The broken fountain by Thomas Belmonte

Broken Fountain

Quiz 3: The Culture of Poverty

The Culture of Poverty

Oscar Lewis' 'culture of poverty' approach to understanding the disenfranchised can be best described as a theory of a 'cycle' of poverty, whereby decreased opportunities in life lead to the same fate being suffered by the children of the poor. Life is a struggle for the poor, thus lessening the energy the poor have to devote to education and social betterment. This creates a cycle of depression and despondency that is often reinforced by the larger community, who are poor themselves and resent attempts at social improvement. Lewis acknowledges that communities can exist with common ethnic ties that sustain members of the impoverished area with mutual aid as well as subvert attempts at social betterment but this cultural is tangential to his theory. The real culture is the culture of poverty, much like any other culture, is a kind of theory of expectations of behavior. But in the culture of poverty these expectations are self-defeating.

Much of what Thomas Belmonte chronicles in urban anthropology of Fontana del Re, an impoverished Neapolitan neighborhood, seems to confirm what Lewis says about a culture of poverty. Belmonte's Neapolitans live in physically unhealthy conditions, under the worries of constant economic insecurity. Life is day-to-day struggle, with little future thinking. The children, rather than seeking to dream of a better life, are beggars and thieves.

Yet Belmonte also presents a community that lacks the desperation and depression and low self-esteem Lewis says are endemic to poverty. The culture of Naples, and the pride and the humor of the residents in their struggles belie the simplicity of Lewis' generalized assumptions. The poor struggle, but not necessarily with the bitterness and sense of deprivation assumed by Lewis.