Traps of poverty - Time perspective and space use in the habitus of women living in extreme poverty

Abstract

The study presents the characteristics of time perspective and use of space of women living in deep poverty, based on a qualitative research conducted in one of the most disadvantaged regions of Hungary, the Ormánság. The narrow perspective of space and time, a characteristic feature of the "culture of poverty", can be interpreted as a disposition fixed in the habitus. This allows us to analyse the attitudes and cognitive schemata that organize typical patterns of time management and use of space in relation to the constraints and determinants of social position. As structuring structures, these dispositions generate practices that contribute to the persistence of disadvantage. The study uses narrative interviews and structured interviews to analyse the reflexivity of autobiographical memory, narrative patterns of temporality, the perspective of time in the past, present and future, the short-term time horizon, and everyday time structure. This is followed by an examination of the use of space, spatial action radius, and spatial representations. The interview analyses confirmed that, in experiencing the social world, people living in extreme poverty internalize the constraints that imprison them in their position. In this way, individual ambitions and the belief in the predictability of life paths become irrelevant. Life becomes unpredictable, the coherence of past, present and future is disrupted. Under such circumstances, attitudes that allow rational assessment, and the adaptation of present choices to an imagined, planned future, cannot develop. The lack of employment not only affects the vision of the future and the self-image negatively, but also disrupts the time structure of everyday life. The experiences of the past and the lack of prospects in the present encourage the formulation of practices that subordinate the future to the needs of the present and permanently preserve disadvantage. The tendency towards individualisation, which is also present in rural societies, is also reflected in the local spaces of their dwellings, restricting the use of space almost exclusively to the home. Overcoming distances is also made more difficult by their financial means and the poor infrastructure of their place of residence. They are excluded from the use of public spaces not only by mainstream society, but by themselves, as their perception of these spaces is generated by the habitus. The perceptual schemata fixed in habitus are shaped by the internalised laws of the social order as perceived from their own perspective. Thus, we can understand the structures of space and time as socially created realities that reflect and reproduce unequal social relations. From the interview analyses we can conclude that deepening social inequalities are also mapped in the dimensions of space and time.