Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Continuity And Contradiction In The Theory And Discourse Of Dependence, Brigid Kennedy-Pfister

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The terms “dependence” and “independence” have historically been used as status makers in social and political discourse in the United States. As various groups and individuals have pursued particular political goals, they have used and defined those terms in diverse ways and attached different meanings and connotations to them. The category of “dependent” in particular has been transformed from a term that at one time marked a natural condition in which certain groups existed, to a term that today defines a social problem. This article describes the content of, and the reasons for this transformation. The author concentrates upon dependency …