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Re-conceptualising poverty

Re-conceptualising poverty . Ruth Lister Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, Loughborough University . Outline. Framework: concepts, definitions & measurements Structure & agency Discourses Politics & policy. Concepts, definitions & measures. Conceptualisation of poverty .

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Re-conceptualising poverty

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  1. Re-conceptualising poverty Ruth Lister Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, Loughborough University

  2. Outline • Framework: concepts, definitions & measurements • Structure & agency • Discourses • Politics & policy

  3. Concepts, definitions & measures

  4. Conceptualisation of poverty • Importance of conceptual level. • Relational as well as material. • Grounded in experience: learning from participatory poverty research • Wider social scientific framework including recognition theory.

  5. Structure & agency Structural constraints on agency. Structural inequalities & social divisions. Gender: causes, effects & experience all gendered. Focus on individual rather than household: hidden poverty. Acknowledge agency without blaming or romanticising.

  6. Forms of agency

  7. Getting by • Livelihoods framework: unequally distributed resources or assets. • Active process of juggling & piecing together. • Women carry the main strain. • Can be used to deny reality of poverty. • Importance of social resources/networks.

  8. Getting: back at & out of poverty • Getting back at: ‘everyday resistance’ (Scott). Social security fraud? • Getting out: poverty dynamics. • Macro quantitative research needs to be complemented with micro qualitative. • Role of children’s agency in supporting parents working to get out of poverty. • Role of ‘gendered moral rationalities’ (Duncan & Edwards).

  9. Getting organised The significance of identity: ontological & categorical (Taylor). Lack of identification with ‘poor’ label is barrier to collective action. Alternative categorical identities as basis for collective action. Material constraints on getting organised.

  10. Discourses • ‘Othering’: dualistic process of differentiation & demarcation, through which social distance established & maintained. • A discursive practice, which shapes how the non-poor think, talk about & act towards ‘the poor’. • Stigmatising language including the ‘p’ word. • ‘Sympathetic Othering’. • Stigma, shame & humiliation.

  11. Discourses of resistance • The need for respect. • Human rights & citizenship: respect for human dignity + interdependence of civil, political, socio-economic & cultural rights. • Voice & power: genuine participation.

  12. Politics & policy A politics of recognition&respect as well as redistribution. The ‘what’ of policy: an income sufficient to live in a manner compatible with human dignity. The ‘how’ of policy: respect for dignity of people in poverty in delivery of public services + voice with influence.

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