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“Dr. Pascale writes with clarity, purpose, and a studied, personal understanding of the human condition. ‘The Struggling Class’ will be a term new to many, but it is, indeed, the way of life for too many others. The book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand, in a way that is both supremely accessible and thoroughly researched, how economic, racial, class, caste, geographical, environmental, and other factors converge to create systemic inequalities designed to hold down a diverse stratum of people – from the Native residents on the Standing Rock Nation, where I grew up, to those doing their level best to make life work every day in places like Appalachia, Wind River, and Oakland. It skillfully illustrates key connective tissues that demonstrate how, despite outward differences, we share in the same struggle. In order to reinvent a democracy that works for everyone, we need radical, systemic change that begins to address the financialized, extractive colonial mentality and other, deeply embedded, cultural wrongs. Only in this way can we begin to envision a fairer, healthier future for the next generations.”
Chase Iron Eyes, Lakota People’s Law Project Co-Director and Lead Counsel
“Is there support for a living wage, free education, and other egalitarian commitments within the low-income population? Yes! In a trenchant analysis, Celine-Marie Pascale shows that egalitarian sensibilities are alive and well among low-income workers, not because they necessarily subscribe to or care about conventional political parties or platforms but because their everyday lives expose a deeply unfair system. A brilliant account of ‘hard-knocks egalitarianism.’”
David B. Grusky, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Poverty and Inequality, Stanford University
“This often poignant and moving book presents a vision of America and Americans that is often missing from dominant narratives. One walks away from this book with a better sense of the diversity of average, struggling Americans, as well as what all those people have in common – the struggle. As the author says, ‘this is more than a collection of individual troubles; it is the story of a nation in a deep economic and moral crisis.’”
Allison L. Hurst, Associate Professor of Sociology, Oregon State University
“A rare book that combines a humane accounting of lives lived in hardship, attentive to race and gender, with a robust and data-driven critique of the policies that caused their dysfunction – a true bottom-up primer on American poverty with real-world applications for upturning the myths that surround inequality.”
Elizabeth Catte, author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia
“This is an impressive book, wide and deep, with diverse people around the country struggling to live. A yarn; no, yarns – economic and much more – always real, face-to-face with the author: what their lives are, sometimes doing themselves no favors, but more often the effects of laws and attitudes both far away and near, government and corporations, and the hate of people. Why it’s hard to end poverty. Living on the Edge reaches in every direction. Personal, powerful: once you pick it up, you won’t put it down.”
Peter Edelman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy and Faculty Director of the Center on Poverty and Inequality, Georgetown Law Center
“This thorough and penetrating book offers a convincing argument about why so many families are struggling to make ends meet and who they are as fully rounded people. The writing and narration are superb. I would call this a page turner, which is not my usual experience in reading books on this topic.”
Susan Greenbaum, Emerita Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida
Living on the Edge
When Hard Times Become a Way of Life
Celine-Marie Pascale
polity
Copyright page
Copyright © Celine-Marie Pascale 2021
The right of Celine-Marie Pascale to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Polity Press
Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
101 Station Landing
Suite 300
Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4823-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4824-8(pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pascale, Celine-Marie, 1956- author.
Title: Living on the edge : when hard times become a way of life / Celine-Marie Pascale.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “A portrait of struggling America and how it has been left behind”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021011270 (print) | LCCN 2021011271 (ebook) | ISBN