My name is Sarah Stepnowski, I am a fifth year student at the University of Akron majoring
in Anthropology and minoring in Classical Studies and Psychology. In this Fellowship, I
worked with Dr. Carolyn Behrman. We decided I should focus my attention on
strengthening my library research and writing skills, so I completed an annotated
bibliography that examines poverty and power. The background for this decision is my
participation in research in a very low resourced neighborhood of Akron during the Field
Methods in Cultural Anthropology class taught by Dr. Behrman during the Spring semester
of 2013. In this class, we did ethnographic fieldwork which included attending
neighborhood watch meetings, interviewing residents, and exploring the issues they
identified as central concerns for their community. We learned how this group of people
worked alone and together to protect themselves, negotiate support from city entities, and
struggle against forces eroding their quality of life.
My interest in this community grew so after the course ended and I was awarded this
Fellowship, I decided to continue to focus on this local setting. I knew I wanted to hone my
academic research skills which is why I decided to put my energy into the bibliography but
I continue to be interested in fieldwork methods as well so, while working on my
bibliography, I also participated in community events and writing up field notes. For the
bibliography, I began searching for and reading articles about poverty and power from all
around the world. I then sorted through all of the articles, picked out those most relevant
to the local context and sorted them out into themes. I then read the articles carefully,
summarized them, and wrote a statement explaining how they relate to the community in
question. As the work progressed, I formulated a logical order for the articles and
annotations, dropped some, added others, and finally created the annotated bibliography
which I hope will aid Dr. Behrman in her ongoing research in the area.
ABSTRACT FOR THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
This is an annotated bibliography of literature on poverty and power. It was compiled with
specific attention to issues relevant to a very low resource neighborhood in Akron, Ohio.
The literature presented here is divided into five primary categories including works that
focus on geography, health, neighborhood, gender, and children. These categories arose in
part from the literature as I read into works on poverty and power and in part from field
work I was participating in while working on this bibliography. This is an ongoing effort
but in its present form this annotated bibliography includes 36 scholarly works of which
the most salient 15 have been summarized and annotated.
Sample Entry
Ross, Catherine E., John Mirowsky, and Shana Pribesh. (2001). Powerlessness and the
Amplification of Threat: Neiborhood Disadvantage, Disorder, and Mistrust.
American Sociological Review 66(4): 568-591.
This article proposes a theory of mistrust to explain experiences of innercity, low resources neighborhood residents. The authors explain that
“mistrust develops in neighborhoods where resources are scarce and threat
is common, among individuals with few resources and who feel powerless to
avoid or manage the threat” (p.568). They looked at data from community
crime and health surveys compiled in Illinois in 1995. A sample of 2,482
Illinois residents completing a random digit dialing survey. The researchers
found data supporting their hypotheses. Neighborhood disorder was found
to be associated with mistrust and views of powerlessness although it had
little effect on those who felt a strong sense of self control. Single parents
were found to have the highest levels of mistrust. A question that they drew
from this information was: is it that disorder and a sense of powerlessness
amplify mistrust or is it the other way around, that people who are
mistrusting and have no sense of power, view their neighborhood to be more
disordered?
This article can be related to our local context because our ethnographic
work in class and my field notes from events this fall indicate that residents
and leaders often express mistrust. Their resources are scarce, there is
disorder, crime, danger, and people frequently expressed feelings of
powerlessness in public gatherings and interviews. This article is important
because it offers us a theoretical framework we might use for research and
data we might consider comparing our work to. The study’s authors describe
a strong correlation between the sense of powerlessness and neighborhood
disorder and mistrust. The recognition in this article that a sense of personal
control minimizes the feelings of mistrust is something we could explore and
it is also a practical finding that might reinforce efforts by community leaders
to engage residents in actions.