Homework for September 29th

Pg 157-169

“In Motion”

Pardue did a study on social differences in Sao Paulo by focusing on the meaning of transportation. In this essay he wrote three different narratives that focuses on cognitive maps related to the social geography of Sao Paulo. In the first narrative, he compares trains, buses, and subways. Pardue interviewed a man names Robson and discussed the differences in the public transportation. Robson was a part of a working-class family that had a lot of pride. He explained that the bus is a more sophisticated way of traveling than the train because a bus affords views on life and perspective, whereas the train is a sardine can. His family knew the trains well, but if there was a family or group function, they would take the bus. He felt because the bus was above ground, it would help him be able to dream and enjoy the view of traffic. He felt the train was an undesirable way to travel and lowest legal form of transportation. 

In the next narrative, Pardue talked about a woman named Edilaine. She grew up in a working-class neighborhood where they had to take complicated forms of transportation to work. When she was older, she was able to work her from being a journalist to becoming an editor of a professional news release for doctors. She describes herself being different now, not in the way she looks, but in the way she acts and feels. After she married a doctor and moved to a different part of town, she forgot when she used to have to take complicated forms of transportation. She now has a private driver that takes her and her daughter where they need to go. 

The last narrative was about hip-hoppers and spacial occupation. The first hip-hoppers gathered around the subways in the 80’s. They targeted those public places to express that they were somebody. They believed that their confidence and rights to to public spaces were based on a morally deserved recognition. They used the public spaces as a way to accomplish greater things by getting recognition from society. 

This reading was very interesting to me. I love learning about what other people think of their communities and cities. 

Pages 171-184

“Urban Structures and Institutions”

“The Culture of Poverty”

This essay starts out by saying Wirth’s view are being challenged by other anthropologists because people are coming into the city and no matter what ethnicity, they are connecting with other people and it is a positive experience for them. It goes on to explain what Oscar Lewis studied, urban poverty. He explains it’s not the fault of people who lack sufficient economic resources, but it reflects the structural features of contemporary capitalist societies, lack of work opportunities. Government can sometimes be a help in those situations, but sometimes the government isn’t organized and people find other ways of surviving which are sometimes illegal. 

Lewis states, “The culture of poverty is both an adaptation and a reaction of the poor to their marginal position in a class-stratified, highly individuated, capitalistic society.” The culture of poverty is the way of life that develops in some of the poor that live in societies of low income, high unemployment rates, bilateral kinship system, cash economy, wage labor, ect. It tends to travel from generation to generation because of it’s effect on the children. They are so used to their way of life, that they never take the initiative to change it. 

I believe that Lewis has a pretty dark view on poverty in cities. I don’t wholly agree with him on everything. but I do have to agree with him and say generally poverty does travel through the generations because people don’t teach their children how to be responsible people. Now, I am not saying that all poor people are like that, and some really try their hardest to get out of the situation that they are in. I think that it is very difficult for them to do that though, because many times they have no support from their family and friends and they don’t necessarily know how to get out by themselves.