Living amid poverty: How it can help understand the masses

If I had the choice between living in a housing project in one of the United States' most densely populated city, or a typical American Dream home, you can bet I'd pick the dream.

But, that's not how research gets done, so say Martín Sánchez-Jankowski, an economics and political science Ph.D. graduate of MIT and now University of California at Berkeley ethnologist. For nearly a decade Sánchez-Jankowski took the road laced with poverty in the form of living in some of the world's most crime-ridden residences. The Berekely professor lives his life surrounded by violence and poverty. For much of the '90s he lived in housing projects from New York to Los Angeles, documenting what he calls the “subculture of scarcity” for Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods, published by UC Press.

Sánchez-Jankowski, who graduated with the likes of Ben Bernanke, now the Federal Reserve Chief, and Paul Krugman, 2008 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences, may have the mindset of a real-life Sean McGuire (played by Robin Williams) from Good Will Hunting, though his research offers more to the field than to any one individual. Sánchez-Jankowski's research shows the different set of values waylaid in both upper class and lower class cultures. He believes "if policymakers are serious about reducing poverty, it’s essential that they first understand the role that local institutions, including gangs, can play in preserving the social structure of poor neighborhoods," according to UC Berkeley. Even though Sánchez-Jankowski knows he's sometimes puts himself in harms way, the fact that he does it intentionally gives him a little more control. For now he says he enjoys his field research, and knows there's no other way to get the facts than to be immersed in them.

More info: UC Berkeley