ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author shifts the analysis to the multiple and at times contradictory ways that this group of women labelled as "low income" made sense of their health and their lives in poverty through examining the women's identities as reflected in their discourses. The women's discourses revealed their dynamic and fluid identities that were shaped through repudiating, resisting, and accommodating the dominant discourses of poverty and health. The discourses were contradictory, provisional, and cocreated. The analysis of the women's identity is divided into four major discourses: the "powerless victim" discourse, the "legitimacy and entitlement" discourse, the "individual work ethic" discourse, and the "critical and collectivist" discourse. The "critical and collectivist" discourse arose sporadically and can be seen as most closely aligned with the social determinants of health perspective. The chapter unraveled the labels "poor" and "unhealthy" in an attempt to show the diversity and provisionality of these identities.
