Doctoral Dissertation Research: Geographies of Welfare Reform

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This research will explore the ways in which geography influences the opportunities, resources, and livelihoods of those leaving the welfare rolls, as well as explore how poverty and welfare receipt shape the terms of citizenship and the political action of welfare recipients. Through this study, the relationship between employment and citizenship will be examined. Job type (janitor vs. doctor) greatly alters access to key social goods and influences individuals' feelings of inclusion or exclusion in society. The economic restructuring of the past 30 years has changed the conditions of citizenship and the bonds of responsibility between citizen and the state. For example, since the 1980s, rhetoric on welfare has focused more on the responsibilities of citizenship than the rights of citizens. These changes have important implications for welfare recipients who are now often required to find paid employment in order to receive benefits. With a diminishing safety net and a current recession, understanding the role of Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) in constructing the terms of citizenship is especially relevant in this moment. Doctoral student Rebecca Burnett, under the supervision of Dr. Victoria Lawson in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington, will employ a mixed method approach utilizing both quantitative data and in-depth qualitative interviews to map the spatial patterns of TANF participation and exit, to discover why people leave welfare and how do they access income, resources and services, and how receiving TANF influences the terms of citizenship and citizen participation. Through a comparative analysis of King County in Washington state and Jackson County in Missouri, this project will map federal, state and county level data on TANF recipients to illuminate patterns of entry and exit in the program and any spatial variability in those patterns. This work will lead to a better understanding of the role that the current recession and geography play in the experiences of those leaving welfare.The broader impacts of this work will increase dialogue between academics, policy makers and community activists about the reasons and potential solutions to poverty and welfare. In addition, the place-based empirical analysis of poverty and welfare will add to our understanding of TANF entry and exit rates that can help shape policy. This project will also add to our understanding of the ways in which the present economic recession affects those living in poverty in difference geographic regions, and to understand the specific experiences of those most vulnerable to economic changes. The maps and cartograms that will be produced from the analysis of this data will show variations in poverty and TANF receipt in relation to social and economic characteristics of place. Research results will be disseminated at relevant conferences and through publications of academic articles in peer-reviewed journals. In order to impact the communities studied, the research results will be disseminated through presentations at the job training programs that are coordinated by various non-profit organizations and advocacy groups utilized in the study.