Social theory asserting that value systems perpetuate poverty
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Related articles
Critique of political economy
Original affluent society
Formalist–substantivist debate
The Great Transformation
Peasant economics
Culture of poverty
Political economy
State formation
Nutritional anthropology
Heritage commodification
Anthropology of development
Major theorists
Paul Bohannan
Alexander Chayanov
Stanley Diamond
Raymond Firth
Maurice Godelier
David Graeber
Jane I. Guyer
Keith Hart
Marvin Harris
Bronisław Malinowski
Marcel Mauss
Sidney Mintz
Karl Polanyi
Marshall Sahlins
Harold K. Schneider
Eric Wolf
Social and cultural anthropology
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The culture of poverty is a concept in social theory that asserts that the values of people experiencing poverty play a significant role in perpetuating their impoverished condition, sustaining a cycle of poverty across generations. It attracted policy attention in the 1970s, and received academic criticism (Goode & Eames 1996; Bourgois 2001; Small, Harding & Lamont 2010), and made a comeback at the beginning of the 21st century.[1] It offers one way to explain why poverty exists despite anti-poverty programs. Early formations suggest that poor people lack resources and acquire a poverty-perpetuating value system. Critics of the early culture of poverty arguments insist that explanations of poverty must analyze how structural factors interact with and condition individual characteristics (Goode & Eames 1996; Bourgois 2001; Small, Harding & Lamont 2010). As put by Small, Harding & Lamont (2010), "since human action is both constrained and enabled by the meaning people give to their actions, these dynamics should become central to our understanding of the production and reproduction of poverty and social inequality." Further discourse suggests thats Oscar Lewis’s work was misunderstood.[2]
^Cohen 2010.
^Hill, Ronald Paul (September 2002). "Consumer Culture and the Culture of poverty: Implications for Marketingtheory and Practice". Marketing Theory. 2 (3): 273–293. doi:10.1177/1470593102002003279. ISSN 1470-5931. S2CID 145326406.
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