Entrepreneurs of Themselves: How Poor Women Enact Asset-Building Discourse

Abstract

Welfare policy discourse plays an important role in shaping how marginalised groups are identified and how poverty is addressed. Research on welfare policy discourse has mostly adopted a top-down perspective, examining how marginalised groups are constituted through interrelated discourses that are produced and enacted by powerful actors. However, little attention has been given to understanding how welfare policy discourse is used and enacted by marginalised groups themselves. This article focuses on asset-building discourse, a newly ascendant discourse which suggests that poverty can be alleviated through savings and building wealth. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 24 poor single mothers of colour participating in a matched savings programme, the article explores how poor women rely on asset-building discourse to make sense of their poverty challenges and how to overcome them. The study finds that the women express neoliberal ideals as they seek to portray themselves as committed to becoming self-sufficient, financially literate, disciplined savers and entrepreneurs. The findings indicate that the women feel empowered and see themselves as worthy citizens, irrespective of whether their economic situation has actually improved or whether they ultimately come to resist asset-building discourse's individualisation of their predicament.

Constructing Spaces of Discourse and ‘Regroupment’: The Case of Women’s Self-Reliant Groups in Scotland

“…Here our findings reflect previous studies which show that marginalised groups often reproduce dominant policy discourses of individualisation (Feldman and Schram, 2018, Patrick, 2014). In utilising the discourse in this way the women were able to use SRG membership as a demarcation tactic (Pemberton et al, 2016).…”

Empowering Lone Parents to Progress towards Employability

“…Individuals' 'attitudes towards parenting as a job, perceptions of personal and family constraints and intentions to work' (Towaszewski et al, 2010: 29) need to be respected and factored into to support that empowers them to make choices that benefit themselves and their families. Other individuallevel barriers may include health problems, often exacerbated by repeated experiences of insecurity and the impact of poverty (Feldman and Schram, 2019). There is consistent evidence that poverty as a direct result of welfare retrenchment feeds into lone parents' health problems, while health improvements have been identified among those transitioning from welfare-to-work (Harkness, 2016).…”