Beyond a Moment: Broadening the Poverty Conversation

By Mira Philips

On 17 October 2014

Originaly published in the Daily Mirror

Today marks the commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, an annual event promoted by the United Nations to raise awareness of the experiences of people living in extreme poverty. The UN views October 17th as a “moment” that can both empower people to eradicate poverty and allow them to recognize the role the poor play in these efforts. However, a moment cannot and should not be considered enough for reflections such as these. Rather, it should encourage us to make an ongoing project of understanding the experiences and issues associated with poverty.

The theme of this year’s event is “Leave No One Behind: Think, Decide and Act Together Against Poverty,” which according to the concept note “points to the urgent need to include people living in poverty as new partners in building our understanding of more sustainable forms of development” (http://overcomingpoverty.org/article/concept-note-on-the-international-theme-for-17-october-2014).  Incorporating the voices of the poor has become increasingly emphasized in poverty-related research and development initiatives. While the merits of this should not be discredited, there is still room for further discussion.

Last week, I attended a workshop with my colleagues at the Centre for Poverty Analysis, where our intrepid leader, Professor Ashwani Saith, challenged us to problematize our conceptualization of poverty, the way we measure it and unpack the multiple meanings of the ‘buzzwords’ that are oft used in development research (vulnerability, inequality and social exclusion being some examples). There was a feeling of simultaneous enlightenment and uncertainty by the end of the workshop; it became apparent that we must never assume our knowledge about poverty is absolute.

As such, from a research standpoint, the drive should be to critique what we actually mean by poverty and the inclusion of voice. How does our characterization of these two things affect the research we produce, and the policies said research influences?

The defining of poverty through the use of poverty lines for example, are often one-dimensional, too money-focused, and ignorant of the aspirations of people and how intra-family inequality within a household can contribute to unequal consumption. This does not even touch on the myriad of other issues in the definition of poverty, such as placing too much emphasis on those experiencing chronic poverty, characterized by living in poverty for an extended period of time, at the expense of those who fluctuate in and out of poverty.

Furthermore, addressing only basic needs of the poor will do little in making substantive, long-term change. Power politics, however uncomfortable it may make certain actors, needs to be re-introduced into the conversation. When we raise awareness about poverty, it should include the power structures that give rise to and perpetuate its existence.

The inclusion of the voices of the poor, while important, merits a conversation about how we actually facilitate this in research. Methodologies that focus on people’s participation may still fall into the trap of perpetuating assumptions and conventional understandings of poverty. In “Whose Voices? Whose Choices: Reflections on Gender and Participatory Development,” Andrea Cornwall discusses how attempts to include the perspectives of women often simply translate to “ask the women too.” As Cornwall argues, this is a simplistic approach to including gender that inadequately captures the complex experiences and power structures in which women are embroiled.

As researchers, we must also be aware of how the questions we ask are predetermined by certain assumptions about the people we are writing about. Further, we must be conscious of how our presence as outsiders informs their responses, how they might use us instrumentally, or how they might be limited in answering truthfully due to cultural conventions. Since we have a stake in influencing how policymakers and development practitioners determine poverty objectives, we should not be complacent in critiquing these methodologies, no matter how participatory they claim to be.

A large part of the UN commemoration seeks to acknowledge the agency of people living in poverty; but to what extent is this rhetoric? A conversation at the workshop centered on whether the poor know themselves and how their actions may exhibit an internalization of oppression. The idea that we, as people who only talk about poverty, can determine the agency of others or identify them as having a false consciousness is patronizing and disempowering. Discussions of how to ‘empower’ or the use of frameworks within development initiatives that emphasize victimhood, ignore the ways in which people work to improve their situations on their own. Even when operating amidst limited choices (for example the choice between sex work or sweatshop work), they see themselves as agents and who are we to decide that they are otherwise?

Seeking to unpack these issues should not de-value a day dedicated to standing in solidarity in the fight against poverty. However, we should be careful not to view the discourse around poverty, which includes how we define and measure it, and how we characterize and include those people living it, as the singular lens through which to understand poverty. The point is to take advantage of this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty to springboard into a larger critical discussion about the merits and limitations of how researchers, scholars, policymakers and activists approach poverty in the first place.