{"id":548,"date":"2017-12-08T16:54:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T21:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/?p=548"},"modified":"2017-12-08T14:57:11","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T19:57:11","slug":"the-survival-strategies-of-working-class-whites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/cities-and-society\/the-survival-strategies-of-working-class-whites\/","title":{"rendered":"The Survival Strategies of Working Class Whites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Sherman\u2019s work in Golden Valley was focused on studying the effect of poverty, industrial restructuring, and rapid job loss on a mostly white rural community. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>This was in order to observe the ways in which declining life changes can lead to the evolution of specific cultural and moral discourses that help people adjust to their changing circumstances and compensate for their inabilities to achieve success through more traditional avenues ( 30). Sherman\u2019s work was especially interesting due to the fact that white poverty, especially in the urban sense is seldom discussed and studied, and is interesting to compare white rural poverty to the theories of hypersegregation and the creation of the iconic ghetto in cities we have discussed in class, which focussed on predominately black and minority ethnic groups. What Sherman found is that community setting can affect behavior of the poor in a number of ways, for instance, Sherman argues that a rural setting allows for a greater range of survival tools and strategies that are acceptable within separate sub-cultural spheres (65). \u00a0And that the evidence from Golden Valley suggests that rural areas may operate according to very different social rules than urban areas, and in order to alleviate poverty we must first understand the different \u201csocial milieus\u201d in which poverty is prevalent and the ways in which setting interacts with culture and behavior (99) . <\/span><\/p>\n

Sherman\u2019s work was interesting to discuss in class following the past two lectures which had focused on the creation of the hypersegregation theories presented \u00a0that sought to explain the formation of the urban (predominantly black) ghetto. Particularly, how similarities arise between the forces, particularly institutional, and ways in which industrialization have constructed what appears to be parallels to \u2018the inherited ghetto\u2019 theory. My question hopes to draw out these similarities and differences around the structural forces that led to poverty becoming concentrated within the urban and rural context, as well as the tools\/ resources each group had to combat such obstacles. <\/span><\/p>\n

What I was left thinking about after the discussion where a few things. First, thinking about the structural challenges that differ between an urban and rural setting, and how this can affect the tools and resources available to the citizens (if one does not consider race). \u00a0In Golden Valley the use of federal aid was not a taboo. Meanwhile in the urban setting, aide is regularly used. Does this have to do with the structural anonymity that is associated with city life verse a small rural town where there are few stores? Or is it a difference in cultural values? Or perhaps a difference in the who they blame for poverty and whether they feel deserving of \u201chelp\u201d. Second, the type of survival strategies that develop in order to combat poverty. In Golden Valley, white citizens appear to develop an \u201cus v them\u201d mentality, and social capital becomes in ways more valuable than economic. How people view you (race, whether you receive aid, civic participation) matters a great deal more to one\u2019s membership into society than the size of their waller. Lastly, the centrality of place. I saw a lot of parallels to the idea of \u201cinheriting\u201d where one was from. We talked about how many of us could see growing up our own desire to \u201cget out\u201d of the small town, city, suburb, etc we were from. There is an inherent desire for the \u201cdifferent\u201d when we have the capital to choose for ourselves, however there is a pattern that people return to where they are from, or at least a similar place. Which could explain why those seem to remain in \u201cghetto\u201d or \u201cpoverty\u201d classified places. There appears to be an identity and value mapped onto these places that hold a special value. <\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, the class discussion raised an interesting connection to the most recent Presidential election. In the \u00a0last election, Trump was able to mobilize a significant population of populist and postmaterialist votes. People who were skeptical of outsiders, which sounds familiar to the concerns of the people of Golden Valley. Similar to the ways in which white poverty is \u201cforgotten\u201d, this \u00a0voting block in the election felt their needs and values had been unheard by past elites. People were angry and wanted to be payed attention to. We weren’t able to discuss this much further, but it is an interesting idea and parallel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Sherman\u2019s work in Golden Valley was focused on studying the effect of poverty, industrial restructuring, and rapid job loss on a mostly white rural community. \u00a0This was in order to observe the ways in which declining life changes can lead to the evolution of specific cultural and moral discourses that help people adjust to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities-and-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}