Module II essay: Similarities among cases

Default due date: Sep 06, 2024 at 11:59 p.m.

Word count: 1000

In the assigned chapter from her monograph, Surviving poverty: Creating sustainable ties among the poor, Joan Mazelis makes the following statement:

We all rely on help from others, often from those closest to us; whether it’s transportation to the airport, babysitting on date night, or cosigning a loan, stably middle-class people and those above them in the socioeconomic hierarchy get lots of help. For those struggling on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, the assistance they get from social ties in paying bills or watching their kids can be crucial for survival, and sometimes provides the only glimmer of hope for upward mobility. (Mazelis 2017, 152)

In this essay, I would like you to make an argument for a fundamental similarity between two of the cases we have read so far in this class. One of these cases should be Mazelis’s ethnographic account of the people of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union as presented in chapters 4 and 5 of her book, Surviving Poverty. You should choose another ethnographic case from one of the required or recommended readings for Weeks 4, 5, or 6 (or, with the permission of your tutor, another ethnographic case).

The substance of your essay will be comparing and contrasting the two cases you choose, but the comparison and contrast is not an end in itself. It should support your main claim that there is a similarity between them that is more important than the differences. These two cases will be different in many different ways; there will be lots of contrasts. As anthropologists, we are not surprised by these differences, because we assume that everyone and every community is different from every other community. In spite of all of these differences, there will also be things that are similar, and these will be connected to something more general that connects two very different places, times, people, and situations.

In your essay, present both cases and apply Mill’s method of agreement to make an argument for your main claim (or your thesis statement) that they share a fundamental underlying similarity.

References

Mazelis, Joan Maya. 2017. Surviving Poverty: Creating Sustainable Ties Among the Poor. New York: New York University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usyd/detail.action?docID=4500689.