Ordinary Families, Extraordinary Lives: Assets and Poverty Reduction in Guayaquil, 1978-2004

There have been many volumes on urban poverty but none (that I know of) that have tracked the lives of a small number of households over 30 years. This book records the livelihood struggles and achievements of five families in one road within an informal settlement in Guayaquil, Ecuador, over a period of 30 years. It draws on the many times that the author stayed in the settlement – in what was a very rudimentary informal settlement when she first went there (with her own young children) in 1978. The chapters cover a wide range of themes including the importance of asset investment for poverty reduction, the interface between local residents and external agencies (notably government and development organizations), crime and violence, and migration. However, its contribution to our understanding of urban poverty and poverty reduction is broader than this.

One characteristic of the volume is that the text resonates with a profound respect for the people whose life struggle is retold here. The discussion elaborates the struggles of five families (although other people are also introduced), and each has had to make something of their lives from a beginning of considerable poverty and adversity. The events in their lives are retold as their hardships are understood and their setbacks explained. There are perhaps two related points to make. First, everything in this volume stems from that respect and the trust and confidences that subsequently grew. People do not talk with any meaning to those who do not respect them, and hence the approach has methodological significance. Second, while at one level the importance of this characteristic is really obvious, it is also rare. We live in a world in which “being poor” is associated with not being respected; in our capitalist and consumer-oriented world, not having money is equivalent, in many social encounters, to being less worthy of respect, to being a second-class citizen.

Another characteristic of the volume is that the pages capture, with considerable success, the complicity that makes up a person’s life – particularly a woman’s life. The discussion moves successfully between descriptions of the macro picture of political and economic change in Ecuador and the events on a single street. What is unusual for an academic work is the detail that is recounted. It is not an accident that this is a gendered book – written by a woman, about women and with a discussion that is built through their relationships. That complexity is realized through an anthropological approach grounded in the political and economic realities that low-income families face. It is represented in the volume through everyday social encounters that result in information and knowledge. Hence:

• these are conversations more than interviews – for example, the discussions on Jesus’s tailoring (page 126) and the robberies that Marta endured (page 234);
• there are shared experiences as much as recounted histories – such as the account of the health costs incurred when Alicia’s baby daughter fell sick (page 89); and
• there are more confidences than truths… (although lots of facts are offered).

The complexity of the accounts and the rigour of the writing mean that this book is more a treasure trove of insights than an argument (although that too is included, particularly in the final chapter).

A major theme of the book is the struggle against poverty by the women living on Calle K. One notable aspect that emerges is the embeddedness of the personal and political within their lives. The women are surrounded by more powerful agents and agencies, including global markets, national government programmes and policies, local politicians and their bid for office, patriarchal power (within the household), and violent power from local gangsters and other criminals. The women seek to nurture their families, advance their incomes and assets, and find satisfaction within their lives.

And as the politics and pers