Negotiating social assistance : the case of the urban poor in Turkey

Abstract

In Turkey, social assistance program has been widely criticized for being inefficient in the provision of relief. Yet there are almost no movements among poor people to make demands couched in rational and critical language for a better program, which liberal modernist thinkers idealize as the politics of need interpretation. It is generally believed that poor people are mute and excluded from the process because of their lack of discursive capital. In this paper I discuss the possibility of different varieties of participation in the politics of need interpretation by focusing on the everyday practices of the poor based on ethnographic research conducted in a low income district in Istanbul. I argue that the poor do participate in the struggle over needs, elucidating how the poor negotiate with the officials of the Fund's local branch by assuming the former image and by using religious moral language.Turkey, Social welfare, Social policy, Poverty, Urban societies, Social assistance, Urban poor, Politics of needs interpretation, Everyday politics