ABSTRACT
Although microenterprise was a pivotal, innovative welfare reform mechanism for Business Owners Start-Up Services and the Corporation for Enterprise Development, in 1990 the issue had not gained widespread popularity in the Congress as a whole. One of the few Congressional bodies which had become involved with microenterprise was the House Select Committee on Hunger. Before addressing the Select Committee's work on this issue and the implications of microenterprise legislation for low income women, it is important to consider some of the historical and political events that shaped and defined this particular Congressional body. Hence, the first section of this chapter will present the Select Committee within historical and political contexts. It is also of the highest import to analyze the Select Committee within an ethnographic context in order to understand how the daily office interactions influence policy formulation. Therefore, the second section of this chapter consists of an ethnographic account of policy development with the Select Committee from August, 1990 to May 1991.
