In this article Judith Goode explains that too often in a capitalist society are the poor forgotten. Not only are they forgotten they are also treated sometimes as less of a citizen. By constructing ethnographic research she is able to " rehumanize" poor people. Goode also challenges some other theories of poverty, thoes set forth by Lewis in his " Culture of Poverty." One of the main challenges that Judith Goode had with Oscar Lewis's "The Culture of Poverty" was his idea of people in poverty keep themselves in poverty, "by lacking a male presence, coming from broken homes, and flawed personalities". (Goode 187) She seems to disagree with the fact that poor people are poor because of their characters. It is her belief, that people are not poor because of their character but because of their "location and nature of local industries." (Goode 187)
She also attributes the status of being poor to the different levels of racism that exist in the industrial world.
She goes on to explain how the findings in the ethnographic reports done show many more contradicitons to Lewis' theory. For example, some ehtnographic research done on welfare shows some significant contradictions to the common ideology of the system. "People on welfare want to work and the average time on welfare is short." (Goode 194) This is a direct inverse to what society thinks of welfare recipents that they are lazy and do not want work. In short Judith Goode is associating poverty with circumstance rather than a flaw in character.
After reading both articles again for I am using quotations and ideas from both for my ethnography report. I think poverty is a combination of both the character of the individual and they way they perceive their circumstance. Im studying the effects of poverty on individuals and from my findings it is evident that individuals are able to overcome their circumstances and in some other individuals they fall victim to their environment.
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