Politics, Race, and Poverty Research

Abstract

Ruminates on poverty research, focusing on conceptual issues, politics, & race. The bias toward econometric analysis in poverty research is lamented for want of sufficient conceptual resources, advocating a cross-disciplinary approach to complement the heavily quantitative field. More attention needs to be paid to the allocation of business cycle risks among income classes in the US & to the construction of the very concept of "poverty." It is contended that researchers should not ignore the impact of prevailing political attitudes on policy making, particularly in terms of eschewing critical analysis of these public sentiments. A radically progressive sensibility in poverty research is called for. To address the blatant link between race & poverty, the notions of discrimination in contract & discrimination in contact are presented, arguing that mechanisms of status transmission & social mobility hinge on social interactions in both spheres. Further, cultural explanations to account for racial disparities are challenged for neglecting the fact that group identifications & racial self-understandings are endogenous; the question of how groups construct notions of what constitutes a behavioral norm is posed. J. Zendejas