This study draws on ethnographic semi-structured interviews carried out in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia among seven members of a food processing cooperative. The focus of this study is on the respondents' own narratives: How do people themselves define and experience the many dimensions of deprivation and anxiety? What assets are included in their coping strategies in urban poverty? With the source material from the field, together with the literature survey on the discourse of urban poverty and capability and livelihoods perspective frameworks, the links between the situation of the interviewees and the transition of the whole Ethiopian society and Addis Ababa are represented.

This study examines the main causes of deprivation and anxiety in urban poverty, and people's personal survival strategies, as narrated by the interviewees themselves. The emphasis is on their personal situation and social networks. Three core themes are introduced: family and other social networks, housing situation and conditions, and livelihoods development and opportunities. Various debated, diverse and complex categorisations and relationships affect poverty eradication efforts in the global South. Ethnographic research methods make it possible to document and represent what the people on the ground experience in urban environment every day, what is meaningful and important to them, and how they cope in their difficult circumstances. The theoretical part of this study focuses on the discourse of urban poverty in Africa and the contribution of ethnographic research methodology to this discussion.

The issues are presented from the perspective of the persons studied: their experiences, values, attitudes, motives and the meanings they attach to things in their everyday life, and this is contextualised within Ethiopian society. A common thread is the participants' own viewpoints for example on their needs, hopes, difficulties and the functioning of their cooperative. Respondents' narratives are divided into emotional and physical coping strategies, and scrutinised in the context of active, passive or social networks survival strategies.