Cheap Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro (Book) (Janice E. Perlman) Price

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Customer Reviews of Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro

Convincing data that the target populations ARE marginal
Ask 750 people living in slums if they want to improve their children's education and what do you think they will say. Never mind that they don't actually have a school, didn't raise money for a lady that tried to set one up, and couldn't get more than 50 out of 8000 people to join a community association. Never mind that they chose to live with open sewers, or that they were raising families while living as squatters with the prospect of having their make-shift homes bulldozed at any time by the rightful owners. Sounds pretty marginal to me.

That she based her study on questions asked of an illiterate population, together with some creatively organized data in the charts (e.g.: uneven intervals compared as if they were the same), and gobs of sociobabble from the sixties make this book a dubious argument against the idea that people living in poverty are economically or socially marginal.

This book is clearly represents the wishful thinking of academic liberals, much like those enamored with the idea of truly peaceful humans who were duped into believing the Tasaday hoax. The thought that this might be used as a college textbook today is scary.

That said, the author did make some meaningful observations, such as noting that the migrants under study didn't have much of a grasp about their future life as they moved toward the cities, though she failed to follow these to any conclusion (which probably would have challenged her thesis).

The discerning reader can find bits of useful information scattered throughout the text. Chapter Four contains a review of competing theories, which, due to the thorough academic format, makes a great source of references for mid-sixties discussion about poverty in relation to mainstream society.