Pimping the Welfare System : Empowering Participants with Economic, Social, and Cultural Capital

Pimping the System is an ethnographic study of two welfare offices that empowered welfare-reliant women by providing dominant economic, social, and cultural capital in ways that acknowledged and respected the types of capital participants already possessed. It highlights ways that policy makers and front-line workers can best assist welfare participants, and shows the potential for welfare programs to be sites of individual and community empowerment. Based on ethnographic research in Contra Costa County, California (CCC), Pimping the Welfare System highlights a welfare program implemented after welfare reform that differed in significant ways from the predominant work first approach implemented by most welfare programs. The book argues that by imparting dominant economic, social, and cultural capital, CCC's welfare program empowered participants and improved their quality of life and life chances. Successfully transmitting these types of capital, however, was dependent upon the discourses, practices, and pedagogy deployed by welfare workers--as well as the policies, practices, and resources of the welfare program. In particular, CCC's welfare workers encouraged the acquisition and use of dominant capital (that which is desired by the labor market) by acknowledging and respecting the various types of capital welfare participants already had, and by encouraging participants to make strategic choices about deploying different types of capital. This book calls into question monolithic understandings of economic, social, and cultural capital and encourages a new conceptualization of capital that resists framing poor women as fundamentally “lacking.” In addition, it points to ways welfare administrators and welfare workers can develop more empowering programs even within the confines of federal, state, and local regulations. Based on ethnographic research in Contra Costa County (CCC), California, this book highlights a welfare program that differed in significant ways from the prevailing "work first" approach that was implemented throughout the nation after the 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility Act. Kerry C. Woodward argues that by imparting dominant economic, social, and cultural capital, CCC's welfare program empowered participants and improved their quality of life" and life chances. Successful transmission of these types of capital was dependent upon the discourses, practices, and pedagogy of welfare workers, as well as the policies and practices guiding CCC's implementation of reform. Pimping the Welfare System calls into question monolithic understandings of economic, social, and cultural capital and encourages a new conceptualization of capital that resists framing poor women as "lacking." In addition, it points to the ways welfare administrators and welfare workers can develop more empowering programs within the confines of federal, state, and local regulations. As such, it will be a vital resource for graduate students, scholars, and policy makers working in the areas of poverty and welfare reform, as well as those interested in social and cultural capital or critical pedagogies. Book jacket