twice Taken: A Life Undone 1. Dream It, Own It: Genealogies of Speculation and Dispossession in the ValleyLandscapes 2. Put Out: Bank Seizure at the Poverty Line 3. Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Relocating the Middle ClassDocuments 4. Can’t Work the System: The Troubled Sympathies of Corporate Bureaucrats 5. We Shall Not Be Moved: The Shifting Moral Economies of Debt RefusalDrawings Conclusion. You Can’t Go Home Again Acknowledgments Glossary Notes References Index
£64.00
University of California Press The Making of a Teenage Service Class Poverty
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Ray uses . . . details to reveal how deeply life is colored by poverty and how desperately these young people want to believe they can succeed." * American Journal of Sociology *"Ray provides a refreshing analysis of the challenges facing economically marginalized youth of color. . . . The Making of a Teenage Service Class has significant implications for family scholars, practitioners, and educators. It reminds family scholars and practitioners to pay attention to the intricacy of family dynamics and the importance of not assuming that everyone in a family shares the same experiences, has the same needs or interests, or responds the same way in the face of poverty." * Journal of Family Theory and Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. The Mobility Puzzle and Irreconcilable Choices 2. Port City Rising from the Ashes 3. Sibling Ties 4. Risky Love 5. Saved by College 6. The Making of a Teenage Service Class 7. Internalizing Uncertainty: Bad Genes, Hunger, and Homelessness 8. Uncertain Success 9. Dismantling the “At Risk” Discourse Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index
£22.50
University of California Press Beginning to End Hunger Food and the Environment
Book SynopsisBeginning to End Hunger presents the story of Belo Horizonte, home to 2.5 million people and one of the world's most successful city food security programs. Since its Municipal Secretariat for Food Security was founded in 1993, malnutrition in Belo Horizonte has declined dramatically, allowing it to serve as an inspiration for Brazil's renowned Zero Hunger programs. The Municipal Secretariat's work with local small family farmers also offers a glimpse of how food security, rural livelihoods, and healthy ecosystems can be supported together. While inevitably imperfect, Belo Horizonte offers a vision of the path away from food system dysfunction, unsustainability, and hunger. The author's case study shows the vital importance of holistic approaches to food security, offers ideas on how to design successful policies to end hunger, and lays out strategies for how to make policy change happen. With these tools, we can take the next steps towards achieving similar reductions in hunger and food insecurity elsewhere in the developed and developing worlds.Trade Review"It is tempting for socialists to argue simply that the problem is capitalism and that only a socialist, post-capitalist world can feed the world’s population healthily and sustainably. M. Jahi Chappell’s important study shows that this is wrong." * Climate and Capitalism *"M. Jahi Chappell provides a necessary antidote to those who claim hunger cannot be alleviated." * The Journal of Peasant Studies *"This is a very good book that I imagine will (and should) be adopted for use in a number of upper level undergraduate or graduate classes in the social sciences or interdisciplinary fields such as development studies, environmental studies, and food studies. I have just begun to use the text with my own students this semester and more than a few have remarked on how nice it is to have a relatively positive story as compared to the critiques and narratives of failure they often encounter in the social sciences." * American Association of Geographers Review of Books *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Foreword by Frances Moore Lappé Preface Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Food and Famine Futures, Past and Present 2. Food Security, Food Sovereignty, and Beginning to End Hunger 3. Belo Horizonte: All Five A’s on the Horizon 4. Multiple Streams and the Evolution of the Secretariat of Food and Nutritional Security 5. Farm, Farmer, and Forest: SMASAN and the Environment 6. Conclusions: Belo Horizonte and Beyond Abbreviations Notes References Index
£27.00
University of California Press Unjust Conditions Womens Work and the Hidden
Book SynopsisA free ebook version of this title is available throughLuminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visitwww.luminosoa.orgto learn more. Unjust Conditions follows the lives and labors of poor mothers in rural Peru, richly documenting the ordeals they face to participate in mainstream poverty alleviation programs. Championed by behavioral economists and the World Bank, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are praised as efficient mechanisms for changing poor people's behavior. While rooted in good intentions and dripping with the rhetoric of social inclusion, CCT programs' successes ring hollow, based solely on metrics for children's attendance at school and health appointments. Looking beyond these statistics reveals a host of hidden costs for the mothers who meet the conditions. With a poignant voice and keen focus on ethnographic research, Tara PatriciaCooksonturns the reader's gaze to women's care work in landscapes of grossly inadequate state investment, cleverly drawing out the tensions between social inclusion and conditionality.Trade Review"[Cookson] is able to present her informants in a perceptive and nuanced way which shows careful reflection of wider debates around ‘development’ and representation . . . this is a ‘must read’ for all those with an interest in the gendered and racialised nature of poverty." * Gender & Development *"A nuanced analysis of a widely implemented and evaluated approach to poverty reduction . . . Unjust Conditions is a must-read for those interested in the political-economic drivers of poverty, as well as researchers, students and practitioners of development, gender and labour, and governance and social policy who wish to understand CCT from a critical perspective." * Anthropologica *"Anyone interested in women’s care work, critical development studies, institutional ethnography, and/or the rural Peruvian Andes will want to read this text. Cookson’s ethnography is extensive, historical, and dynamic. She has rendered her time spent in Peru in vivid geographic detail." * Gender, Place & Culture *"Cookson poignantly unpacks the underpinnings of [conditional cash transfer programs] within mainstream economic theory in terms of rational decision making and cost –benefit analysis." * Politics & Gender *"[T]he unsettling evidence presented in Unjust Conditions provides a compelling reason for exploring these 'hidden costs' across the many other contexts in which [CCT] programs are implemented." * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Map of Peru 1 Introduction: Making Aid Conditional 2 Setting the Conditions 3 The Ironic Conditions of Clinics and Schools 4 Rural Women Walking and Waiting 5 Paid and Unpaid Labor on the Frontline State 6 Shadow Conditions and the Immeasurable Burden of Improvement 7 Conclusion: Toward a Caring Society Notes References Index
£999.99
University of California Press Shaking Up the City
Book SynopsisShaking Up the City critically examines many of the concepts and categories within mainstream urban studies that serve dubious policy agendas. Through a combination of theory and empirical evidence, Tom Slater shakes up mainstream urban studies in a concise and pointed fashion by turning on its head much of the prevailing wisdom in the field. To this end, he explores the themes of data-driven innovation, urban resilience, gentrification, displacement and rent control, neighborhood effects, territorial stigmatization, and ethnoracial segregation. With important contributions to ongoing debates in sociology, geography, urban planning, and public policy, this book engages closely with struggles for land rights and housing justice to offer numerous insights for scholarship and political action to guard against the spread of an urbanism rooted in vested interest. Trade Review"Slater’s broad approach and global lens grant this book great potential to help scholars, especially younger ones, to rethink the logic behind research questions and approaches." * Ethnic and Racial Studies *"Sitting down with Shaking Up the City: Ignorance, Inequality, and the Urban Question is like pulling up a chair with Tom Slater to talk about the state of play of urban studies. . . .Yet the highlight of this work is the intellectual contribution, which I see as holding the idea of epistemology – that is, the production of knowledge – and the idea of agnotology – that is, the production of ignorance – in tension with each other." * Urban Studies *"Shaking Up the City sets a new direction of critical urban geography." * Antipode *"Slater offers important insight for urban scholars and practitioners by showing how ideology, politics, and institutional arrangements interact to narrow urban policy choice sets." * Journal of the American Planning Association *"A detailed and very well-written account of several important concepts in critical urban theory." * Housing Studies *
£64.00
University of California Press Beneath the China Boom
Book SynopsisFor nearly four decades, China's manufacturing boom has been powered by the labor of 287 million rural migrant workers, who travel seasonally between villages where they farm for subsistence and cities where they work. Yet recently local governments have moved away from manufacturing and toward urban expansion and construction as a development strategy. As a result, at least 88 million rural people to date have lost rights to village land. In Beneath the China Boom, JuliaChuang follows the trajectories of rural workers, who were once supported by a village welfare state and are now landless. This book provides a view of the undertow of China's economic success, and the periodic crisesa rural fiscal crisis, a runaway urbanizationthat it first created and now must resolve.Trade Review"This book is an outstanding new contribution to the literature on China’s urbanization as well as on socioeconomic development more broadly. Moreover, it is a very engaging read. I would highly recommend it to experts, scholars, as well as students from related disciplinary backgrounds." * Asien: The German Journal on Contemporary Asia *"Chuang’s book is a tour de force in revealing the complexities and interconnections of China’s economic boom, especially the more recent developments occurring in the country’s interior provinces." * Exertions * "Beneath the China Boom is an excellent example of unlocking large-scale social processes through multisited ethnography." * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Index of Characters 1. China’s Rise 2. A Tale of Two Villages 3. Into the World of Chinese Labor 4. Rural/Urban Dualism 5. Urbanization and the New Rural Economy 6. Paradoxes of Urbanization 7. The Future of Chinese Development Appendix Notes References Index
£22.50
University of California Press Health Care Off the Books Poverty Illness and
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Raudenbush’s Health Care off the Books provides a compelling account and an indictment of the American health care system, one that simultaneously drives low-income residents to engage in risky behavior and physicians to skirt the edges of medical ethics. In a time of growing health care need amid a global pandemic coupled with economic strife, her book should be required reading for students of medical sociology and medicine alike." * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction: Health Care Access in America and the Formal-Informal Hybrid Health Care System 2. Access to Care in Jackson Homes 3. Sick, Poor, and without Care: Individual Responses to Barriers and the Emergence of a Hybrid System 4. “On the Poor Side of Things”: The Role of the Local Community in the Hybrid System 5. The Doctor Is In: Physicians in the Hybrid System 6. After the Affordable Care Act 7. Conclusion Methodological Appendix Notes References Index
£999.99
University of California Press Trapped in a Maze
Book SynopsisTrapped in a Maze provides a window into families'lived experiences in poverty by looking at their complex interactions with institutions such as welfare, hospitals, courts, housing, and schools. Families are more intertwined with institutions than ever as they struggle to maintain their eligibility for services and face the possibility that involvement with one institution could trigger other types of institutional oversight. Many poor families find themselves trapped in a multi-institutional maze, stuck in between several systems with no clear path to resolution. Tracing the complex and often unpredictable journeys of families in this maze, this book reveals how the formal rationality by which these institutions ostensibly operate undercuts what they can actually achieve. And worse, it demonstrates how involvement with multiple institutions can perpetuate the conditions of poverty that these families are fighting to escape.Trade Review"In this concise, excellent book, Leslie Paik demonstrates how these institutions, while intended to support poor families, instead trap them deeper in poverty." * American Journal of Sociology *
£64.00
University of California Press Trapped in a Maze
Book SynopsisTrapped in a Maze provides a window into families'lived experiences in poverty by looking at their complex interactions with institutions such as welfare, hospitals, courts, housing, and schools. Families are more intertwined with institutions than ever as they struggle to maintain their eligibility for services and face the possibility that involvement with one institution could trigger other types of institutional oversight. Many poor families find themselves trapped in a multi-institutional maze, stuck in between several systems with no clear path to resolution. Tracing the complex and often unpredictable journeys of families in this maze, this book reveals how the formal rationality by which these institutions ostensibly operate undercuts what they can actually achieve. And worse, it demonstrates how involvement with multiple institutions can perpetuate the conditions of poverty that these families are fighting to escape.Trade Review"In this concise, excellent book, Leslie Paik demonstrates how these institutions, while intended to support poor families, instead trap them deeper in poverty." * American Journal of Sociology *
£22.50
University of California Press How Ten Global Cities Take On Homelessness
Book SynopsisCreative solutions for global cities addressing their urgent homeless crises. This book takes on perhaps the most formidable issue facing metropolitan areas today: the large numbers of people experiencing homelessness within cities. Four dedicated experts with first-hand experience profile ten citiesBogota, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Houston, Nashville, New York City, Baltimore, Edmonton, Paris, and Athensto explore ideas, strategies, successes, and failures. Together they bring an array of government, nonprofit, and academic perspectives to offer a truly global perspective. The authors answer essential questions about the nature and causes of homelessness and analyze how cities have used innovation and local political coordination to address this pervasive problem. Ten Global Cities will be an invaluable resource not only for students of policy and social work but for municipal, regional, and national policymakers; nonprofit service providers; community advocates and activists; and all citizens who want to collaborate for real change. These authors argue that homelessness is not an insurmountable social condition, and their examples show that cities and individuals working in coordination can lead the charge for better outcomes. Trade Review"The book is a valuable resource for those interested in how cities have succeeded in tackling some of the causes and consequences of homelessness. . . . It offers a refreshing hands-on contribution that not only identifies the problems around homelessness but, crucially, provides specific examples and evidence from many different settings about what can be done to overcome it." * LSE Review of Books *"Its real-world examples provide digestible and valuable information to the public—especially to advocates who are beginning a vocation in the field. . . . The book demonstrates that, thanks to the passion and determination of homeless-service system actors, innovative approaches in outreach and housing-first models have emerged and been successful." * Stanford Social Innovation Review *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction: Can Cities Solve Global Homelessness? 1. The Transformation of Homeless Services 2. Engaging People on the Streets 3. Sheltering Options That Work 4. Developing an Affordable Housing Strategy 5. Supportive Housing to Target Complex Needs 6. Prevention That Works 7. Systems-Level Thinking 8. Engaging the Community 9. Understanding the Homeless System: Street Counts, By-Name Lists, Agency Databases, and Basic Research 10. Managing for Results: Performance Management and Modeling 11. Managing in Emergencies Conclusion: Lessons for Other Cities—It Can Be Done Appendix Notes References Index
£64.00
University of California Press How Ten Global Cities Take on Homelessness
Book SynopsisCreative solutions for global cities addressing their urgent homeless crises. This book takes on perhaps the most formidable issue facing metropolitan areas today: the large numbers of people experiencing homelessness within cities. Four dedicated experts with first-hand experience profile ten citiesBogota, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Houston, Nashville, New York City, Baltimore, Edmonton, Paris, and Athensto explore ideas, strategies, successes, and failures. Together they bring an array of government, nonprofit, and academic perspectives to offer a truly global perspective. The authors answer essential questions about the nature and causes of homelessness and analyze how cities have used innovation and local political coordination to address this pervasive problem. Ten Global Cities will be an invaluable resource not only for students of policy and social work but for municipal, regional, and national policymakers; nonprofit service providers; community advocates and activists; and all citizens who want to collaborate for real change. These authors argue that homelessness is not an insurmountable social condition, and their examples show that cities and individuals working in coordination can lead the charge for better outcomes. Trade Review"The book is a valuable resource for those interested in how cities have succeeded in tackling some of the causes and consequences of homelessness. . . . It offers a refreshing hands-on contribution that not only identifies the problems around homelessness but, crucially, provides specific examples and evidence from many different settings about what can be done to overcome it." * LSE Review of Books *"Its real-world examples provide digestible and valuable information to the public—especially to advocates who are beginning a vocation in the field. . . . The book demonstrates that, thanks to the passion and determination of homeless-service system actors, innovative approaches in outreach and housing-first models have emerged and been successful." * Stanford Social Innovation Review *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction: Can Cities Solve Global Homelessness? 1. The Transformation of Homeless Services 2. Engaging People on the Streets 3. Sheltering Options That Work 4. Developing an Affordable Housing Strategy 5. Supportive Housing to Target Complex Needs 6. Prevention That Works 7. Systems-Level Thinking 8. Engaging the Community 9. Understanding the Homeless System: Street Counts, By-Name Lists, Agency Databases, and Basic Research 10. Managing for Results: Performance Management and Modeling 11. Managing in Emergencies Conclusion: Lessons for Other Cities—It Can Be Done Appendix Notes References Index
£22.50
University of California Press Moving the Needle
Book SynopsisThis timely investigation reveals how sustained tight labor markets improve the job prospects and life chances of America's most vulnerable households. Most research on poverty focuses on the damage caused by persistent unemployment. But what happens when jobs are plentiful and workers are hard to come by? Moving the Needle examines how very low unemployment boosts wages at the bottom, improves benefits, lengthens job ladders, and pulls the unemployed into a booming job market. Drawing on over seventy years of quantitative data, as well as interviews with employers, jobseekers, and longtime residents of poor neighborhoods, Katherine S. Newman and Elisabeth S. Jacobs investigate the most durable positive consequences of tight labor markets. They also consider the downside of overheated economies that can ignite surging rents and spur outmigration.Moving the Needle is an urgent and original call to implement policies that will maintain the current momentum and prepare for potential slowdowns that may lie ahead.Trade Review"Astute and timely . . . . This is a valuable resource for activists, scholars, and policymakers on the front lines of the battle to end poverty." * Publishers Weekly * "Overall, then, Moving the Needle provides a compelling account of the dynamics of tight labor markets with broad relevance to scholars of work and poverty, very broadly defined, and it serves as a useful model for a wide range of social science research." * Social Forces *Table of ContentsContents List of Tables, Figures, and Maps Introduction 1. The Dynamics of Tight Labor Markets 2. What Lasts? Durable Effects of Tight Labor Markets 3. Matching Up: How Employers Adapt to Tight Labor Markets 4. Leaning on Intermediaries 5. Entering from the Edge 6. Declining Drama 7. Family and Fortune 8. Policy Lessons from Tight Labor Markets Appendixes Personal and Institutional Acknowledgments Notes References Index
£22.50
MP-MEL Melbourne University Who Cares Life on Welfare in Australia
Book SynopsisThe twentieth-century Australian welfare state made the bold promise to care for its citizens. But since the 1990s, social security has become increasingly conditional and punitive. Who Cares? outlines the perspectives of people affected by welfare measures, offering an urgent account of the implications of reforms.
£20.96
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Free Markets and Food Riots
Book SynopsisDescribes and explains the extraordinary wave of popular protest that swept across the so-called Third World and the countries of the former socialist bloc during the period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, in response to the mounting debt crisis and the austerity measures widely adopted as part of economic 'reform' and 'adjustment'.Table of ContentsList of Tables. Acknowledgements. Part I: Introduction:. 1. Global Adjustment. 2. Food Riots Past and Present. Part II: Case Studies:. 3. Fighting for Survival: Women's Responses to Austerity Programs. 4. Latin America: Popular Protest and the State. 5. Economic Adjustment and Democratization in Africa. 6. The Middle East and North Africa. 7. The Asian Debt Crisis: Structural Adjustment and Popular Protest in India. 8. Explaining Sri Lanka's Exceptionalism: Popular Responses to Welfarism and the 'Open Economy'. 9. The Politics of Economic Reform in Central and Eastern Europe. Part III: Conclusion:. 10. Debt Crisis and Democratic Transition. Bibliography. Index.
£25.65
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Poverty
Book SynopsisWidely regarded as one of the classics of post-war historical writing, this book shows how central the role of poverty has been throughout the history of Europe. A history of poverty in Europe covering over 1000 years. Translated into Italian, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. High profile author - a leading member of solidarity and professor at the College de France. Trade Review"A wise, distinguished medieval historian, veteran of Poland's own battles with poverty, here extends himself over a millennium and a continent to illuminate the constantly-changing social conditions, definitions, explanations, political measures, and charitable actions by which Europeans have generated, mitigated, and stigmatized material hardship." Charles Tilly "A serious, meticulously researched history, Geremek's is a fine account of a fascinating and perennially topical subject." Literary ReviewTable of ContentsForeword. Introduction: What is Poverty?. 1. The Middle Ages: Charity and Salvation. 2. The Disintegration of Medieval Society. 3. Reformation and Repression: the 1520s. 4. The Reform of Charity. 5. Charitable Polemics: Local Politics and Reasons of State. 6. Prisons of Enlightenment. 7. Poverty and the Contemporary World. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
£46.50
Wiley Gendered Poverty and WellBeing
Book SynopsisThe interlinkages between gender and poverty have, until recently, escaped careful analytical scrutiny. The contributors to this edited volume critically reflect on some of the key methodological and analytical issues that a gendered analysis of poverty needs to address. These foundational issues have serious implications for public action in this area.Trade Review"The contributors critically reflect on key methodological and analytical issues of a gendered analysis of poverty. The conclusion is that it is impossible to integrate gender into an understanding on poverty unless the reading of evidence and the analysis are grounded on the relational processes of accumulation and impoverishment. These are foundational issues, and have serious implications for public action to reduce/ eradicate the different kinds of poverty that men and women experience." Oxfam, Review of Journals "It is an extremely rich resource for anyone concerned with issues of gender and poverty. Researchers and practitioners will find in it a wealth of reliable information, clear concepts and robust arguments." Ines Smith, Oxfam GBTable of Contents1. Introduction: Gendered Poverty and Social Change: Shahra Razavi (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development). 2. Gender Bias and the 'Marriage Squeeze' in China, South Korea, and India: Monica Das Gupta and Li Shuzhuo (The World Bank and Xi'and Jiaotong University). 3. Development and Rising Female Demographic Disadvantage in India 1981-1991: What is the Role of Sex Selective Female Abortion and Female Infanticide?: S. Sudha and S. Irudaya Rajan (Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram). 4. The Conditions and Consequences of Choice: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment: Naila Kabeer (Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK). 5. Gendering Poverty: A Review of Six World Bank African Poverty Assessments: Matthew Lockwood and Ann Whitehead (Christian Aid and University of Sussex). 6. Labour-Intensive Growth, Poverty and Gender: Neo-Classical, Institutionalist and Feminist Accounts: Shahra Razavi (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development). 7. Engendering Poverty Alleviation: The Challenges and Opportunities in the 1990s: Gita Sen (DAWN and Indian Institute of Management).
£20.66
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Wealth and Poverty in America
Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to be poor in America at the dawn of the 21st century? For that matter, what does it mean to be rich? And how are the two related to each other? These apparently simple questions present enormous theoretical and empirical challenges to any student or social scientist. Wealth and Poverty in America is a collection of over 20 important essays on the complex relationship between the rich and poor in the United States. The authors include classical and contemporary thinkers on a wide variety of topics such as economic systems, the lifestyles of the rich and poor, and public policy. An editorial introduction and suggestions for further reading make this a useful and valuable source of information and analysis on the realities of the American rich and American poor. Collects 23 of the most important essays by classic and contemporary thinkers on wealth and poverty in America. Covers economic systeTrade Review"All too many collections of social science writings are almost literally slapped together, devoid of purpose and focus. This useful volume, however, is a striking exception. It is a 'reader' with a clear focus that consists of 23 well-chosen selctions and a helpful appendix that lists additional readings." Tom Pettigrew, University of California Santa Cruz, Journal of Ethinic and Migration Studies, Vol 32 No 7 "This book is a wonderful resource for teaching. Dalton Conley has accumulated a set of important readings on both spectrums of the social stratification ladder." Martin Sanchez-Janowski, University of California at Berkeley Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: Wealth and Poverty in the Affluent Society 1 Part I: On the Origins and Causes of Wealth and Poverty: Systemic Explanations 11 1. Of the Division of Labor 13Adam Smith 2. Absolute and Relative Surplus Value 21Karl Marx 3. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 29Max Weber 4. Some Principles of Stratification 43Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore 5. Winner-Take-All Markets 53Robert H. Frank and Philip J. Cook Part II: Who's Rich, Who's Poor: How Resources Affect Life Chances 67 6. Inequality 69Christopher Jencks 7. What Money Can't Buy: Family Income and Children's Life Chances 76Susan Mayer 8. Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth and Social Policy in America 83Dalton Conley 9. Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class 96Mary Patillo-McCoy 10. Ain't No Making It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood 115Jay MacLeod Part III: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous 127 11. From Democracy in America 129Alexis de Tocqueville 12. The Miser and the Spendthrift 135Georg Simmel 13. The Very Rich 140C. Wright Mills 14. Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How they Got There 161David Brooks 15. The Case of Pullman, Illinois 172Michael Walzer Part IV: Lifestyles of the Poor and Anonymous 179 16. Swapping 181Carol Stack 17. The Code of the Streets 190Elijah Anderson 18. Sidewalk Sleeping and Crack Bingeing 201Mitchell Duneier 19. Whores, Slaves, and Stallions: Languages of Exploitation and Accommodation Among Prizefighters 211Loic Wacquant Part V: What is to Be Done? Wealth, Poverty, and Public Policy 223 20. In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America 225Michael Katz 21. The Hidden Agenda 254William Julius Wilson 22. The Stakeholder Society 267Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott 23. Black Economic Progress in the Era of Mass Imprisonment 278Bruce Western, Becky Pettit, Josh Guetzkow Additional Readings 291 Index 293
£45.55
Harvard University Press Off the Books
Book SynopsisVenkatesh takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside, to explore the desperate and remarkable ways in which a community survives. The result is a dramatic narrative of individuals at work, a rich portrait of a community, and a devastating critique of the entrenched poverty that we so often ignore in America.Trade ReviewNo scholar in America understands the underground economy like Sudhir Venkatesh. The book is both beautifully written and incredibly insightful. I can't remember the last time I learned so much from reading a book. -- Steven D. Levitt, co-author of FreakonomicsSudhir Venkatesh has uncovered a social world that will surprise even the most sophisticated observers of human behavior. This extraordinary study could become a classic urban ethnography, and will certainly change the way we think about life and work in the underground. -- William Julius Wilson, author of When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban PoorOff the Books is an outstanding contribution to our understanding urban economic, social and political processes. This engrossing ethnography has led me to change how I theoretically think about fundamental concepts such as social capital, social isolation, and the state of civil society in the US. -- Michael C. Dawson, author of Black VisionsAn original portrait of the blurred boundaries between so-called legitimate and illegitimate economic relations in the U.S. ghetto …A most comprehensive look at the informal economic life of the urban poor. -- Mitchell Duneier, author of SidewalkAn unsentimental but powerfully human analysis of the webs of underground activity that sustain poor neighborhoods and their residents. Venkatesh gives the lie to the denigrating tropes of shiftlessness, mental dullness, government dependence, and disorganization that have been used to indict families in poverty. -- Mary Pattillo, author of Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the CityIn this revealing study of a Southside Chicago neighborhood, sociologist Venkatesh opens a window on how the poor live...Venkatesh keeps his work vital and poignant by using the words of his subjects. * Publishers Weekly *[Venkatesh] spent years in a 10-square-block neighborhood on Chicago's South Side observing the clandestine work of gangbangers and mechanics, prostitutes and pastors. The result, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, suggests that in some American neighborhoods, the underground economy is a source not just of sustenance but of order, and that while shady transactions may be illegal, they adhere to a distinctive and sophisticated set of laws. -- Patrick Radden Keefe * Slate.com *Remember the Chicago grad student in Freakonomics who figured out why drug dealers live with their mothers? His name is Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, and his new book, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, is the riveting drug-dealer back story--and a lot more. Venkatesh, who is now a professor of sociology and African-American studies at Columbia, spent 1995 to 2003 following the money in 10 square blocks of the Chicago ghetto. He finds an intricate underground web. In it are dealers and prostitutes--and also pastors who take their money, nannies who don't report income, unlicensed cab drivers, off-the-books car mechanics, purveyors of home-cooked soul food, and homeless men paid to sleep outside stores. Venkatesh's insight is that the neighborhood doesn't divide between 'decent' and 'street'--almost everyone has a foot in both worlds. 'Don't matter in some ways if it's the gang or the church,' says one woman as she describes the network that gives her some sense of security. The Wire meets academia, Off the Books is a great and an instructive read. -- Emily Bazelon * Slate.com *[Venkatesh] examines the underground economy of a poor Chicago neighborhood and discovers a thriving system of licit and illicit exchange. Although the resourcefulness of certain drug dealers, back-alley mechanics, and fly-by-night day-care providers is remarkable, Venkatesh argues that under-the-table transactions work to further separate their participants from the economic mainstream. -- Benjamin Healy * The Atlantic *In Off the Books, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh defines the underground economy as 'a web in which many different people, from the criminal to the pious, from the down-and-out to the bourgeois, are inextricably intertwined'...The story Venkatesh tells in Off the Books is specific to Maquis Park, but the underground economy he found there almost certainly has its counterpart in the black ghettos of large cities. Indeed, its reach extends beyond the ghetto to the kitchens of restaurants, the homes of the well-off and the myriad service jobs that employ workers off the books. Yet it remains in the shadows, barely touched by researchers, a vast world usually ignored, misunderstood, or dismissed with stereotypes. Venkatesh's riveting account describes the underground economy through vividly realized characters...[His] dissection of Maquis Park's underground economy overturns one stereotype and common assumption about the urban poor after another...Venkatesh finds the underground economy's origins in the racism, economic devastation, and political abandonment that have decimated many big American cities...What can be done? Venkatesh offers no concrete remedies. But that is not his point. Off the Books is not about policy. Wonderfully written, brilliantly researched, it illuminates, as no other book has done, the ubiquitous world of shady activities that structure everyday life for the residents of the nation's Maquis Parks in ways few Americans observe or understand. -- Michael B. Katz * Chicago Tribune *Venkatesh paints a detailed picture that reflects his close acquaintance with the neighborhood, moving from businesses that are legal but off the books to those that are entirely outside the law and talking to home-based food preparers and preachers, street hustlers and gang members...This is a Chicago you don't know, told in readable prose that puts most other sociologists to shame. -- Harold Henderson * Chicago Reader *In Sudhir Venkatesh's newly published Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, readers are introduced to a cast-royale of rogues, some loveable, others little short of detestable, who inhabit a super-isolated ghetto neighborhood in Southside Chicago...For four hundred pages, Venkatesh describes in intimate detail the often bizarre world of economic relationships in this urban edge zone, largely outside the web of economic, political, legal, and law-enforcement structures that dominate mainstream American life. The result is a compelling, deeply disturbing ground-level view of today's underclass...His approach--offering a pastiche of images of the ghetto economy rather than bombarding readers with statistics on income levels, life expectancy, and so forth--firmly situates Venkatesh in a long tradition of writers preoccupied with anecdotally chronicling America's underside and crafting verbal portraits of the colorful, often entertaining misfits on the margins...Overall, this is a fascinating look at a place and community that would otherwise remain entirely under the radar. If our economy and society throws up such spectacular inequalities, at the very least we owe it to the poorest of the poor to try to understand their lives, their struggles, their pain. Venkatesh takes us into this world; it's an often-ugly place, but, as Off the Books shows, it is also one that is strangely compelling. -- Sasha Abramsky * American Prospect Online *[A] remarkable book. -- Paul Seabright * Times Literary Supplement *[Venkatesh] immersed himself in Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside…He discovered and analyzed the diverse forms of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work of small business owners. This “off the books” world thrives due to residents’ lack of human capital, high entry costs, poverty, and social isolation. Venkatesh’s analysis weaves hair salons, auto repairs, pimps, drug dealers, block club leaders, ministers, and gang leaders into an intricate web of exchange networks. Varied individuals are also called upon to mediate conflicts in the neighborhood. Venkatesh concludes that without significant changes in inner cities, the underground will flourish. Reminiscent of works by Elijah Anderson. -- J A. Fiola * Choice *Table of Contents* Prologue *1. Living Underground *2. Home at Work *3. The Entrepreneur *4. The Street Hustler *5. The Preacher *6. Our Gang *7. As the Shady World Turns * Notes * Acknowledgments * Index
£24.26
