Living with Poverty and Dependence in England

Addresses the effects of poverty on multiple interdependencies in kinship, neighbourly and friendship relations, exploring how interpersonal relationships are made, unmade, recuperated or ended by people who are living with poverty in one of England’s most deprived neighbourhoods.

This book addresses the effects of poverty on multiple interdependencies in kinship, neighbourly and friendship relations. It explores how interpersonal relationships are made, unmade, recuperated or ended by people who are living with poverty in one of England’s most deprived neighbourhoods. 

The book is based on nearly a decade (2011–2020) of sustained ethnographic research within and across households in Harpurhey, North Manchester, England. Harpurhey is a suburban area in Manchester, located just three and a half miles northeast of the city centre. This book interrogates the everyday lives of people in Harpurhey ethnographically, placing their lives and agency at the centre of analysis.  It explores the everyday lives of people who live with poverty and are rely upon state welfare support to make ends meet. Analytically, the arguments in this book begin by making a distinction between the production of poverty as a political, economic and ideological effect of capitalist processes and state activity, and the everyday, mundane choices and behaviours of the people who manage those effects (cf. Goode and Maskovsky 2001).  Each chapter shows what may be concealed and revealed in interpersonal relationships between people living with poverty and in multiple interdependencies.