A Key Concept in Analyzing Poverty Through Everyday Life: A Structural Study on Survival Strategies

The concept of survival strategies has become very popular in the social science literature, especially since the end of the 1980s. This is closely related to many of developments experienced in the world. Structural adjustment processes and neo-liberal policies have directly affected economies around the world, causing them to move away from the understanding of a social state. Inflation rates have increased and poverty has deepened. In this process, the social classes have become increasingly unprotected. In the face of all these developments, all households used their resources to survive. This is the reason why the concept is understood with many concepts such as poverty and disadvantaged groups. Especially underdeveloped countries and Post Communist countries in the East and their subclasses of central countries are the most adversely affected from the process. Therefore, the literature on survival strategies has been developed especially by the theorists of these countries. The concept has also been used to understand how these countries, and especially the poor, are affected by this process. Structuring the concept through the literature of poverty has brought together the use of many concepts such as livelihood strategies, struggle strategies, and household strategies. There is a similar situation in the studies given in this field in Turkey. All these concepts are often used in place of each other and in the sense of strategies used to struggle against poverty. The aim of this work is to examine the concept and to make a structural analysis of the literature on the concept. As a method of the work in this direction, primarily Turkish and foreign literature were searched. How the concept was shaped in the literature was questioned. As a result of the study, it is seen that the survival strategy is a concept applied especially in the process of poverty struggle. Studies based on poverty show that survival strategies are becoming increasingly indiviadual or household-based