Poverty Research Network
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Humanities
Abstract
The Poverty Research Network will contribute to our understanding of ways in which the world can innovate its approach to international development by increasing and intensifying grassroots dialogues between communities, academics across different disciplines, activists and policy makers. This project aims to excavate the narratives behind the numbers of poverty research, challenging the monopoly that economists and social scientists have had on approaches to poverty research. It uses the perspectives and tools of the arts and humanities not only to give a voice to poor communities around the world, the often silent majority, but also to diversify the production of representations of these communities and their histories. This project is not only trans-spatial but trans-temporal; it aims to take a long view, looking to history to understand the causes of inequality, and creating histories of communities which can be a source of empowerment and dignity, and using this as a platform to engineer alternative visions of the future and pathways of improvement of qualities of life.
Building on existing partnerships, the poverty research network will use the AHRC grant to forge a carefully coordinated international dialogue, hosting events at 5 partner institutions around a theme that has been determined by those ODA recipient regions as most pertinent. The project has been planned to represent different regions of the world that have been the subject of development policies, and to discuss different themes relating to development agenda in each location. The selected regions and themes are: Bangladesh, 'Women, Migration and Poverty'; Brazil, 'Poverty, Tourism and Forced Labour'; Indian Ocean World, 'Poverty, inequality and the politics of natural resources'; Mexico 'Poverty and Indigeniety'; South-East Europe, 'Intersecting patterns of poverty and the position of marginalized Romani minorities and post-conflict migration in Eastern Europe'. The project will finish with an event at the University of Warwick, where representatives of the different regional events will attend and present summaries of their findings and have the opportunity to hear about experiences and ideas of solutions from different parts of the world, thinking about shared experiences, and regional variations. The Warwick event will happen in conjunction with an exhibition, which further aims to diversify representations of poor communities around the world.
The key output of the poverty research network will be the locally produced 'Archive for Alternate Futures'; a website which captures stories of local communities, their histories, and their visions for achieving more equal futures. The project also aims to contribute to the transformation of modes of research project and policy formation, forging methodologies, experiences, and tools, for dialogic approaches to poverty research and poverty reduction strategies, and integrating the insights of histories.
Building on existing partnerships, the poverty research network will use the AHRC grant to forge a carefully coordinated international dialogue, hosting events at 5 partner institutions around a theme that has been determined by those ODA recipient regions as most pertinent. The project has been planned to represent different regions of the world that have been the subject of development policies, and to discuss different themes relating to development agenda in each location. The selected regions and themes are: Bangladesh, 'Women, Migration and Poverty'; Brazil, 'Poverty, Tourism and Forced Labour'; Indian Ocean World, 'Poverty, inequality and the politics of natural resources'; Mexico 'Poverty and Indigeniety'; South-East Europe, 'Intersecting patterns of poverty and the position of marginalized Romani minorities and post-conflict migration in Eastern Europe'. The project will finish with an event at the University of Warwick, where representatives of the different regional events will attend and present summaries of their findings and have the opportunity to hear about experiences and ideas of solutions from different parts of the world, thinking about shared experiences, and regional variations. The Warwick event will happen in conjunction with an exhibition, which further aims to diversify representations of poor communities around the world.
The key output of the poverty research network will be the locally produced 'Archive for Alternate Futures'; a website which captures stories of local communities, their histories, and their visions for achieving more equal futures. The project also aims to contribute to the transformation of modes of research project and policy formation, forging methodologies, experiences, and tools, for dialogic approaches to poverty research and poverty reduction strategies, and integrating the insights of histories.
Planned Impact
This research network will benefit scholars, policymakers, civil society organisations and local communities across five carefully selected ODA recipient nations (Bangladesh, Brazil, the Indian Ocean World with an event in South Africa, Mexico, and South East Europe with an event in Slovenia), and within the UK itself. The network will encompass a wide range of academic professionals, along with activists, NGOs, aid practitioners, policymakers, political campaigners, journalists, and local community leaders. Its work will focus on capturing how different narratives of poverty and poverty reduction have been conceptualised and articulated in ODA recipient nations, with the aim to not only provide people who have been the object of poverty discourses a voice and chance to share their experiences and ideas of solutions, but also to diversify the subjects and productions of history through engagement with the often silent majority of global communities. The poverty research network thus aims to initiate a change in mainstream narratives of poverty constructed by economists and social scientists.
The network will be established, and its findings and outputs disseminated, through a series of workshops, a major concluding international conference, and a dedicated project website. The following users will particularly benefit from the building of a cohesive network:
1. Through the series of workshops in five ODA recipient nations, the Network will connect academic researchers with non-academic civil society actors from these locales, including activists, aid practitioners, political campaigners, artists, religious leaders and journalists. In doing so, the Network will create an international forum for people who have been the object of poverty to express their empowerment and share their experiences, histories, traditions, and ideas of solutions to social injustice. The dedicated project website will act as a forum for exchanging experiences and ideas about poverty and its solutions, providing a window onto the experiences and ideas of people on the frontline of poverty politics around the world. The website will carry reports of the projects in each of the localities, but it will also host a blog space where people can discuss and debate.
2. The network will disseminate this local knowledge and expertise to international development policymakers and practitioners in the United Kingdom, with an aim to promote alternative visions of development to those set out in the UN 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Officials from the UK governmental Department for International Development (DFID) will participate in the concluding international conference at the University of Warwick, building on established links between the two institutions. UK development policy will be influenced through the conference discussions, the production of a set of policy recommendations, and the co-production of a policy paper with DFID officials. Findings will also be disseminated through these channels to representatives from leading UK-based international development NGOs (Oxfam and Save the Children) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), who have agreed to participate in the concluding conference.
3. Exhibitions will be organised in tandem with the Network workshops, to share the local stories and narratives that have been gathered from activists, NGOs, academics, and the people within communities that have been the traditional object of poverty discourses. Smaller versions of these will be gathered for an exhibition on global poverty politics at the University of Warwick, which will be held in conjunction with the concluding conference.
The network will be established, and its findings and outputs disseminated, through a series of workshops, a major concluding international conference, and a dedicated project website. The following users will particularly benefit from the building of a cohesive network:
1. Through the series of workshops in five ODA recipient nations, the Network will connect academic researchers with non-academic civil society actors from these locales, including activists, aid practitioners, political campaigners, artists, religious leaders and journalists. In doing so, the Network will create an international forum for people who have been the object of poverty to express their empowerment and share their experiences, histories, traditions, and ideas of solutions to social injustice. The dedicated project website will act as a forum for exchanging experiences and ideas about poverty and its solutions, providing a window onto the experiences and ideas of people on the frontline of poverty politics around the world. The website will carry reports of the projects in each of the localities, but it will also host a blog space where people can discuss and debate.
2. The network will disseminate this local knowledge and expertise to international development policymakers and practitioners in the United Kingdom, with an aim to promote alternative visions of development to those set out in the UN 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Officials from the UK governmental Department for International Development (DFID) will participate in the concluding international conference at the University of Warwick, building on established links between the two institutions. UK development policy will be influenced through the conference discussions, the production of a set of policy recommendations, and the co-production of a policy paper with DFID officials. Findings will also be disseminated through these channels to representatives from leading UK-based international development NGOs (Oxfam and Save the Children) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), who have agreed to participate in the concluding conference.
3. Exhibitions will be organised in tandem with the Network workshops, to share the local stories and narratives that have been gathered from activists, NGOs, academics, and the people within communities that have been the traditional object of poverty discourses. Smaller versions of these will be gathered for an exhibition on global poverty politics at the University of Warwick, which will be held in conjunction with the concluding conference.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Julia McClure (Principal Investigator) | |
| Ann Stewart (Co-Investigator) |
Publications
McClure J
(2022)
Special Issue Introduction: Beyond Development: Local Histories of Global Poverty
in The Journal of Law, Social Justice and Global Development
| Title | Exhibition |
| Description | We are holding a public exhibition of the poverty research network in May 2019 |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | The exhibition will take place in May 2019 |
| Title | Online exhibition resulting from exhibition of commissioned films representing poverty |
| Description | Online exhibition of newly commissioned films subverting representations of poverty https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/poverty/exhibition/# |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | Discussions of continued art projects between curator and artists involved |
| URL | https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/poverty/exhibition/# |
| Title | Short films for the poverty research network |
| Description | I am working with a curator to put together the exhibition of the poverty research network in Glasgow in May. We have commissioned films on grassroots groups working with poverty from artists and activists in Glasgow, Dakar Sengal, and Oaxaca Mexico |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | This exhibition will take place in May, the opening night will take place with the artists on May 3rd 2019 |
| Description | We have established our original aims of developing an international workshop to discuss the local histories of global poverty. The workshops took place in Brazil, Bangladesh, Slovenia, Senegal, Mexico, and Glasgow. These workshops brought together activists and academics to discuss the key questions around the role of history and the arts and humanities in fighting poverty. Reports, often written by local community members, were added to the website to create an international conversation. Participants of the workshops met each other in Glasgow to discuss the general themes. Across the different sub-themes of the workshops (which decided by the local participators) there were a number of re-occurring correspondences of structural causations, and echoes of social meanings. The workshop discussions identified the usual causes of poverty that you would expect: access to the formal labour market, the associated pressures of forced mobility or the impositions of immobilities, the marginalisations engendered by the multiple dislocations of poverty. The workshops also identified the importance of other, often overlooked issues that are revealed by approaching poverty from the perspective of the arts and humanities and of the values of local communities. People talked about the ethics of space and the poetics of movement, the tensions within and between narratives and the importance of language and other tools of communication and representation. Time and again participants in the project discussed the importance of the politics of representation and the importance of the arts and humanities to social assistance and resistance. The project included ethno-linguists in Mexico, art historians in Brazil, musicians in Slovenia, and poets in Bangladesh, and rap artists in Senegal. Each of these vibrant expressions challenged the historic silencing of the poor and representation of poverty. Poverty is so-often represented only by statistics; numbers which are not only dimensionless but also de-humanising. Through the arts and humanities the representation of poverty is transformed. Poverty ceases to be de-historicised and de-cultured. Poverty gains a medium of communication and representation that strengthens resistance. The project also explored the way in which history can be used as a tool for social justice.We have seen the role that history plays in historic legal claims to land and other resources (in the cases of Brazil and Mexico) and also in claims for citizenship (in the case of Slovenia). History is also a cultural resource, a form of collective memory, that consolidates inter-generational bonds across communities. History also helps to build cultural memory, which helps identity building, pride, and reinforces cultural resilience. This was particularly strong at the Roma Settlement in Slovenia, that even has its own museum to preserve cultural memory and build pride in the community as well as representing historic stake in the wider community. It was also important in Mexico where this ongoing investigation of pre-conquest languages and communities and an attempt to understand the deep roots of the sustainability of indigenous communities. Much analysis of today's social, economic, and political problems comes from the social sciences, and the analysis is often historically truncated. Placing such problems within a historical context deepens analysis. Historical analysis brings longitudinal causation into focus, but history is more than a lengthening of perspective. History is critical contextualisation. Context is the multi-dimensional and malleable material of the historian's craft. Critical contextualisation is what enables history to function as a possible tool for social justice by revealing the complexity of context, its micro layers and macro entanglements. History is not only a lengthening of perspective backwards, but an increasing awareness of the vertical and horizontal constraints on human agency. Critical contextualisation is then, an alternative to empowerment, which has traditionally focused upon facilitating individuals to 'pull themselves up by the boot straps' through micro-financing and other facilitations for participation in free market economics. History highlights that the proverbial bootstraps are rigged, production can be increased but economic gains will continued to be pulled towards elite institutions. The lives of the poor are often dominated by their daily needs, creating the ephemeral condition of a continuous present. Yesterday I forgotten, tomorrow is uncertain. Critical contextualisation is an expansion of that present; it resituates poverty within an historical framework. The demands of the poor are not ephemeral but cries for historical justice. The obstacles they face are the legacies of empires, both old and new. Of multiple dispossessions that have been facilitated by legal and epistemological regimes that have now become so subsumed in our international discourses as to become normative. This critical contextualisation also highlights that poverty is a place where the local and the global meet. A hyper-local site, a marginalised community in a geographically remote location, can be a site of global interactions. This interface between the global and local is often charged with frictions. This interface is often governed by elite institutions, the mechanisms of the state, the policies of international finance. We have asked in particular what role law has played historically and still place in the meeting of the global and the local at the site of poverty. This focus interrogates the norms and regimes that maintain inequality and perpetuate poverty. In the case of poverty, the global risks erasing the local. The global history of poverty has been characterised by the loss of the world through alienation, the agenda as we move forward is about regaining that world. This is not an echo of the neoliberal agenda to empower individuals, but to resilient spaces that support communities and environments. |
| Exploitation Route | 1. I worked with a student curator and film makers in Glasgow, Senegal, and Oaxaca to engage further with the discussions generated in the workshops on the politics of representation of poverty and the importance of history and the arts and humanities to fighting poverty, its causes, and stigma. The findings were taken forward for this exhibition, and the the local community in Glasgow was engaged through workshops. I am now discussion with the curator and representative of the centre for contemporary arts in Glasgow the possibility of developing this project further, expanding the corpus of films. 2. I worked with representatives who set up the west gap grassroots organisation fighting poverty in the west end to produce a documentary, showing how history can be used in the fight against poverty and how good archiving practices and preservation of historical memory can build the sustainability of organisation. 3. With project partners in Senegal and Brazil we have taken the framework of the poverty research network and talked about turning it into a franchise - setting up local branches. With these partners we have put in further grant applications to continue our work. 4. The NGOs we have worked with in Bangladesh, Brazil, Senegal, Slovenia, and Mexico have talked about how important they have found the discussions on the history of poverty and have said they want to engage more in history in their future practices. 5. Luna Maran from Oaxaca, one of our project partners, has set the model on representations and cinema and we used this in the exhibition. This is evidence of the strength of the international network since they will influence the film making in Glasgow, and has established a model to be followed by others 6. KT the rap artist from Senegal has already made a rap video about rap music as poverty protest in Dakar and he made a new video for the exhibition in May 7. We are producing an academic special issue and this will disseminate our findings further |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |
| URL | https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/poverty/exhibition/# |
| Description | One of the central aims of the project was to explore the importance of history in fighting poverty and how history can be used as a tool of social justice. I worked with representatives of WestGap, a charity fighting poverty and the stigmatization of poverty in the West End of Glasgow to produce a documentary of the history of their struggle, and in the exhibition and associated round table we emphasised the importance of good archival practices to insitutional sustainability. 2. I turned the findings of the poverty research network global and local workshops into an exhibition. I worked with a curator who was doing this project for his Masters thesis and he has used the blog reports and the writings that we have produced to organise and plan the exhibition. We developed further on the aim to show why the arts and humanities are important in representing poverty. We commissioned film makers in Mexico, Senegal, and Glasgow, to make short films to show at the exhibition. In each case the film makers used the ideas already developed in the workshop to develop their films which will be shown at the exhibition in May. The film makers in Mexico, Senegal, and Glasgow engaged with the ideas of the project and the local communities to think about the politics of representation of poverty and how the arts and humanities can fight stigmitization. The exhibition took place in May 2019 and was open to the public in Glasgow. People from across the university and the local community attended. There were 2 workshops to expand engagement in the project, and many people left supportive comments and joined the mailing list of the poverty research network and were interested to participate in future projects. 3. I presented my work on the history of poverty at a conference on human rights. A number of policy makers, including the UN special rapporteur Philip Alston, were at this conference and discussed how history might be used to improve how the poor access social justice by remembering that there are historic rights to resources that have been lost. This is resulting in a publication. 4. In showing why history is important to fighting poverty I have used the work of the poverty research network to start work in another project in Chiapas, and these ideas have been discussed in other workshops in Mexico - about the role that history can play in building sustainable communities. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Title | Poverty Research Network Website |
| Description | The project's website incorporates written reports and written summaries of oral testimonies based on the discussions at our various workshops around the world. One of the aims of this project is to create a trans-historical and transnational framework for sharing stories and perspectives on poverty and alternative models of community-based social assistance strategies. The website acts as a database of these stories. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Participants in different localities are linked across the world to other localities through accessing and sharing their stories on the website. |
| URL | http://www.povertyresearchnetwork.com |
| Description | "Desigualdades Globais e Sociedades em perspectiva histórica e espacia" |
| Organisation | Fluminense Federal University |
| Country | Brazil |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Following the successful meeting at the University of Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the poverty research network has become a strategic partner for a growing global network on poverty and inequality. This is an interdisciplinary and international network. The poverty research network, which is now based at the university of Glasgow, offers the Brazil based network the opportunity to internationalise across the Atlantic. We will host workshops and visiting scholar exchanges. The poverty network itself is a link to more international partners. The poverty network is interdisciplinary but focuses on history in particular and brings the expertise of history to this interdisciplinary and international discussion on inequality. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partners, which beyond Brazil include scholars from Mexico, Argentina, France and the US, are building a series of workshops and visiting scholar exchanges to develop an international network on inequality. |
| Impact | This project is just beginning, becoming a member was one of the outcomes of the poverty research network workshops in Brazil. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Article for national newspaper |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Because I run the poverty research network and was organising the art exhibition at the Pearce Institute the National newspaper asked me to give a report on poverty for their paper https://www.thenational.scot/news/17619426.global-goals-on-poverty-must-be-viewed-through-prism-of-local-experience/ |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.thenational.scot/news/17619426.global-goals-on-poverty-must-be-viewed-through-prism-of-l... |
| Description | Exhibition on poverty at the Pearce Insitute in Glasgow with 2 roundtable workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I organised an exhibition at the Pearce Institute in Govan, Glasgow, an impoverished area of Glasgow. We showed newly commissioned filmd from Mexico, Senegal, and Glasgow, which subverted problematic representations of poverty. It also showed the archive and a documentary we made about a local grassroots group that had fought poverty in the west end of glasgow. We held 2 roundtables, one with the academics and activists involved in the project, the other with the artists. We engaged with local art gallery the Centre for Contemporary Arts. The event was over 3 days and around 100 attended. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/poverty/exhibition/# |
| Description | Poverty and inequality and the future of global history |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In conjunction with the Poverty Research Network international workshop in Glasgow in September I asked many of the international project partners to participate in a round table on how the themes of the Poverty Research Network on poverty and inequality may transform the field of global history - a transcript of this round table will be published shortly |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | September workshop, Glasgow |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | Local Glasgow grassroots activists and representatives of NGOs who have been involved with the local poverty research network workshop around the world met with aademics from different disciplines from around the world (Brazil, Bangladesh, Slovenia, Senegal, Mexico) to reflect on the discussions of the regional workshops and reflect on the themes of the projects. Mamadou Mbengue, a representative of the NGO ENDU, based in Dakar Senegal talked about the insights he had gained from attending the workshop in Senegal and thinking about the importance of taking the long view towards development and with speaking with other communities fighting poverty around the world. Mamadou Mbengue said that he wanted to reflect history more in development policies in Dakar Senegal. Gubidxa Guerrero Luis, a representative of the grassroots organisation Comité Melandre talked about fighting poverty in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the insights we had gained from the workshop talking about representations of poverty and indigeneity and the marginalisation of indigenous groups. Rasheny Lazcano (Biblioteca Juan de Cordova in the Centro Cultural San Pablo) also attended from Oaxaca to talk about the importance of promoting indigenous languages to prevent marginalisation and the role that history plays in capturing this. Another participant in the Mexico workshop, Luna Marán from Agenda Guelatao in Guelatao had talked about similar themes in the workshop. She runs a cinema project in an indigenous community and is now thinking more about representations about poverty following our workshop. She is making a film for our exhibition. Kait Laughlin (Poverty and Human Rights researcher and campaigner (currently working in political literacy and adult education, Former anti-poverty worker and co-founder of West Glasgow Against Poverty (WestGAP)) & Damien Dempsey (Policy Officer. Former Glasgow community development worker and former anti-poverty worker at WestGAP) both attended. They explained the importance of history in fighting poverty in the west end. We have continued our work together. They are now making a film about the history of their group fighting poverty in the West End and we are working together on producing a code of good practice on using history to promote the sustainability and impact of grass roots activist groups fighting poverty. A representative of the Govan Community project also attended to talk about how international migration is re-shaping poverty in the poorer areas of Glasgow. 2 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Workshop # 5, Mexico, and regional visits to indigenous communities in Oaxaca with local NGOs |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We held a workshop in Oaxaca in summer 2018 with academics and with representatives of indigenous communities and NGOs and grassroots organisations working with indigenous communities. We discussed how indigenous groups are marginalised and the causes of poverty in indigenous communities in Mexico. We also discussed the problems of the ways in which indigenous communities have historically been represented as poor, although they may not be and how this stigmitization is part of the process of marginalisation. We talked about how the indicators of poverty have historically been linked to Western values in general and capitalism in particular. We discussed the meaning of poverty. Luna Marán from Agenda Guelatao in Guelatao will be presenting a film on this that she is making for the network for the exhibition in May. We then visited a number of indigenous communities in the company of anthropologists and NGOs who work in Oaxaca and we met more community leaders to talk about fighting poverty, the importance of representation and education and the role that history plays in this. We visited a school and explored how history is used to empower local communities to be proud of their heritage and language. Full report of Workshop #5 'Communities of Social Assistance and Resistance', Mexico, San Pablo Centre, Oaxaca City, 9 July 2018 Regional leads & organisers: Ben Smith (University of Warwick) and Rasheny Lazcano (Biblioteca Juan de Cordova in the Centro Cultural San Pablo) Poverty Research Network organisers and participants: Julia McClure (University of Glasgow) and Rosie Doyle (University of Warwick) Representatives of civic associations and local NGOs: • Sofia Robles Hernández from Servicios del Pueblo Mixe (SER) an established organisation with more than thirty years' experience working with a network of civic associations and groups and communities in the Sierra Mixe. • Kiado Cruz from Servicios Universidades y Redes de Conocimientos (SURCO) a new association developing alternative Higher Education courses and working to defend freedom of expression online. • Gubidxa Guerrero Luis and Rosa Beatriz Morales Ruiz from Comité Melandre a civic association working in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to re-establish community networks in the rapidly-growing city of Juchitán as a means of protection and defence against the escalation of violence in the region. • Luna Martínez Marán from Agenda Guelatao in Guelatao a small town in the Sierra Norte. Agenda Guelatao runs a range of cultural projects aimed at providing a space for different voices in cinematic and cultural production and providing communal spaces for enjoying art, photography and film produced by children and young people. The organisation is run very much along the lines of the concept of comunalidad developed by Luis Martinez Luna, from Guelatao and Floriberto Diaz Robles from Tlahui among others. • Also present was the Mixe translator, musician and multi-media artist Konk Diaz Robles from Tlahui. Workshop theme and aims Community building and community action have been at important to many of the different sub-themes of the poverty research network workshops but here there was a particular focus on the strategies and purposes of communities in social assistance and resistance. As part of this discussion, the workshop explored the poverty research network's key theme of the uses of history and the ways in which history can be a tool for social justice. During this workshop researchers of the history of community strategies of social assistance, Julia McClure and Rosie Doyle, met with representatives from civil associations and NGOs to explore the local visions of global poverty and to discuss the roles of history in community action. The workshop began with general introductions. Julia McClure and Rosie Doyle provided a general overview of the aims of the project 'Beyond Development' and outlined some specific questions to guide the discussion in the workshop. The workshop had a particular focus on community organising as a strategy for protecting local access to natural resources, political autonomy, legal protection and community development. Panel 1: Historical Perspectives Since first contact with Europeans in the sixteenth century, indigenous groups have formed communities as a strategy for resistance and survival, and as a means of negotiating the distribution of resources within socio-political systems of asymmetrical power relations. Conceptions of poverty and visions of ideal way of life have gone through many transitions and transformed the focus of these different communities. In this first panel McClure and Doyle presented examples from their research on the formation of communities of social assistance and interpretations of poverty and uses of history by these communities. McClure presented on how the Franciscan Order developed a particular ideology of poverty which they sought to translate in the Americas in the Early Colonial Period. McClure considered the legacies of the Franciscans' translation of Amerindians as poor in the sixteenth century. She also introduced the associated formation of penitential confraternities, which provided a framework for building communities of social assistance. Doyle continued with the theme of the ambivalent politics of religious communities and presented a paper on the aims of Liberation Theologians in the 1970s to engage with social issues in order to overcome issues of social inequality. Doyle considered how these theologians used particular historical moments in their discourse about the relationship between people, the land and the Church. Panel 2: Overview of the work of civic associations and NGOs The second session was dedicated to presentations of the projects of the civic associations and NGOs all of which are involved in a broad range of initiatives and projects. Representatives selected specific initiatives to present. Comité Melandre presented initiatives that they developed as a response to the 8.2 Earthquake of 9 September 2017 with an epicentre near the city of Juchitan, Tehuantepec where they are based. These projects were aimed at providing relief at the same time as revitalizing the local economy that had been affected by the damage to infrastructure in the earthquake. The projects were shaped by the contours of particular local needs, conditions, and cultures. In this region of Oaxaca few communities are completely self-sufficient but are rather interdependent in that the economy depends on trading and exchanging goods and services. Considering this, Comité Melandre launched its 'Canasta Básica Istmeña' project, which provided families with a food hamper with sufficient basic food stuffs produced in the region to feed a family for a week. This canasta básica also helped provide a source of income for example for fishermen, people who smoke and dry fish and seafood and consumption and people (principally women) who produce crispy tortillas known as totopos. During the earthquake, many of the traditional ovens or comiscales used to make totopos were broken, as were many of the workshops used to produce them. This left households without cooking facilities and in some cases, where selling totopos and other foodstuffs was a family business, without income. Comité Melandre launched 'adopto un horno', an initiative which invited donors to adopt an oven and raised sufficient funds to reconstruct the workshops and produce and distribute ovens to families in need. It also helped revive an interest in traditional forms of cooking and food heritage among people whose families had once produced food in comiscales, but this had fallen by the wayside in previous generations. It is hoped that this will provide a number of women with economic independence and may also have some health benefits but primarily it has the effect of reviving the local economy. The initial aim was to distribute around 350 comiscales but the response to the appeal has been so successful that more than 1500 have been distributed up until now. Comité Melandre has also developed further initiatives aimed at assisting the position of women within local economies. Comité Melandre launched another project which asked donors to buy a huipil (an embroidered blouse traditionally worn in the region) for 2000 pesos a piece. This not only provided artisans with a source of income but also meant that the association were able to pay craftspeople to repair the looms used for weaving huipiles which had also been damaged in the earthquake. As in the case of 'adopto un horno' this project helped artisans at all levels of production revive their workshops and practices and it also provided women with independent income. The combined outcome of these projects is to raise awareness of traditional forms of craft and food production, to revitalise the local economy and to encourage people to buy from local producers rather than in the supermarket. Gubidxa and Beatriz underlined that the learning process was very revealing as not only did they learn about the chain of craftspeople involved in the production of local products, but it also illustrated how local historical knowledge and memory of forms of organization allowed them to deal with some challenging circumstances to improve their economic situation. Next Sofia Robles Hernández presented the work of Servicios del Pueblo Mixe, an organisation which provides a base for a network of communities and organisations throughout the Mixe region. Robles Hernández began her presentation by stating: 'Yo puedo ser pobre pero me siento feliz.' This statement struck at the heart of certain global discourses around poverty and development. Robles Hernandez highlighted tensions between perspectives of communities and mainstream economic development. Robles Hernandez began with an overview of the effects of the building of the main highway into the Sierra Mixe and the development of electric lighting. While such initiatives may seem like economic progress, there were many associated problems with accidents caused in the construction of the highways and fires caused by electrical accidents. Significantly, the development of the highway made it even more vital for the people of the Mixe region to protect their resources. People started organising in the region to find approaches to these issues. The first incarnation of this civil society movement was as Comité Recursos Rurales Mixe, and then it changed to Asamblea Regional de Autoridades Mixe. In 1988 it was formed as an Asociacion Civil, Servicios del Pueblo Mixe as there was a need to consolidate and continue with the work so far. The work of this civil society association has been to make claims against the government and raise complaints. SER has also managed and overseen facilitation of arbitration and legal advice for forwarding claims and complaints and negotiating land claims. It has been committed to defining and raising awareness of important rights and finding avenues for protecting those rights. Robles Hernández identified the main objective of SER as being that of recognising the rights of indigenous people against discrimination. She mentioned another organisation working in the Sierra Mixe run by Jaime Martínez. Robles Hernández gave an overview of the history of several important moments for the normative recognition of the rights of indigenous people. Robles Hernández explained that the state constitution of Oaxaca was the first to include an article on the rights of indigenous people with the Ley de derechos de los pueblos. In particular, Robles Hernández mentioned the inclusion of the recognition of the right to self-determination for indigenous peoples in the Mexican national constitution in 1995, and the normative regulation on internal systems of usos y costumbres in 2012. Robles Hernández highlighted the importance of understanding the law in relation to self-determination and indigenous rights and identified creating a network of lawyers and advisors as being part of the work of SER. Robles Hernández used this context to illustrate how notions of poverty and wealth have changed since the 1970s. In the past, she argued, people would have considered themselves rich if they were able to feed themselves and sustain their family through cultivating crops and keeping livestock. Members of the community with cattle would have been considered particularly wealthy. Nowadays, she suggests that rural people are considered poor even though they can still provide for themselves. This is because they do this without a salary and the capacity to buy material goods. Robles Hernández suggested that material markers such as ownership of a car or a brick or breeze block house as opposed to one build with adobe were now more important. She talked about the need to defend and demand rights for indigenous communities and human rights as well as developing projects supporting agricultural production in a context in which around 70% of the population globally live from agriculture. Robles Hernández highlighted the differences between urban and rural poverty, discussing the limitation of projects of the Mexican state to support agriculture. She mentioned the 1989-90 Plan de Desarollo Agricultural which established a consultation in communities but was particularly slow at providing support and when it came this support consisted mainly of providing industrial fertilizers. In the face of these government projects SER organised around the need to protect local seeds and crops that were endangered by commercial agriculture, monoculture and the use of fertilizers. In the lower Mixe region commercial agriculture is prevalent and maize is grown for wholesale. The challenge was to maintain conventional agriculture and use local seeds and plants. There was a move to develop and defend food sovereignty and a local economy that was not so dependent on external forces. This was achieved through the development of local markets. Robles Hernández explained that the recovery and reinvigoration of local languages has been another key element of the work of SER. Local authorities began to ask why the younger generation was choosing to migrate away from the region. It was noted that loss of linguistic ability was one of the outcomes of this outmigration. The project SERVILEM (Servicios de la Lengua Mixteca) was established to promote language learning through the development of a festival organised around an official week of Mixtec language. These festivals were developed between 1983 and 1986 and then taken up by SER in 1994. As a part of these projects a lot of locals who had undergone higher education and were working in various professions; anthropologists, sociologists, biologists etc, returned to give workshops to the volunteers of SER and SERVILEM. Robles Hernández outlined another major area of the work of SER: defending women's rights and interests. The work in this area revolves around raising awareness about women's rights among women themselves, providing training in a range of skills and facilitating organising capacity. Among the training given were workshops in the preparation of nutritious food using local produce. Another aspect of this work is the creation of networks of women's organization at regional and state levels. These organisations are now networked in the Asamblea de Mujeres Indigenas de Oaxaca through which a lot of initiatives have been proposed. SER has developed a broad network of lawyers supporting the needs of women although lawyers rarely stay with the organization for longer than 8 years or so. However, the participation of lawyers in the projects of SER means that women and volunteers have accumulated a significant understanding of rights. Robles Hernández went on to discuss issues related to government-funded projects in the region. She mentioned the Secretaria Indigena established by Andres Manuel López Obrador, the centre-left politician who won the presidential election in July 2018 and the IEPCO which had links to the centre left Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD.) Within the Asamblea de los Derechos Indigenas the Comité de Derechos Indigenas de Oaxaca wanted to become an independent Asociación Civil (Registered Civil Society Or |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/poverty/ahrcprojectbeyonddevelopmentlocalvisionsofglobalpoverty/ |
| Description | Workshop #1: 'Poverty, Inequality and Forced Labour' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Workshop report: The first Workshop for the Poverty Research Network project was hosted by the School of History, at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Niteroi, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the 11 of September 2017. The workshop was organised by Professor Noberto Ferreras, and brought together scholars from different research groups within UFF as well as from other research centres in Brazil and the UK.The Workshop adopted the UN SDGs 1 (End Poverty) and 10 (Reduce Inequality) as the main points of entry into academic debate about and inquiry into historical narratives of poverty and inequality, and how both themes have been conceptualised and articulated in Brazil, Iberia and across the imperial Atlantic World.The workshop began with a tour of the city, led by Prof Ferreras. This exploration of the city highlighted the landscape of poverty and inequality in Rio de Janeiro today and the visual and structural traces of the deep history of forced labour regimes. We made a number of visits to important sites which show how slavery has shaped the landscape of Rio de Janeiro. We began at Cais do Valongo, the original slave port, which commemorates the four million slaves that arrived in Brazilian ports in three hundred years of slavery. This gave us the opportunity to discuss the public history of slavery, the politics of commemoration, and the importance of the archaeology of inequality. Later in the day we visited the Quilomba do Grotão, one of the many communities formed by people escaping slavery that still exist in Brazil today. These historic communities formed by escaped slaves are still fighting for social justice today. Drawing upon the history of their community, they are engaged in a battle for the legal recognition of their property rights. These communities are also exploring more equitable ways of living and are seeking to make communal rather than individual property claims, and to develop a self-sufficient community based upon environmentally sustainable energy. This respect for the environment and endeavour to create more equal and environmentally sustainable communities is part of the battle to overcome the legacies of colonialism and their forced labour regimes.We later visited the Law Faculty at UFRJ which provides advocacy and representation for landless groups and individuals in legal disputes over rural landownership, including the Quilombas. In a meeting at the Faculty with a founding members and activist of the Legal Advice Centre, Mariana Criola, Claudia Diogo Tavares explained the complex history and constitutional position of these claims to participants in the Poverty Research Network (Prof. Ferreras, UFF; Dr McClure, University of Glasgow; Dr Collins, University of Nottingham). The activism and advocacy of the Centre has been directed at the rights enshrined in Article 68, of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, and re-defined in 2003. The legislation,then passed into law, the right of "self-designated ethno-racial groups who have their own historical trajectory, specific territorial relations". This law allowed groups to collectively stake a claim to ownership to an area of land which they had occupied historically as descendent of enslaved peoples. In addition,the advocacy group works to represent those in dispute with large and powerful landowners and businesses who have laid illegal claims to ownership of land. These illegal or 'false claims' have taken place through the issuing of false land deeds for publicly owned land, the sale of which is prohibited.Under centre-left governments of Lula and Dilma, the Advocacy Centre secured budgets and premises from which to operate services and work in conjunction with the branch of government (INCRA)[1]empowered to enforce legislation pertaining to rural landownership and land use. However, after the impeachment of Dilma and the installation of PMDB and President Temer, funding has stopped and the centre now longer has a base. In addition, the lawyers at UFRJ working for the advocacy centre also hold positions in the University or are attempting to secure professional employment there. This means that the service is precarious while the conditions of those needing advocacy and representation has increased. Specifically, it is now those who have already secured land titles that are under threat as landowners and the political party that supports their interest (PFL[2]), attempt to reverse the legislation through constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court. This means that no more cases can be submitted or processed until this challenge has been decided upon at the judicial highest level. Ultimately, the aim of the legal challenge on the part of the PFL, agribusiness and powerful landowners, is to alter the interpretation of the law and restore primacy of the constitutional of property rights, reversing decisions to date. Meanwhile, those with land titles issued through the constitutional act, are being subjected to intimidation, violence and even forced off their land. Furthermore, Prof. Diogo Tavares, a well-respected scholar and lawyer, has been subjected to aggressive professional denunciations and personal attacks in the mainstream media for her advocacy work with rural landless movements.[3]The centre now faces a number of serious challenges under the present regime and political climate in Brazil. The lack of funding for the centre also means there are no researchers to support the land claims and conduct the all-important searches for deeds of ownership, some of which need to be traced back to the middle of last century, and which expose 'false claims'. Furthermore, UFRJ is also under considerable financial constraint and political pressure placing additional strain on faculty staff. Although the centre and the rural residents it advises and represents have links to other social justice groups across Brazil, such as the urban social housing movement MNLM[4] and the Landless Workers Movement (MLT), as well international social and political movements which support landless causes in other regions, such as Palestine, the Centre currently has no prospect of funding, from government or non-government sources in Brazil or elsewhere.Following these meetings, we began our intensive one-day workshop at the UFF in Niteroi. The workshop was entitled 'Genealogies of our times: poverty, labour, and inequality', and explored the historic connections between forced labour regimes, poverty, and inequality in Brazil. The workshop was structured around 3 main themes and sessions: poverty and governability, poverty and labour, poverty and visibility. Over the course of the day, scholars presented nine papers, with an opening presentation by Dr Julia McClure (Glasgow), and closing plenary by Prof Ferreras (UFF). The papers considered ways in which poverty and inequality have been debated and defined historically.They critiqued how both the condition of poverty and the poor as a social class have been constructed and represented by groups with more economic and social capital. The workshop provided a trans-regional and trans-historical comparative framework which historicised the construction of the category of the poor by elite groups, and the fluctuations in attitudes towards the poor, and the causes and solutions to poverty |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/poverty/ |
| Description | Workshop #2: Marginalized Perspectives from South East Europe: Between Poverty and Empowerment? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | whether their position has changed due to the latest refugee crisis (in comparison to previous refugee crises the post-Yugoslav region has faced). The workshop will be hosted in the Cultural Centre of the Romani Settlement of Kamenci in Slovenia (hosted by NGO Mission). It will include academics as well as practitioners working on the position of Roma in the post-conflict region. Holding the workshop in a Romani settlement will give Roma themselves an opportunity to speak about their own experience of poverty.Programme12.00-13.00 Lunch at the Roma settlement in Kamenci13.00-13.30 Visit to the Roma Museum and Presentation of Activities in Kamenci (Mr Ludvik Levacic,NGO Romano Pejtausago)13.30-15.30PANEL I - Presenters:Dr Julia McClure (Lecturer in History, University of Glasgow)Samanta Baranja, (PhD Student in Romani Linguistics , University of Ljubljana + Former President of Roma Academic Club, Mentor of Multipurpose centres &Teacher of extracurricular activities, Centre for School and Outdoor Activities)Dr Paul Stubbs, Senior Research Fellow (The Institute of Economics, Zagreb)Agata Sardelic,(President NGO Mission *S, Lendava) & Ludvik Levacic (NGO Romano Pejtausago, Kamenci)15.30-16.00 Coffee Break16.00-17.30PANEL II Presenters Nezir Huseini (Program Director of Roma Democratic Development Association Sonce, Tetovo) Jasmina Papa (Social Inclusion Advisor, United Nations Development Programme) Dr Julija Sardelic (Marie Curie Postdoctoral Researcher, University of LeuvenReport of WorkshopWe began with a tour of the museum at Kamenci, presented by Mr Ludvik Levacic, the informal leader of the settlement, and President of the NGO Romano Pejtausago (which means Romani Friendship in the local Romani language). The museum was developed as one of the projects by the NGOs in the beginning of 2000s and has been visited by many people including contemporary Council of Europe Commissioner of Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg, former Slovenian President Milan Kucan andmany other international political representatives who supported the efforts of multiple NGOs and local authorities development in Kamenci. Beginning with this tour of the Roma museum at Kamenci was an excellent way to physically, emotionally, and intellectually experience how history can be used a tool of social justice. The museum shows that history is not monopolised by academics based at universities butis a malleable resources. The museum also aims to bring an important signal, that outside academia history should not be only in hands of museum curators, who aim to reconfirm the greatness of national heritage, but also show counter-narratives brought by people and communities, who the state positions as marginalized minorities. It showed not only the value of history for communicating cultural heritage and gaining recognition of different communities, but also the importance of historical narratives as a tool against oppression.On the wall in the museum is a picture of Tito, and Mr Levacic recounted his experiences of being part of a Roma community in Yugoslavia and the discriminations that intensified in the breakup of this state with an official multicultural discourse in its Constitution. The museum captures the values of the community and its objects are testament to the layered meanings of what it meant to be positioned as Roma in the Yugoslav state and also in states that were established on its territory afterwards. Mr Levacic explained in its early conception the Socialist Yugoslavia had a different perspective on freedom of movement and hence the state did not control it to such a large extent as in its later years.Levacic felt that he and also other Roma had much more freedom in Yugoslavia and were also very respected despite being a non-territorial minority. He emphasized that the non-territoriality did not come from the sense of non-belonging, but from the different connection to the territory that is non-ownership of the land. This perspective presented by Levacic is similar to those of some other indigenous tribes around the world. The display in the museum emphasises the importance of connection with the environment, displaying collections of local botanical products that have traditionally been used in local medicinal practices. The museum, and many aspects of Roma history, were brought to life by the lively tour of Mr Levacic.The first presentation was given by Dr Julia McClure, who introduced the project and her own work on poverty and charity in the making of the Spanish Empire. McClure highlighted how there was a shift in attitudes towards poverty and strategies of poverty alleviation in the sixteenth century, which resulted in increasing criminalisation of poverty and its association with social disorder and contagion. New methodologies for managing the poor were advocated by humanists, such as Juan Luis Vives, who developed new models of ideal societies based upon the invisibility and exclusion of the poor. These humanists were the policy writers of their day and advocated new forms of poor relief based upon the institutionalisation of charity, and greater discrimination of who could receive this charity. Divisions between the deserving and undeserving poor developed, and these were linked to the capabilities of the bodies of the poor, especially their capacity to work. There was also a dramatic shift in the emphasis on caring for neighbours, the poor of local communities, and not strangers. Inclusion of citizens into new systems of charity were measured against multiple exclusions. Los Gitanos, as Roma communities in the Hispanic world are still known today, increasingly found themselves excluded from the forms of citizenship that were taking shape in early modern Spain, and losing access to systems of poor relief that were increasingly linked to these notions of citizenship. McClure also summarised how the legal category of the poor facilitated the construction of the Amerindians as colonial subjects, the theme of her current book project Poverty and Charity in the Making of the Spanish Empire. This historical example from sixteenth century Spain provided a framing for the AHRC project's aim to conduct cross-cultural and diachronic analysis.The following presentations were given by a range of specialists on marginalised minorities and migrants in South-East Europe, especially the Roma community and also including experts from the Romani community itself. Samanta Baranja, a PhD Student in Romani Linguistics at the University of Ljubljana aswell as the former President of Roma Academic Club and Project Manager at the Centre for School andAfter School Activities, spoke about the projects for reducing educational inequality between Romani children and their non-Romani counterparts. We discussed the problems with discourses of integration and the empowerment of Roma and the need to address the structural discriminations faced by Roma minorities. This raised lively debates about the limitations of welfare state models of social assistance,and the way in which discourses of charity have been re-conceptualised by NGO projects. A question raised from Baranja's presentation was, why it seems that Romani intellectuals are usually pushed to work with Romani populations and often do not get an opportunity that their knowledge can carry valuable lessons for the whole population. The reasons why Roma do become marginalized do not predominantly stem from the Romani community itself, but from the way the broader society positions them.Dr Paul Stubbs, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics Zagreb, began his presentation by engaging with the 'local-global' framework of the AHRC project. He noted how the local and the global are not two distinct or distant levels but that in fact that the two coordinates are often in dialogue. He gave the example of Kamenci, a Roma settlement in Slovenia, which might be thought of as a hyper-local location but, in fact, intersects with global discourses and institution. The building we sat in was built with international funds, and the money of the UK's AHRC had brought us together. Stubbs then turned his example on its head to describe how we need to see the sites of global discourses, such as the World Bank, as villages. This perspective would enable us to construct ethnographies of international institutions, to assess how normative behaviours and narratives emerge. Stubbs then used this position to reflect upon the narrative that has dominated global discourses, including trans-national approaches to poverty in the form of 'development', since, it could be argued, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Development discourses have been underpinned by neoliberal economic theory which is grounded in a notion of trickledown economics and sees the state as something which interferes with economic growth. Stubbs highlighted the narrative of de-growth, the need to increase equality and reduce poverty without increasing production which endangers the planet, and the need to acknowledge the limitations of the formal labour market to provide the means of existence for all. This led to a lively debate on the future of the Universal Basic Income Movement and the future of welfare states.Jasmina Papa, a Social Inclusion Advisor for the United Nations Development Programme, gave an overview of her project on people's narratives of the migration cycle. Papa gave insights into the new methodologies for thinking about narratives being designed and used by NGOs today. She used the programme 'sense maker' to turn the qualitative data of micro-narratives into quantitative data that can be used to inform future policy decisions. The participants offering their stories also engaged in the deconstruction of these narratives, a method called 'framework analysis'. The data revealed the reasons why people migrated (and returned), and the obstacles they faced in terms of accessing basic resources.It showed that many people would have preferred not to migrate, but were forced by the extremely limited possibilities of employment in the formal labour market. It showed the problems people faced accessing resources both in the places to which they migrated, and the places to which [some of them] returned.In her presentation, Dr Julija Sardelic linked together the findings on Romani individuals who became forced migrants or legally invisible during the post-Yugoslav wars to her current Marie Curie research project on broader theoretical questions on the invisible edges of citizenship and Romani minorities inEurope. She argued that to look for causes of marginalization, the researcher should look in the broader societal constellations and not simply find a reason of it in an alleged isolation of Romani community.The final presentations reminded us again of the significance of the location of our workshop, in the Roma settlement of Kamenci, which is also the site of the two NGOs established by Agata Sardelic and Ludvik Levacic respectively. Agata Sardelic provided us with an oral account of the history of the settlement. It began as she was involved with designing the pathways for new cycle paths in the region. A. Sardelic had suggested that these cycle paths should not only tour around famous monuments, but should connect historically marginalised communities. With this in mind she designed a project of regional cycle paths which included Roma settlement of Kamenci, where she was met with the tremendous hospitality with which anyone who has visited Kamenci will be familiar. Lasting friendships were forged and the NGO of Kamenci came to be established. A. Sardelic has now been dedicated to projects at Kamenci for nearly two decades- These project have not only improved infrastructure and cross-community relations, but established Kamenci as a global meeting point. These projects have been co-designed and co-implemented both by the Romani community itself as well as the local authorities on the other side. Such equal partnership has proven to bring the most effective results not only in soft activities, but also at bringing relevant infrastructure to the Roma communities and changing their image from a segregated ghetto to international juncture where different people meet and also live. The workshop ended with theoral testimony of Levacic, who gave his own account of growing up in a Roma community, and living through the transition of the breakup of Yugoslavia. He also reflected upon his experiences of the development of the NGO.The workshop provided the opportunity to reflect up on the structural dimensions of inequality, and the problem with empowerment discourses which don't address the systemic issues that prevent poverty alleviation, especially the limitations of the formal labour market to provide a living wage, the construction of migration cycles that are as disadvantaging as they are advantaging, the prevalence of racism, and the problems of the obstacles presented by structures of citizenships. However, what proved to be the added value of the workshop was the multitude of different voices including those that were previously silenced:that is not just from academics and representatives of different organizations, but also the lived experience of individuals who found themselves in between the narratives of poverty and empowerment.Co-written by Julia McClure and Julija Sardelic |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/poverty/ |
| Description | Workshop #3: Bangladesh: 'Women, Migration and Poverty |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This workshop at BRAC University tool place in November 2017 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The regional lead Firdous Azim, Professor of English and chair of the Department of English and Humanities, BRAC University. The co-I Ann Stewart co-organised the workshop from the University of Warwick. The workshop brought together academics and activists and people experiencing poverty to talk about the importance of the arts to understanding experiences of poverty cycles and migration. A local student produced a full blog report of the workshop and there are also links to videos from the performers on the PRN website https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_574025_en.pdf |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_574025_en.pdf |
| Description | Workshop #4, WARC, Dakar Senegal |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This meeting of the Poverty Research Network's project 'Beyond Development: Local Visions of Global Poverty' was organised by Professor Omar Gueye, in collaboration with Dr Julia McClure, and was hosted by the West African Research Centre (WARC). It focused upon 'poverty and its urban niches' in Dakar, Senegal. The Poverty Research Network workshops have focused upon the specific experiences, problems, and histories of poverty in each of the location. Here the 'local visions of global poverty' were brought into focus by focusing upon the 'urban niches of poverty'. This theme was developed in collaboration with Dr Idriss Bâ. This situational approach to poverty began with a reflection of the way the university itself intersects with poverty. In Senegal since 1968, students have been able to obtain grants and scholarships but these are often used as food subsidies, family allowances or to build homes. The university is therefore a way to climb the social ladder for students from deprived backgrounds, as wealthier students attend private universities or study abroad, but it can also interact with systemic poverty across Senegal. Beyond the university, poverty is experienced in different ways in different urban niches in Dakar. This workshop brought people together from different disciplines and different industries to explore how the spaces of the city interact with and shape the contours of poverty, and to think critically and dynamically about poverty reduction strategies both in the past and for the future. The keynote presentation was given by Keyti, one of Senegal's most famous rap artists, who showed a documentary on rap music in Senegal, which highlighted the importance of the arts, and humanities in understanding and resisting poverty. Panel 1: Introductory session -Dr Ousmane Sène, Director of WARC Dr Sène opened the workshop with a welcome note and explained the mission of the West African Research Centre (WARC), which aims to promote research in and on West Africa, as well as to promote inter-institutional collaborative research. A special note of thanks was then offered to Professor Gueye for having organised the workshop and to his research devoted to trade unions and the May 68 Movement in Senegal. Finally, he offered a preliminary thought to launch the session. Dr Sène began the workshop by raising an interesting question; he commented upon the abject poverty in Western countries, such as France, Britain, and America, and asked if Senegalese people, and in particular the youth, are aware of the extent of poverty and homelessness in Europe, and if they knew, would migration take a different turn? -Professor Omar Gueye, Introduction to the Workshop Professor Gueye started by thanking all the participants who responded enthusiastically to the invitation. He then offered an introduction to the workshop, the idea of which started during his time as a fellow at Harvard University between 2012 and 2014, where he was working on a global history project, his own research focusing on the May 68 movement, which he had already started in Dakar. Dr McClure had the idea of organising workshops on poverty around the world, building upon collaborations started at the Weatherhead Initiative for Global History (WIGH). While organising this workshop, Professor Gueye realised that many people were researching topics related to poverty and keen to join the discussion. -Julia McClure, Introduction to Global Poverty Dr McClure introduced the background to the Poverty Research Network and its current AHRC project ''Beyond Development: Local Visions of Global Poverty.' This project has been exploring different marginalised voices, narratives, and spaces of poverty, to pluralise our understanding of the historically constructed nature of poverty and to demonstrate how the global history of poverty can be used to reform the mainstream narrative of development. Workshops have been held in Bangladesh, Brazil, Slovenia and soon in Mexico, and each have locally set agenda. For McClure these workshops have been an opportunity to explore poverty in collaboration with different localities beyond Anglophone West, and often beyond the universities, and to reflect critically upon the relationships between poverty, space, and power. -Professor Abou Kane, 'Multidimensional Poverty' Professor Kane presented an economic analysis of poverty, whilst highlighting the point that many aspects relating to the topic cannot be taken into consideration by economics. Nevertheless, there has been an evolution of ideas in relation to poverty amongst economists and a consensus on a definition has emerged as follows, "a situation in which individuals do not possess the necessary resources to satisfy their essential needs." The question that naturally arises is how to define 'needs.' Some economists believe a monetary approach must be adopted to define 'needs' as opposed to one linked to revenue. However, the monetary approach has certain problems as the poverty line is not homogeneous. The economic approach to poverty needs to be expanded in accordance with the multidimensional framework of poverty and understandings of capabilities. For example, the official unemployment rate in Senegalis 12%, which is not representative of problems in Senegal, we must therefore think more dynamically about methodological approaches to poverty. -Dr Idy Bâ, 'Poverty and Its Niches in the 14th and 15th Centuries' Dr. Bâ presented on the importance of historicising the concept of poverty in order to demonstrate what Guy Bois described as systemic crises from the crisis of the late Middle Ages to the present day. Poverty existed long before global history or global poverty, in Africa, in Muslim countries or in Europe. The approach taken is therefore a history from below or a history of the margins, which facilitates a better understanding of the crises that often affect Africa. Dr. Bâ observed that we should not consider the history of poverty chronologically, and need to be sensitive to different dynamics of poverty at different scales of analysis. Panel 2: -Louis Mendy, 'Physical Aggression and Homelessness: The New Paradigms of Poverty in Dakar' Dr Mendy presented a socio-anthropological perspective of urban poverty and its new paradigms, which are visible today yet did not exist in the 1970s. Senegal has a reputation of rejecting violence, yet in the last three decades, violence has increased. Why? What has changed? A significant problem comes from the rise of homelessness, this in a country where hospitality is supposed to prevail. This modern phenomenon stems from the intersectionality of poverty, physical aggression and homelessness. Physical aggressions do not only target foreigners but also Senegalese people because poverty generates a climate of hopelessness amongst the unemployed youth. The lack of basic needs therefore pushes the youth towards violence in order to acquire basic commodities. This environment of insecurity can result in violence and sometimes even bloodshed. The Senegalese youth sometimes take fishing boats to attempt to reach Spain and others resort to violence. In addition, this youth suffers from unemployment and lack of education which makes them both resentful and unhappy. As a result, this leads them to violence in the form of theft from those who possess luxury goods, either at knifepoint or in more extreme cases resulting in murder, if the victims resist or recognise the aggressors. In sum, the youth turns to crime to support themselves in their socio-economic environment characterised by poverty, lack of education, unemployment and idleness. There is also an intersectionality between the level of education and aggressions, as aggressions and homelessness are rife. Dr Mendy observed that homelessness and violence went against the historical traditions of Senegal, which has historically been known as 'teranga', or land of hospitality. In the last 40 or 50 years poverty has changed the image of Dakar, and the spaces of poverty are changing. In particular, the waterfront has become a niche of poverty President Senghor has attempted different solutions, as new industries such as tourism are changing, and forms of aggression spread. Solutions. The police therefore need to be visible at nighttime, but tackling poverty at its roots is also important. The problem cannot simply be re-located. -Elhadji Ibrahima Sy, 'Poverty in the Slums' Mr Sy presented a socio-anthropological urban study on the niche in the Mermoz district of Dakar, known as 'cité garage' or 'garage slum.' The aim was to understand why research on poverty provide statistics that do not match the reality on the ground. A visual anthropological methodology was employed, ranging from note-taking and recording to photos and videos. The project focused on the issue of different levels of poverty in the slum in relation to family space, living conditions and the functional relations between the slum in question and neighbouring areas as well as the relations with the government authorities. Each configuration was observed in order to understand how the inhabitants view themselves, this was therefore also a semiological analysis of poverty and wealth. The results demonstrated that this slum is a niche in itself. Walls render poverty invisible, and businesses or wealthy neighbourhoods are built in front of the slum, . On top of this layer of invisibility, the slum is surrounded by layers of middle and upper social classes, who interact with the people from the slums - employing domestic workers and buying handicrafts - but don't necessarily realise their poverty. The socio-economic living conditions are terrible, illness is widespread, there are no basic public services, there is only one public water source and food is found in the 'gargotes' (eating huts). This slum is therefore a multi-layered niche of poverty. -Ibrahima Ndiaye, 'Socio-spatial Inequalities and Urban Mobility in Dakar' Dr Ndiaye presented a socio-spatial urban approach to poverty in order to underline the close relation between poverty and mobility in urban areas. Walking as a means of transportation is therefore a poverty index whilst automated transport is a wealth index. Poor people are characterised by an exclusive use of walking and are therefore confined to a limited space. Dakar has a 70% rate of people who only use walking as a means of transportation. The poor do not move around much, cover limited distances and predominantly use walking and a limited use of transport. As a result, there is an intersection between social geography and urban mobility. As the objective of this study was to highlight socio-spatial inequalities, the methodology used was therefore surveys on households and individuals through questionnaires, with five variables: the type of accommodation, living conditions, household equipment, poverty and possession of a means of transport. This was a multivariate analysis, with an ascending hierarchical classification and a breakdown of the city into zones. This methodology reveals the heterogeneity of Dakar as poverty is disseminated throughout the city. In addition, the zones emphasise the socio-spatial inequalities in relation to reduced mobility, distance and travel time, and the amount of income and expenses spent on transport. The results suggest a more nuanced understanding of low mobility and transport usage as poverty indices. The absence of mobility is a cause and not a consequence of poverty. The confined spaces which poor people are restricted to therefore maintains them in poverty. Consequently, a good strategy to fight poverty would be to facilitate mobility, which was attempted in the policy of free transport through family security grants. -Aissatou Diallo, 'Surviving in Informal Work' Dr Diallo presented an economic assessment on the informal work sector, bringing an optimistic dimension in order to highlight the transversal and transnational characteristics of this sector, which is dominated by men between the ages of 35 and 50. In addition, entrepreneurs in this sector are predominantly from other cities than Dakar, reflecting the rural exodus. Registration and recognition by the state is importance as the state can be a source of funding. While some aspects of the informal sector are recognised by the Chamber of Commerce, this study has demonstrated that the majority of the informal sector is not formally registered due to a lack of information and education. The results also reveal a relation between the informal sector and economic policies of structural adjustments put in place in the 1980s, which generated a severe rise of male unemployment. Subsequently, the destruction of the industrial ecosystem led to an increase of female and child employment in the informal sector in order to provide for families. In addition, climate related phenomena, which have caused a chain reaction of increased migration and therefore increased employment in the informal sector, must also be taken into consideration. In short, the informal sector has become a means of survival to fund migration journeys. In turn, trade liberalisation has given the informal sector its transnational characteristic. Some case studies have shown how a woman in the informal sector can open a small shop in Dakar, then acquire an informal loan to expand her business and then gradually move on to become an international business woman due to the international dimension of African migration to the West or Chinese migration to Africa. In sum, in the context of large development projects, the informal sector can become a survival strategy but also enable development outside the formal sector. Panel 3: -Dieynaba Ndiaye, 'To Have or Not to Be: The Dehumanisation of the Poor' Dr Dieynaba presented a psycho-sociological perspective in the current context of the hyper-marketisation of individuals' lives, where everything can be bought and the poor are dehumanised. In a wealthy society, the market extends into all spheres which causes weakened social and institutional bonds. As a result, solidarity cannot resist marketisation and privatisation. As social worth and standing can also be bought in this context, it is apparent that happiness has become synonymous with the accumulation of wealth; such is the neoliberal message. The marketisation of society is therefore omnipresent, which can also be termed 'market colonialism,' including in Senegal, even though African societies were traditionally spared from marketisation.This context of marketisation leads to the psychological effect of the dehumanisation of the poor. In psycho-sociology it is neither necessary nor sufficient to be a member of society to be considered human. In light of this, different types of dehumanisation are apparent that remove rational faculties or secondary emotions for which rational faculties are necessary, such as shame. Alternatively, the individual is assimilated to an animal which implies viewing the animalised human as irrational. People can also be objectified or mechanised as dehumanisation requires placing a distance with the individual who is therefore rejected and discriminated against. In Dakar, the invisibility of the poor is glaring. There is a distancing from the poor, the wealthy distance themselves from the poor, and the poor keep a distance from the wealthy, so that each group distances itself from one another. Common social constructions of the poor must also be considered, such as the idea of the poor as lazy, which stems from the Western narrative on poverty being linked to the welfare state. Dehumanisation thereby reinforces the idea of self-inflicted poverty. In sum, neoliberalism has produced societies of possession in which everything can be bought, even social status. The poor are therefore systematically excluded and dehumanised. -Mamadou Mbengue, Environment and Development Action in the Third World (ENDA) Mr Mbengue, executive secretary of ENDA, presented on the importance of collaboration between NGOs and the academic world in order to emphasise the importance of the democratisation of power for all. Even though society has turned humans i |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/poverty/ahrcprojectbeyonddevelopmentlocalvisionsofglobalpoverty/ |