goode by giray suli

In this chapter Goode seeks to refute stereotypes of poor people as irreational human beings who must be taught by govermental actions. She argues that the insights provided by urban athnopology have shown people that are ppor given their limited choices are just as rational in finding solutions to their problems.as are people in other social strata. Goode criticizes oscar lewis's cultire of poverty as legitimizing explanations of persistent poverty that lay theblame on pathological individual behavior and culture of thr poor.

Urban Anthropology has been involved in both generation and critique of myths about behavior of the poor.Goode explores the contributons of such anthropology toward humanizind poor people in the face of sensationalized accounts of pathological personalities and dysfunctional family structures.
Ethnograpy involves long-term close-up personal observation and listening to people in context of their everyday lives.THe belief that poor people are culturally removed from the mainstream found in allusions to a culture of poverty is an aspect of the culture or ideology of industrial capitalism. We will be examining some insights about living in poverty generated by Lewis  and other anthropologists.

We are indebted to Lewis for demonstrating many of the ingenious material coping practices among poor Mexicans And Puertoricans.Rather than illustrating laziness and work avoidance ethnographers have discovered that making ends needs involves hard work skills and management skills. Explanig poverty by blaming poor peoples behaviors has a long history in western capitilization.

The depiction of life experiences of the poor illuminates the ways in which social structure , especiallythe wage-labor market and many of the social bureaucracies unintentionally work to perpetrate structural violence among the poor. Instead of working to reform the poor, ethnographic work argues for reforming these structures and building on the personal  and  social strengths of the poor people themselves.