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The Neoliberal American Dream as Daydream

Counter-hegemonic Perspectives on Welfare Restructuring in the United States

Pennsylvania State University, smorgen{at}ala.psu.edu

Lisa Gonzales

University of Oregon

Despite the efforts of its supporters to cast welfare `reform' in the United States as a successful achievement of neoliberal public policy, we argue that among low-income people who have received public assistance, counter-hegemonic interpretations and `possibilities' coexist with, texture and sometimes, challenge hegemonic assumptions about poverty, the state, motherhood and relations of power. Paying attention to these counter-hegemonic perspectives reveals ideological and political possibilities that are foreclosed when neoliberal hegemony is theorized as seamless and complete, rather than partial and vulnerable to disruption. That neoliberalism must be actively produced helps to explain the powerful processes that subject poor women and men, more intensely than many others, to practices and discourses designed to shape compliance with neoliberalism.

Key Words: counter-hegemonic perspectives • manufacturing consent • neoliberalism • poverty research • welfare

Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 28, No. 2, 219-236 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0308275X08090548


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