Strategic poverty: How social and cultural capital shapes low-income life

Abstract

We investigate how material poverty functions as a cultural space, specifically addressing when it becomes a strategy, that is, when an individual with cultural and social capital adopts a life of low income in order to form other social identities. We examine two groups that use low income to further other goals but differ in their temporal lens: (1) “transitional bourgeoisie,” graduate students and artists who frame their economic deprivation as a temporary means to prospective identities, such as a professorship or success in art; (2) “embedded activists,” committed adults rooted in political and religious organizations who see low income as a permanent strategy to bolster their anti-consumerist desires. Relying on 37 in-depth interviews with informants we ask, how do people in strategic poverty construct satisfying lives? What cultural tools and skill-sets do informants draw upon to negotiate their economic circumstances and middle-class backgrounds?

Keywords

Consumption poverty social capital cultural capital culture strategy

Poor? … I have choices because of the education that I have. … I feel like I have access to choices the way people who have been raised in the projects, who have been imprisoned [don’t have], I mean there are people that live in our house who have been in jail for a felony and they get out and they can't get jobs because once you have a felony, there just aren't any options open to you. So I feel like my situation is very different than those persons or people who have been raised with so much abuse or have been addicted for a long time and are out on the street. … I feel like my education makes a huge difference for me and what my choices are. I can stop being poor if I want to.

Anne, a middle-aged female who runs a Catholic Worker house, a shelter for the homeless, reveals a startling perspective on poverty: the option to remain “poor” in spite of her middle-class background and education. For Anne, poverty is an indirect consequence of her chosen life “occupation” as an activist. In other words, the institution in which Anne operates sets the low-income conditions under which she must live. Anne’s experiences are an example of what we call strategic poverty, defined as when an individual with cultural and social capital adopts a life of low income in order to form other social identities. The example of Anne reveals that low income is not experienced uniformly, but is varied and diverse (Wilson and Aponte, 1985). For many individuals, poverty lasts only a few years (Corcoran, 1995). Consequently, we ask what happens when low income is a strategy in and of itself by those with appropriate social and cultural capital. In addition, we question, how do these individuals survive a life of low income in a self-satisfying way?

We argue that culture shapes the response to economic privation. However, we do not adopt the controversial subculture frame that Oscar Lewis’ (1959, 1998) “culture of poverty” thesis asserts, that the poor hold dysfunctional values, contrasting with middle-class society, trapping them in poverty passed on across generations. Indeed, the 70-plus traits that Lewis argued were present in a “culture of poverty” have since been empirically challenged (Billings, 1974; Carmon, 1985; Coward et al., 1974; Irelan et al., 1969; Jones and Luo, 1999), revealing that the poor hold mainstream American values (Della Fave, 1974). In contrast, we argue that culture is a set of resources that individuals deploy under structural circumstances. Following Swidler (1986), we define culture as a set of tools and skills that individuals draw upon to build “strategies of action.” The word strategy does not refer to the conventional meaning of attaining a goal, but a broader way of organizing action that incorporates “habits, moods, sensibilities, and views of the world” (Swidler, 1986: 277). Conceptualizing culture in this way explains variation in both the coping techniques among those who lack material resources and the actions that lead individuals to selecting a life of low income. Being poor involves choices as well as structural conditions, mediated through strategies of action. Individuals who choose strategic poverty have a cultural repertoire that helps them cope with their restricted finances, which those with more limited tool kits lack. In the words of Amartya Sen (2009: 253), they have capabilities, even if they lack resources.

For this study, we interviewed members of two groups who had a similar level of middle-class capital and education (BA or higher), but differed in the temporal horizons of their low-income life: transitional bourgeoisie (consisting of young artists and graduate students) and embedded activists (a group of committed, mostly older, social activists). We label artists and graduate students as transitional bourgeoisie because poverty was a strategy to forming future identities, that is, becoming a successful artist or academic. The transitional bourgeoisie saw their low income as temporally bounded: it was a rite of passage to a middle-class existence. In contrast, for embedded activists, low income enabled permanent material simplicity. We call the activists in our sample “embedded” because of their ties to religious and political organizations that rejected materialism (for example, Jesus People USA, Mennonites, or Catholic Workers).

For our sample we used an income of US$20,000 as a cap (twice the single-person poverty threshold in 2005). The median income of our sample was US$10,000, approximately the national poverty threshold (broken down by groups: artists US$12,000; graduate students US$12,500; and embedded activists US$6,500). While not all were “economically desperate,” they were economically strapped in contrast to the 2005 median individual income of US$32,140. In spite of their financial position, informants did not self-identify as impoverished. When asked if they felt poor, 86 % replied “no.” The remaining informants agreed that they had difficulty surviving and “on the face of it” were living in poverty. Given their economic strains, we use the label of poverty as a characterization, even if half of our informants were above the government-established poverty line; we emphasize that our use is different from the official government criterion.

Studies of individuals who select a life of low income predominately focus on voluntary simplifiers. Marketing and social psychology scholarship define voluntary simplifiers as individuals who choose either to consume less or to work less (or both) as part of a broader attempt to achieve a lifestyle characterized by simplicity (Nelson et al., 2007; Schor, 1998). Variations are evident within this contemporary phenomenon: downshifters who moderately lower consumption, strong simplifiers who leave high-stress jobs to live on lower incomes, and voluntary simplifiers who adjust life patterns (Etzioni, 1998). Despite varying commitment, voluntary simplifiers are similar in that they do not fully escape the market but find alternative ways to consume and work, engaging in political and ethical consumption. These individuals are consumers, but in different ways, such as, emphasizing reused goods, boycotting particular items, and embracing technological solutions that allow for more sustainable consumption choices (for example, energy efficient appliances) (Shaw and Newholm, 2012).

Voluntary simplicity is not a novel movement; various religious institutions have encouraged a life of simplicity, such as the Quakers and Amish. Thoreau promoted simple living with “Walden” (1854). Perhaps better known, however, is the alternative lifestyle of the hippies of 1960s’ Haight-Ashbury and Greenwich Village (Howard, 1969). Even earlier were the bohemians, young and poor nomads of the 1800s who led a life devoted to the arts (Nathe, 1978). What is considered bohemian has changed over time, yet these movements are united by the theme of downwardly-mobile economic choices, often by those from middle-class backgrounds (Lloyd, 2010). Modern understandings of voluntary simplicity as a lifestyle began in the popular press in the late 1970s and have grown substantially since. Contemporary media representations frame voluntary simplicity through four dimensions: (1) value of the self and personal fulfillment; (2) focus on personal relationships; (3) respect of nature and the environment; and (4) pattern of living, or lifestyle (Burton and Johnston, 2003). As we review, many qualities of voluntary simplifiers, especially their consumption preferences, overlap with those in strategic poverty. Yet, unlike the literature on simplifiers, we do not categorize strategic poverty as a lifestyle.

We argue that for our informants low income is a strategy supporting other identities, whether future occupational success in the case of artists and graduate students, or long-term activism for religious and political advocates. In the following, we outline dimensions of strategic poverty. We divide our findings in light of how artists and graduate students experience and negotiate strategic poverty through a temporary lens versus embedded activists who treat their situation as more permanent. In addition, we investigate the cultural strategies these individuals rely upon to manage their limited income and how they differ by temporal horizons. We explore how a respondent’s level of commitment to low income and their organizational ties impact success at resolving tensions between their middle-class backgrounds and economic circumstances. All informants have extensive social and cultural capital, allowing them to adjust to the structural realities of poverty, an experience distinct from that of the truly impoverished. Lastly, in our discussion, we investigate how strategic poverty contrasts to the growing interest in low-income lifestyles, namely the voluntary simplicity movement.

Methods and sample

Our study is theoretically motivated by the relationship and alignment between Bourdieu’s (1986) types of capital. He outlines three primary forms of capital that arrange agents in a social space: cultural (knowledge, skills, and education), social (personal networks), and economic (financial resources). Oftentimes levels of social, cultural, and economic capital are correlated. Nevertheless, in some instances a clear divergence exists between these three forms of capital. Bourdieu (1984) himself noted cases in which dominant social groups, such as academics and artists, do not have much wealth, but are rich in other types of capital. The concept of strategic poverty plays off this disjuncture, recognizing that low income has vastly different implications for those with cultural and social capital than for those without. Accordingly, our central guiding research question is, how do these individuals adjust to the structural realties of their low income? How do these individuals with other forms of capital draw upon their particular forms of “wealth” to navigate their economic circumstances?

We interviewed members of three groups that choose impoverishment but varied by their occupational pursuits and goals: artists, graduate students, and activists. Originally we felt that artists and graduate students would provide a useful comparison of a defined time-frame (students) versus an open frame (artists); however, in the course of the research, we discovered that the end of poverty was sufficiently uncertain for students and the divisions between the two groups indistinct analytically so we combined the two. Many in both groups felt that they would eventually live as middle class. In sum we conducted 37 interviews. All but three of our sample held at least a BA degree and came from a middle-class family background. The majority reported their father had a professional occupation and one third noted their mothers were housewives. A handful of respondents mentioned economic instability in childhood; all of these cases were linked to parental divorce. Despite their current low income, most informants explicitly self-identified as middle class. As noted, we combined the artists and graduate students into one group, which we call the transitional bourgeoisie, due to their expectation of poverty as transient and their strategic use of low income to accomplish future identities.

As noted, informants earned no more than US$20,000, twice the poverty threshold for a single person at the time of the interviews (2002–2004). Of informants, 70% earned between US$5,000 and US$18,000 a year, gaining income from graduate stipends, a variety of jobs such as bartending or waitressing, and religious and political organizational wages. One respondent only earned US$720 and some individuals affiliated with religious and political groups did not earn any income, although their basic needs and a small discretionary stipend were provided through the organization. The ages of those interviewed were between 19 and 74 years, with the majority of the sample between 22 and 29 years of age, with a median age of 27. Males constituted 65% of the sample and Caucasians 76%; the remaining informants self-identified as Hispanic, Asian, or mixed-ethnic identity. The large majority of the sample was single. All interviews were conducted in the Chicago metropolitan area. Below, we outline further characteristics of each group.

Graduate students (12)

Unsurprisingly, the 12 graduate students had the highest educational attainment. The students were active in doctoral and master’s programs in the fields of humanities and sciences. Among the departments included were English, creative writing, philosophy, chemistry, and computer science. Graduate students saw poverty as part of an expected transitional period lasting between five and eight years for a doctorate and two years for a master’s degree. In contrast to aspiring artists, students were relatively confident of economic stability once they graduated. Of the three groups, graduate students received the most financial support from their families. Further, doctoral students often received a small stipend from the university they attended, typically between US$8,000 and US$13,000. Graduate students were more politically active than the artists, but less than the embedded activists, and generally identified with progressive politics.

Artists (12)

Our sample embodies the stereotype of the starving artist, a man or woman earning low wages at part-time jobs, waiting for a break. These artists recognized that their artwork may never fully support them. Several had depleted their savings and were living on a month-to-month basis to support their artistic aspirations. They saw their time in poverty pursuing artistic endeavors as necessary to their career and hoped to continue as long as feasible. Artists were aware that they might have to choose a different occupational path and many spoke of attending graduate school. Only two in the sample obtained MFAs. All artists interviewed were under the age of 30, with an average age of 25 years.

Embedded activists (13)

Similar to voluntary simplifiers, the 13 embedded activists were driven by a desire to simplify their lives, rejecting consumption and searching for freedom from a routine work schedule. Approximately a quarter of activists were war tax resisters, limiting their income to less than US$4,000, so they would not be responsible for income tax. Tax resisters believed the government spent irresponsibly, as one respondent explained, “I don't pay federal income tax because it goes to war.” The rejection of consumption, coupled with a life driven by simplicity, was often explained by a commitment to Christianity or other spiritual beliefs. Embedded activists had a wide age range (19–74 years, with a median age of 41 years) and some informants made this choice later in life. Activists had the widest variety in educational attainment, from only having completed high school to having obtained multiple master’s degrees. The activist cluster had the highest level of political involvement, typically adhering to liberal ideologies. However, two informants who lived within religious institutions were socially conservative and voted Republican.

The second author interviewed each informant in his or her home with most interviews lasting between one and two hours. Respondents were questioned about their demographic background, views on poverty and welfare, personal possessions and housing, day-to-day consumption habits, such as budgets and unexpected expenses, personal finances, relationships, and political orientations.

Transitional bourgeoisie

How do informants explain and manage a life of low income when it is seen as a temporary condition? We categorize the artists and graduate students we interviewed as transitional bourgeoisie because of their shared conception of poverty as a short-term circumstance. Both graduate students and artists saw impoverishment as a stepping stone to future identities, a professional academic position, or a break to reputational and financial success in the arts. Indeed, for those with sufficient social and cultural capital, impoverishment is a rite of passage, one that gains them credibility among peers (Bourdieu, 1996). Because they view their situation as temporary, artists and graduate students must negotiate their life of low income with desires to maintain middle-class amenities. In this section, we review the transitional bourgeoisie’s cultural repertoire they draw from to survive their economic situation.

Both graduate students and artists searched for a work–life arrangement that would give them freedom to pursue their passions, academic or artistic in nature. Graduate students believed that the normal course of their programs would allow them to pursue their academic interests. However, whereas graduate students were often successful in realizing career goals, artists had a tenuous path to a life supported by their artwork. In order to sustain their involvement in the arts, respondents accepted low-paying and informal jobs that provided flexible work schedules. For musicians, part-time work gave them a “loose schedule” so that they could tour with their band for months, disappearing for as long as they needed. Not only did low wages give artists flexibility to pursue their creative interests, but a depreciated salary was symbolically attached to the very meaning of being an artist:

I think being at a certain income level is really important to being an artist, like, kind of chaos … the chaos of not being able to pay bills … I mean I really hate it, but I really can't see it any other way, being poor, struggling a little bit. I kind of like it.

For many of the artists from wealthy backgrounds it was socially unacceptable to reveal their former economic circumstances. “I mean, there are some people hidden amongst us who have trust funds and stuff like that,” an artist explained, “but they keep themselves fairly well concealed because that's so uncool.”

Swidler (1986) argues that culture is a “tool kit” from which people draw to solve practical problems and construct strategies of action. The quotations reflect this process; artists select symbolic stories of privation from their tool kit to rationalize their economic situations. Artists negotiate low income by drawing from a socially normalized practice, that artistry is coupled with financial “chaos.” Similarly, graduate students drew from their tool kit meanings of the stereotyped broke student to justify their low income. Being a “student” was a role that meant that they were not “really” deprived, because students were supposed to lack resources and because they belonged to a community rich in status. A student explained, “Whether I’m poor is a matter of me thinking I’m still a student … I might answer differently if I was working at a job, living in the conditions that I’m living in now.”

While respondents were aware of their economic insecurity, and often spoke of the difficulties of day-to-day survival, they understood their condition as non-poor. Informants were mindful of their privileged upbringing. When asked if he felt poor, a graduate student replied:

No. … I mean, because of my parents. I mean … it's impossible for me, for me to, even though I do live very moderately, I think, for a person of my education and my, you know, background, I think.

Thus, graduate students and artists relied on their middle-class tool kit to understand and accept the practice of low-income living during this period of their life. For them, poverty was not, and would never be, a permanent reality.

Even if living with low income was framed as a necessary rite of passage, a fundamental contradiction existed for graduate students and artists between their current downshifting ideologies and their desire for eventual success. Consider Nina, a current graduate student:

I think if I had more money unfortunately I would probably be a lot more impulsive. So I'm hoping that this graduate school thing that I'm doing also will kind of get me down to a more sensible spending lifestyle. I hope I can say that five years from now I've learned something from this whole experience and I don't shop impulsively anymore, because I can't tell you how much crap I have that I don't need and I don't want anymore, and I don't know why I bought it, but if I hadn't I would've had a lot more money at my disposal. So I think that's what I'm hoping this experience will do for me.

As Nina’s comment reveals, the motive to downshift is situated in one’s career stage. Matt, an actor, also reflects this tension:

I've had opportunities with my carpentry work, an offer of a job to build log homes in Montana for really good money, but I didn't feel like I was ready to do that ’cause I felt like I would be sacrificing or just, or giving up my dream. But it's difficult because … you're moving all over the place or you have, you know, a down time of a three or four months where you're not working and you have no money coming in and you live off your savings and it slowly goes away and, you know, there are moments where you get really depressed and you sit back and you say, why am I doing this. Is this really worth it?

Matt illuminates the pressure between the possibility for a more economically stable career and dreams of future artistic success. Unlike activists who desire simplicity, graduate students and artists are conflicted and must mediate competing values. Their poverty represents a stage in which they experiment with unconventional living arrangements before embracing a middle-class existence.

Artists and graduate students’ attitudes towards discretionary spending emphasizes the contradiction between their middle-class childhoods and aspirations and low-income reality. As Nina suggests above, graduate students and artists frequently recognize impulsive shopping habits, despite their lack of resources. One artist noted, “I think every major product or service I purchase impulsively.” A graduate student similarly remarked, “Let's put it this way. I splurge. If I get paid, I splurge.” Another student admitted, “I don’t often carefully consider my purchases. I’m an impulse buyer, I guess.” Spontaneous shopping habits were coupled with loose budgeting. When asked if respondents kept a formal budget, nearly all replied “no.” The rest described keeping a “rough” budget, depending on their checking accounts for guidance. Age enables such casual financial decisions. Because these interviewees are young and single, “splurge” spending was easier, since partners and dependents were not affected.

However, moments of compulsive consumption did not just take place anywhere. Shopping was saturated with an “ethical” consumerism rhetoric. Avoidance of chain stores and larger establishments with a preference for small, family-operated, locally-owned businesses was a repeated theme. Often the choice to frequent these businesses was politically motivated. Alex, a graduate student in philosophy, explained his desire to shop at “mom and pop” stores rather than chain establishments:

You have Walgreens popping up all over the town because they hire work-to-welfare people at low wages. And those people are not making any more money than they were before. So let's talk about this incentive. I don't shop at Walgreens, by the way, because of that. I have a huge problem with that.

One graduate student was explicit, “Dollar bills are votes, and I like to vote for independent, small businesses, mom-and-pop-style places.” Often the citizen–consumer hybrid was reflected in food selections, such as purchasing groceries at a local co-op or eating at independently owned restaurants, rather than fast food chains. These ethical consumption habits are a creative adaptation to a temporary economic circumstance, informed by artists’ and graduate students’ moral perspective and the tools available (Swidler, 1986). Informants draw on ethical consumerism to navigate their current circumstances. Framing their consumption habits in light of political motives allows graduate students and artists to resolve the tensions between compulsive shopping and their limited income. These choices reflect the desires of the “creative class” (Florida, 2012), or “neo-bohemians” (Lloyd, 2010), groups to which our informants feel affiliation.

Many graduate students and artists lacked savings and acquired significant credit card debt. However, unlike the truly impoverished, those living in strategic poverty could use their credit cards for temporary “loans.” Informants used their class status to gain credit that sustained them, maintaining a “buy now, pay later” mentality. Credit card usage among this group was common; over half of respondents mentioned frequently depending on their credit cards and had debt from this form of payment. Artists in particular spoke of substantial credit card debt. The few that refrained from credit card usage were either so far in debt that they could no longer use their credit line, or were afraid of the debt they could incur if a credit was available. Credit cards were a common resource when unexpected expenses arose. Zach, a graduate student in English, described, “I had to have a crown put on my teeth … wound up costing me $200 or $300, something like that, so I just put it on my credit card and paid it off when I had the money.” Paying off credit card bills involved choices; some students and artists described being “maxed out” and having to cancel their cards; others kept their loans afloat by a rotating payment method, choosing a payment every few months on each card. One admitted to having a credit card cancelled, while trying to manage US$30,000 of debt.

Another middle-class value that had to be managed was traditional dating norms. More than half of the transitional bourgeoisie sample was romantically unattached. Romantic encounters surely occurred; however, respondents did not address these and our data does not speak to informants’ sexual activity. Nevertheless, artists and graduate students clung to traditional romantic notions, discussing marriage and serious monogamous relationships. For male artists and graduate students in particular, the decision to form a stable romantic partnership was linked directly to their financial capacity to support a companion. Women did not discuss postponing marriage as a financial strategy; however, men frequently noted that their current economic status impacted their ability to date:

I took a girl for lunch over a week ago. I mean that's a real sacrifice. Dating, it's not in the budget. You can't do it, right? I mean you drop twenty bucks like it's nothing … There's been a relationship quite recently that, I must confess, one of the incentives to ending it or to slowing it down considerably was that I could probably save a lot of money [Laughs] because it was getting kind of expensive … It definitely influences decisions about relationships.

This quotation from Dave, a doctoral student in philosophy, underscores the value placed on normative gender relations, such as assuming that the man pays. The choice to remain single became a temporary coping strategy for informants during this period of decreased financial capacity. However, for some informants – especially artists – low income continued for longer than expected and being single was no longer a feasible financial management strategy. Instead, these men spoke of preferring relationships where partners were equally poor, because, “it’s nice to be poor with somebody else.” An artist explained the rationale of dating someone of similar economic means: “I wouldn’t want to be in a situation where I was taking advantage of someone else’s working more or making more money.”

The manner in which graduate students and artists alleviate tensions between their middle-class aspirations and their current financial situation reflects a phenomenon Swidler (1986: 281) labeled “cultural lag.” That occurs when people are reluctant to give up accustomed strategies of action. Instead of abandoning their middle-class desires, artists and graduate students integrate their familiar tool kit to a life of material deprivation. A prime example of this cultural lag is using credit card debt as a form of budgeting. Remaining romantically unattached also reveals informants’ reliance on the cultural “equipment” they have expertise in, that is, habits and practices of normative heterosexual dating.

In addition, graduate students and artists do not fully immerse themselves in their local circumstances because of the temporal lens they place on their low income. As one graduate student remarked; “we see our current financial situation as something very temporary.” How individuals imagine their future impacts the actions they take in the present (Mische, 2009). Research suggests that the future orientation of those from middle-class backgrounds has longer reach than individuals with lower socioeconomic status (O’Rand and Ellis, 1974). If this is so, then the transitional bourgeoisie may emphasize the temporality of their economic condition because they view it as only part of a long-term imagined future. In addition, future projections of a middle-class income influence informants’ exercise of material desire, despite insufficient income. In contrast, as the following section explores, the embedded activists do not have the same breadth in their imagined futures, making them more successful in resolving the tensions of living a low-income life.

Embedded activists

Embedded activists maintained longer temporal horizons than the transitional bourgeoisie. Poverty for this group was a strategy to form a life-long identity as committed advocators. Like the transitional bourgeoisie, activists also espoused middle-class values; however, because of their increased level of commitment, they did not experience the same tension in their economic choices. The sponsoring organizations in which activists were embedded shaped how they were able to downshift, what a life of low income looked like, and how they managed such lasting impoverishment. In this section, we review how these institutional structures and length of commitment shape embedded activists’ cultural tool kit and how they drew upon it to negotiate living a low-income life.

Limiting one’s material possessions often reflected a set of religious beliefs; in particular this included values espoused by Christianity, or political alliances, such as radical progressivism. As one informant put it, they addressed the “philosophy of distribution of income.” Ideals of simplicity and frugality are deeply rooted in America’s Puritan heritage. Reflecting these values and their organizational alliances, informants linked low income to an anti-consumption ideology. For these respondents, strategic poverty meant more than having little money, but embracing simplicity, an explicit decision to lessen one’s material possessions. Kate, a peace activist, explained:

If you want to get philosophical for a second, the more material people own, the less relationships you're going to have time for. And that's an inverse relationship that I don't think most people want to admit, but it's just the blunt truth. Inanimate objects require an incredible amount of maintenance and time, so take your choice. I made my choice and I'm really happy with it.

Activists frequently echoed this theme of choosing relationships over commodities. Instead of financial achievements, respondents spoke of non-monetary accomplishments. Informants’ defined “wealth” as creating lasting social relations, such as friendships. “There's more to wealth than money,” Lidia, an activist, explained, “there's the relationships and I feel that is very valuable.” Like the transitional bourgeoisie, activists did not self-identify as financially deprived. However, unlike graduate students and artists who attributed their middle-class background as shaping their definitions of poverty, embedded activists framed themselves as non-poor because they were rich in family and friends. As John, a resident of Jesus People USA, put it:

I've always viewed relationships as the real goal, and to me I have more friends that I know would, if something happened to me, they would care for my wife, care for my children. They're there for me when I'm in my crisis or struggling or working through things. They're there for counsel, talking, a shoulder to cry on, or whatever. That to me is wealth … I'm not impoverished, because I have what I want.

As we discuss, the personal relationships John cites are a vital resource in his tool kit.

In addition to motives of simplicity, informants frequently argued that the freedom and flexibility of their career provided considerable enjoyment. The transitional bourgeoisie also evoked this theme in relation to their studies and artistry; however, for embedded activists, freedom and flexibility furthered their service to others. For Anne, the Catholic Worker mentioned in the introduction, a mainstream occupation would not have permitted flexibility to volunteer and be politically active:

I'm poor by choice and I'm poor for political reasons and I do volunteer and I do political work. I could work four days a week and have much more money in the bank but while I'm living in this situation, I like to do political organizing work for free and I like to use my time and volunteer my time, barter my time.

As she suggests, respondents were aware of the financial benefits that came with a mundane job; however, they argued it would stifle their ability to do what they loved. Embedded activists described their work through a discourse of volunteerism, and many put in extra volunteer hours by choice.

Because of their increased investment in living a life of low income, embedded activists were more successful at keeping their impulsive consumption habits in check than the transitional bourgeoisie. Embedded activists typically maintained a strict budget and rarely engaged in “splurge” spending like the graduate students and artists described above. Lidia, a 45-year-old living within a communal Christian community, explained:

I've never purchased anything impulsively, because if I purchase anything major it takes planning and it's not like I have money just to go out and buy it. So I'd have to scrimp and save. Maybe sometimes occasionally I've bought little things impulsively and I think later on, why did I do this? But we're talking dollar store stuff; we're not talking major appliance or anything.

The large majority of activists were embedded within a religious or political organization that handled their basic needs, including housing and a small stipend for living expenses. They described their lives as characterized by a communal spirit, both in living arrangements and finances. In some cases, spending was both ideologically and organizationally restricted, as individuals did not have access to cash unless they made a request through their institution. As in the case of Lidia, purchases gain increased salience because of their self-consciousness. Because these respondents elected to remain impoverished and did not see low income as temporary, budgeting became central.

However, budgets were more than tools to survive a life of low income; they were also a form of status, valorized within the communities in which activists were embedded. Indeed, status signals are not just defined by class but more importantly by local cultures (Lamont, 1992). Respondents spoke to how thriftiness translated into reputation. As one male informant “noted, “that's” one of the bragging rights around [Jesus People USA] is it's not how much you spend on something, it's how little.” Prestige was attached to the resourcefulness of individuals. The more creative one was with money, the more “subcultural capital” one gained gained among others; cultural knowledge particular to members of a group differentiate them from outsiders (Thornton, 1996). The valorization of frugality reflects a cultural conflict in which informants seek to create a new status system outside mainstream America (Grigsby, 2004). Drawing from their tool kit, activists use budgeting rituals to pursue strategies of action – reformulating classic status markers – that adapts to the institutional structure within which they operate.

Material desires were still occasionally present among the embedded activists. For instance, secondhand stores allowed informants to resolve tensions between this and their anti-consumption ideologies. Anne revealed: “I'm not big on consuming, so I don't really like to walk into a store, a clothing store, so I don't really miss that part of the life that I was raised with. I'm just as happy to go to a thrift shop and buy something.” Another commented, “I feel like a fish out of water going to big, expensive department stores … when the world is starving.” Other respondents evoked the practicality and satisfaction of thrift store shopping, enjoying the challenge of surviving on a low budget and discovering unique finds. Thrift stores became free spaces for informants to consume while maintaining an anti-consumption mentality (Evans and Boyte, 1992). Jess explained, “I don't tend to go out and buy like, I don't know, expensive items … I probably become most consumer[ist] or materialistic when I go to the thrift stores, I think, which turns out to be very often.” Thrift store commodities for embedded activists could be translated into status markers because the goods were cheap and sustainable.

Some embedded activists remained single like the transitional bourgeoisie; however, their motives were not tied to the costs that came with middle-class heterosexual norms. Rather, the men in the activist group raised personal values and preferences as the root cause of remaining single. Nate, who traveled extensively as a peace activist, explained, “I have made … life decisions, that have had impact on important personal relationships and [there has] been a difficulty to balance the two.” Another informant noted, “I don't really have the time or energy to give to an intimate relationship.” Dedication to activism replaced romantic relationships for some in this group.

Thus, for embedded activists low income was a strategy to support an identity of anti-consumption, often linked to religious and political beliefs. In many ways, embedded activists were more successful in navigating strategic poverty than the artists and graduate students. Their success can in part be attributed to structural resources; the institutions in which activists were embedded gave them more options and material support. Activists’ level of commitment and their temporal horizon also helped negotiate middle-class desires and economic realities. Informants’ breadth of future projections impacts what actors do in the present (Mische, 2009). Because embedded activists did not see a future shift in their income levels they chose not to spend impulsively like the graduate students and artists. These institutional and temporal factors assisted embedded activists in “retooling” their cultural tool kit and corresponding strategies of action (Swidler, 1986: 284). Unlike the transitional bourgeoisie, embedded activists were capable of abandoning normalized strategies of action and tailored their tool kit to support personal ideologies. Embedded activists embraced novel meanings, for example, valuing material simplicity, attributing wealth not to monetary success but to social relationships, and rejecting hetero-normative romance. These skills allowed activists to transition more easily to new strategies of actions, such as budgeting, thrift store shopping, and remaining single.

The shared dynamics of voluntary poverty

As the previous sections reveal, one’s life-course trajectory distinguishes success at surviving low income. Because graduate students and artists viewed their poverty as a temporary moment to achieve later success, their middle-class upbringing frequently stood in tension with their low-income reality. In contrast, embedded activists, with similar middle-class backgrounds, did not experience contradictions as powerfully. While graduate students and artists embraced credit card debt in order to maintain middle-class consumption habits, activists spent frugally, supporting communal values. As students and artists negotiated their inability to partake in traditional romantic relationships, many embedded activists rejected lasting relations out of their dedication to volunteerism. Finally, although freedom and flexibility were treasured by both groups, temporal freedom had different meanings. For students and artists, flexibility permitted pursuing professional endeavors that could bolster their future success. In contrast, embedded activists sought freedom that would commit them to their core beliefs.

Yet, despite differences, areas of overlap exist between the transitional bourgeoisie and the embedded activists. Both groups relied on similar strategies to adjust to the structural realities of their low income. In this section, we examine parallel coping mechanisms and day-to-day survival among those in strategic poverty: communal living, social network support, and thriftiness. We argue that informants draw upon a middle-class tool kit, providing access to crucial resources and networks. A graduate student aptly described this process, “I realize I was raised and brought up and had values of a particular social class that could send out the right signs that I belong to that class. But I can't always provide substance … So poor? No, but aware of [its] limitations.” Our informants reveal that other forms of capital aside from economic can permit a financially stressed existence to be satisfying.

Communal living

Shared living arrangements were common across all groups and motives ranged from financial to philosophical. Fewer graduate students lived in shared housing and half lived alone, aided by familial support. One quarter lived with partners. For the rest, the decision to live with roommates was primarily monetary, as Dave, a graduate student in philosophy, commented, “I live with two others. Obviously I couldn’t live in this apartment on my own, it would be too expensive.”

While artists and embedded activists are motivated to live with others by the economic benefits, communal living was also part of their ethos. Matt, a 22-year-old musician, described his collective living arrangements:

It's a three story house, and there is anywhere between nine to twenty people living there or so. I live in the stairwell of my house. I have a hammock. My stuff is in there. People sleep in the living room, everywhere. Like when touring bands come to town, they will sleep at our house very often. Almost at least bi-weekly there is some band that is from out of town staying there, or different friends or artists. It's essentially like an artist commune in a way without … we don't have a mission statement or something.

For artists, like Matt, communal living is part of the common culture that bolsters the struggle for recognition. Shared housing enables artists to create a community of like-minded individuals where they can barter and trade for economic survival. In addition, these residences expand networks that support joint artistic endeavors. Artists not only live together but may also work as an ensemble.

In a similar way, for embedded activists, communal living is more than a strategy of surviving low income. It is integral to identity. All embedded activists lived in communal arrangements and the large majority worked within religious and political organizations where basic housing and other needs were met by a larger group that provided a small amount of discretionary money. Lidia describes the commune in which she and her husband live:

Living communally, again, my entire adult life, just about, has been living communally … My husband and I live in the community which the physical part of the community is in a large ten story building … My husband and I actually share a room, one room, that's pretty much our home. Kind of acts as our bedroom, our living room, we have a private bathroom … It probably measures thirteen feet wide by about seventeen feet long.

The choice to live in a collaborative living environment is consistent with their principled opposition to mainstream consumerism. Lidia’s minimal living arrangements reflect her philosophical commitments. By living communally she has embraced a life of simplicity with few personal possessions. Ultimately, where one lives – and with whom – is more than a consumption choice: it expresses selfhood.

Social network support

Support from family, friends, and organizations, allowed low income to be a strategy instead of a condition by providing an interpersonal and economic security net. As a manifestation of social capital, social network support included three forms of assistance: parental and family, community and friends, and organizational. While these types of provision could be directly monetary, they could also involve “lending a hand.”

Graduate students’ and artists’ personal finances were often heavily subsidized by parents or other family members. Informants mentioned familial support, ranging from monthly deposits into checking accounts to contributions of food and financial support in the case of emergencies. As one graduate student put it, “If I desperately need money, I can turn to my parents.” Another commented, “I can call and say, there’s no food in the house. I need five hundred bucks to pay for my GRE’s. They will bail me out like that.” An artist bluntly described his technique for confronting unexpected expenses, “mom.” Familial relationships were explained by informants through the financial contributions they provided, which were sometimes extensive. For instance, an artist described his relationship with his “dad’s ex-girlfriend” who during the holiday season “flies me down and totally ravishes me with everything that I could every want for four days.” One graduate student bluntly remarked, “I think my dad's net worth is easily over a million dollars.” The security net these richer social relationships provided enabled informants to distance themselves from those in real impoverishment. As one activist reflected, “I could never be poor with the way that my parents are, no matter how I chose to live my own life.”

All three groups reported aid from partners, friends, and roommates, but rarely was this help directly monetary. Friends cooked for one another, treated each other to drinks or meals, helped with household chores, or offered rides. As one embedded activist described, “I mean, it's not always just financial. You know, sometimes people just have what you need and you can use it.” Among artists a bartering culture was prevalent, as Matt, a musician, explained:

I mean, this town is really supportive in ways - like, say I am deejaying one night. Well, then I will probably get free drinks all night long. Or, I am playing a show, or friends cook each other food. There is lots of ways to get around things like that in this town. It's never really all that desperate. You can live really inexpensively.

While many artists lacked formal organizational support like activists and graduate students, the urban neo-bohemian spaces in which they live provide symbolic and material resources that sustain them (Lloyd, 2004). As Matt’s quotation suggests, artists developed an array of social ties upon which they relied. Communal living arrangements supported these social connections. For example, an artist described living in an “open fridge” community where “if there is something in there, just take it out and eat … money is very fluid amongst my friends.” Artists also recognized each other’s financial difficulties, reducing the social pressure to spend money: “a lot of my friends don’t want to spend money either, so I don’t think I have been invited to anything that I couldn’t go to.” Lastly, social connections can further careers; an artist described getting most of his commissions for album covers from friends who knew his work.

Graduate students and embedded activists also saw themselves as part of a community, one attached to sponsoring organizations. For activists, organizations provided assistance from financial to emotional. Informants often raised the moral support their community provided:

[If] I'm just really depressed or really, you know, in a bad sorts of things, I have, gosh, a plethora of people I can just go and can either call or go visit here in Chicago who would help me through that and give me advice or just be there to listen or, you know, to help me get through that. If I needed a resource on, you know, any number of topics, there's people who could help me get that information.

Organizations provided material needs as well. Many supplied room and board and other living expenses as the need arose. Activists described their home furnishings as gifts from neighbors: “A lot of our stuff was given to us. In fact, a lot of time in [Jesus People USA] you see people handing stuff around.” In times of need, activists could turn to their intentional community, for instance, “I was having some problems with my plumbing, I asked this one guy who is gifted in plumbing, can you come help me out and we'll do dishes for you that night or something. So there's some cooperation there.” Graduate departments did not contribute the same level of support to their students; however, graduate students often cited their university community as a “home away from home” where they could turn for emotional support.

Thriftiness

Respondents’ day-to-day thriftiness was another example of how their social and cultural capital permitted personal comfort by accessing goods that might otherwise be unavailable. Thriftiness encompassed a number of survival strategies, providing inexpensive home furnishings and groceries, and dealing with health issues.

In addition to thrift stores, material needs were met cheaply by repairing or construction. A do-it-yourself mentality was popular among embedded activists, as it was consistent with the moral virtue of recycling goods:

I learned how to build things and fix things at an early age. And once I did that, then I realized that I didn't have to pay a lot of money for expensive things. If I needed a car for instance, I didn't need a new car, I could get a used one and fix it up. And once you're on that route, there's a strong temptation, if you don't want to spend a great deal of time making money, to just constantly approach everything that way. To get something that's used, and fix it up, and build it yourself.

Building furniture and restoring secondhand possessions gave informants a low-cost way to access goods. Informants’ knowledge of craftsmanship not only saved money, but also helped satisfy their consumer desires. An artist explained: “I found a creative way to make one that is a little bit unique, a little bit different than what you would find in the store and yet stable and secure enough to satisfy my need for it. You know, so I saved myself about $400 through building that.” Home-made goods were often given as Christmas gifts by informants lacking funds; for example, a graduate student made beaded jewelry every year for friends. Activists also prepared their own gifts as a way to avoid the consumerism of the winter holidays. If a respondent needed help in refurbishing an item, he or she could turn to their community for expertise, as an activist described, “There's this huge TV, a beautiful TV, twenty-seven inch, my neighbor tossed it out. I got it out of the trash can and a friend put in a new resistor for about ten dollars and it's worked ever since perfectly.”

When it came to nourishing themselves, informants were particularly resourceful. “Dumpster diving” was a popular technique to get salvageable foods that were deemed to be “thrown away in perfectly good condition.” Informants referred to dumpster locations next to high-end food shops where they could gather scraps at closing. Respondents relied on their personal network for information on the best places to salvage. For instance, one activist told a story of finding a Persian rug in a dumpster and later selling it for US$800. Such resourcefulness was valorized, especially among the embedded activists. Several informants grew their own produce or relied on community gardens. Others subsisted on low-cost food items such as pasta, ramen, eggs, and potatoes. For example, an artist outlined his meal planning:

I figured out a way where I can spend like twenty-five dollars and get like a whole three meals worth of food that can be eaten like three times. I'll buy like, eggs, and frozen sausage, and potatoes, and I know that I can probably make four, maybe more, meals out of that, and that that's going to be a lot of food and that as a whole it's going to cost me less than ten bucks to buy all of it.

Stretching out meals was another creative strategy; one graduate student explained that he would eat “only two meals a day, instead of three, just because you really make the groceries last longer if you can do that.”

As the majority of our sample did not have medical insurance, health services was another issue they had to tackle frugally. For these individuals, strategies were multi-layered, depending on a variety of resources to avoid illness. Mary, an embedded activist, explained:

At this point I don't have insurance and I think I'd be in real trouble if something happened. I may have to go to my parents or I may just have to go to [public city hospital] … there are citywide clinics that do that stuff for free … I'll either make do with what's free and what's available or I have a brother in law that's a doctor and when I haven't had health insurance I'll call him and consult. So I have that to fall back on. … I use the Chicago Women's Health Center. I had some gynecological problems a while back and they're a pay what you can so I use their services and I use the internet a lot. If I find out something's going on with me, I'll go and find out for myself what I have to do and it cuts back. I don't spend money on pills or medication. I don't take anything unless it's absolutely necessary. So I do a lot of self-healing.

Mary illuminates the process by which she draws from her cultural and social capital to navigate healthcare resources. Her knowledge of the network of healthcare organizations in the city allows her to pinpoint where to go for free services depending on her medical needs. She relies on her social network for aid, consulting her brother-in-law who is a doctor or going to her parents for financial help. Lastly, Mary uses her understanding of the internet to self-medicate. Food choices also allowed informants to feel that they were promoting their health, and in the process, avoiding illness. Several explained their dietary habits as “preventative medicine.” To this end, approximately a quarter of the sample was vegetarian. Another strategy was to borrow medicine from one’s social circle. Jeff, a musician, stated, “Last time I got a sinus infection in January, and my girlfriend had some antibiotics from when she was sick, and I took the rest of it to ensure that I was going to be fine.” If an emergency did occur individuals spoke reluctantly of depending on the public city hospital.

Thus, those in strategic poverty relied on their extensive support networks and cultural resources, unavailable to those who are structurally impoverished. Respondents depended on a wide pool of friends, parents, family members, and community members for monetary and emotional support. Informants’ cultural capital allowed them to navigate low income by providing them with the skills and knowledge to access material goods, food, and health resources at lower (sometimes even free) costs.

Low-income lifestyles and strategic poverty

Academic work on voluntary simplicity is largely descriptive in nature; scholars attempt to define the term as a lifestyle choice, create typologies of its varying manifestations, track consumption habits (or lack thereof) of self-proclaimed voluntary simplifiers, their motivations, and demographic profiles. These studies reveal that voluntary simplifiers are in many ways similar to individuals in strategic poverty. Both groups are motivated by a search for personal freedom. Both use low income as a strategy to address other problems, especially dissatisfaction with inflexible paid labor. They share similar interest in ethical shopping, a process where consumption is the new form of civic engagement (Nelson et al., 2007). For example, both groups prefer organic or local food (Alexander and Ussher, 2012), vegetarianism (Grigsby, 2004), and thrift stores (Shaw and Newholm, 2002). They face comparable consumer tensions. For instance, the transitional bourgeoisie are not the only ones with difficulty resisting material attractions. In a large-scale survey of voluntary simplifiers Alexander and Ussher (2012) found that the major obstacle in maintaining their lifestyle was resisting consumer temptations. Like the transitional bourgeoisie, the voluntary simplifiers Grigsby (2004) interviewed accepted heterosexual norms despite efforts to downplay gender imbalances. Lastly, voluntary simplifiers and those in strategic poverty share demographic characteristics: both are well-educated, come from highly affluent backgrounds, and are predominately single and childless (Grigsby, 2004; Huneke, 2005; Zavestoski, 2002).

However, there are some key differences between strategic poverty and voluntary simplicity. Firstly, the literature on voluntary simplicity frames the movement as a lifestyle; that is, a pattern of taste and values reflected in consumption habits and influenced by socioeconomic status (Zablocki and Kanter, 1976). In contrast, for our informants, low income is not a lifestyle as such, but rather a means through which they create other identities. For instance, the transitional bourgeoisie sought to maintain their middle-class consumption despite their economic means. Secondly, voluntary simplicity does not entail the same degree of economic restriction as those in strategic poverty. Surveys of voluntary simplifiers find that individuals of moderate income are more likely to practice such a lifestyle (Huneke, 2005). For example, one recent study reported that the majority of voluntary simplifiers earned between US$35,000 and US$60,000 annually, but some made even up to US$100,000 (Alexander and Ussher, 2012). Thirdly, and relatedly, the literature argues that voluntary simplicity appeals to individuals who have already been part of the work-force, are older (Craig-Lees and Hill, 2002), and have investments as a cushion to support their lifestyle change (Grigsby, 2004). While those in strategic poverty may have the skills and education to achieve a high income, most are not downshifting from a previous state of personally earned wealth like voluntary simplifiers.

Finally, the literature on voluntary simplicity does not investigate how an individual’s downshifting experiences are moderated by life trajectories and organizational ties. As we demonstrate, both factors influence the success by which individuals navigate low income. Current research promotes the view that individuals typically adopt a simplicity lifestyle later in life. One study suggested that baby boomers (between 40 and 55) were more likely to become voluntary simplifiers (Craig-Lees and Hill, 2002). However, questions remain on how late versus early adoption impacts a person’s success at living simply. We argue that meanings of low income differ depending on when during one’s lifecycle economic restriction begins. Graduate students and artists, who are relatively young, framed their economic instability as temporary. Meanwhile, activists, often older, saw their poverty as a permanent. Future projections had a strong impact on success at negotiating consumerist tension. Activists increased commitment and their longer time horizon allowed them to re-adjust their cultural tool kit to their structural circumstances. Aside from the recognition of the role internet communities and media play in promoting simplicity, scholars have disregarded the local components of culture; group and organizational ties of voluntary simplifiers shape their options. Organizational ties, even informal ones like for artists, influence one’s ability to adopt and sustain a life of low income. The majority of activists avoided expenses by being embedded within political and religious organizations that supported a life of simplicity. Artists’ networks helped them gain cheaper housing, bartered food and other material needs, and moral support. Consequently, while we recognize the similarities those in strategic poverty have with voluntary simplifiers, we also illuminate the differences between the two groups.

The dynamics of strategic poverty

Poverty becomes a strategy, instead of a condition, when an individual or group maintains sufficient social and cultural capital to navigate economic uncertainty. Drawing on interviews with artists, graduate students, and activists, we reveal that low-income life is dynamic and varied in form. We argue that culture influences how an individual negotiates and responds to economic limitations. We conceptualize culture not as a group of cohesive values, but as a repertoire of strategies of action. The experiences of those who willingly limit consumption reveal that cultural conditions matter in the construction of a satisfying life.

However, even with the appropriate tool kit, a life of low income is fraught with complications. As the transitional bourgeoisie reveal, a tension exists between values of downshifting, rejecting consumerism, and middle-class desires. Despite framing low income as part of their life-trajectory, artists and graduate students were challenged to keep “splurge” spending in check, resulting in significant credit card debt. Meanwhile, fewer, but still a significant number, of activists self-identified as middle class, regardless of their lifetime commitment to low income. Activists negotiated the tension between income constraints and adherence to middle-class norms in consumption spaces such as secondhand shops that allowed access to goods along with social support that could keep individuals afloat. Consequently, because of their increased level of investment in low income, activists were able to adapt their cultural strategies to their economic circumstances.

Several issues at the intersection of culture and low income demand further research, especially the process of life transitions. The transitional bourgeoisie enact their shift between young adult and full adulthood through consumption habits. Namely, artists and graduate students partially adopt future consumption behaviors of the middle class while tempering economic restrictions. For instance, informants discussed splurging on clothing with credit cards but restricting food purchases. Our study was not longitudinal, and as a result, we cannot examine what happened to the artists and graduate students as they negotiated changes to their occupational status. Do these individuals continue to live simply once they achieve occupational success? For activists, did they ever become disillusioned with their sponsoring organization and leave? Moreover, what is the process of exiting low income and the community associated with it? How do social and cultural capital aid in the transition out of poverty?

Lastly, our paper contributes to the literature on consumption habits and identity markers. For Veblen (1899), examining upper-class culture, goods are group status markers (Goffman, 1951) and personal tastes are shaped by an individual’s socioeconomic status, selected for display to others as symbols. Parallel to Veblen, Bourdieu (1984) examined styles of consumption. Taste, he argued, reproduces and reinforces social class when expressed in micro-level interactions. Within Bourdieu’s framework, consumption choices are indicators of cultural capital: the skills, dispositions, and cultural background of an actor by virtue of his/her habitus. As those in strategic poverty reveal, directly linking taste and its expression through goods and social class is problematic. For instance, for embedded activists and artists, communal living arrangements reveal that shared values and tastes are also evident in intangible goods. Life-cycle also plays a role in consumption habits, for example, while the young transitional bourgeoisie impulsively spend, older activists’ budget. Further, measuring lifestyle only through income is problematic, as exemplified by the middle-class choices graduate students and artists seek to maintain despite their income. Ultimately, while poverty is a problem and a challenge, the meaning of the problem and challenge depends heavily on whether one has tools that help one cope, overcoming the strains that a lack of resources entails.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We thank Kathy Edin, Richard Lloyd, Leslie McCall, and Nicole Van Cleve for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Funding

Data collection and transcriptions of the interviews was made possible through a grant from the Searle Fund.

Author Biographies

Daphne Demetry is a doctoral student in sociology at Northwestern University. Her research interests include culture, consumption, and food. She is currently investigating temporary organizations through an ethnography of “pop-up” restaurants.

Jessica Thurk received her MA in Sociology from Northwestern University.

Gary Alan Fine is John Evans professor of sociology at Northwestern University. His current research is an ethnography of competitive chess, examining the development of status systems.

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