This award for dissertation research to Temple University will support an anthropology graduate student studying how local `community based organizations` provide social services to poor people in Philadelphia. Focusing on three agencies, one dealing with low-income housing, one with health and educational programs, and one with AIDS victims, the project will study how local poor people are involved in the administration of the agencies and how their dependence on these bureaucratically-provided services affects their local political activities. The main hypothesis to be tested is that the more bureaucratically organized the agency the less politically active the population receiving services. Using methods of participant observation, in-depth interviews of staff and clients, and a formal survey of both staff and clients, the student will provide an in-depth picture of the way these agencies impact the lives of the people they serve. This research is important because it will provide a comparative, in-depth study of how poor people respond to political and economic change as mediated through the social service system. In addition by supporting the training of a professional social scientist the grant will add to the nation's scientific capacity.
