Against ‘The Poor’ as a global category

ABSTRACT

Monique Deveaux’s book Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements is an important intervention in global justice dialogues. It explores with nuance the case for viewing persons facing poverty globally as potential agents of justice, and it does excellent work in offering exemplar groups where that potential is actualized. The book may put the final nail in framings of global justice as primarily transfers from ‘rich to poor.’ Yet, it also has a tendency to implicitly reinforce those same framings, in part by adopting a Global North/South dichotomy, and in particular by treating ‘the poor’ as a category of persons. Such a label may homogenize, presenting persons in ways that do not fully acknowledge their agency and multifaceted humanity. It may also undermine one of the core aims in Deveaux’s account, reinforcing forms of global social distance rather than highlighting possibilities for solidarity across borders. Alternate framings are proposed.

KEYWORDS:

• Global Poverty
• Global Justice
• Monique Deveaux
• Global Citizenship
• Global Citizenship

Introduction

This article highlights the important contributions made to normative dialogues on global poverty and justice by Monique Deveaux’s monograph, Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements. It focuses in particular on how her framing of those facing poverty as significant moral agents challenges some longstanding features of normative dialogue on global poverty, including some problematic us/them, donor/recipient dichotomies. Also discussed, however, are some ways in which Deveaux’s account may reinforce similar dichotomies, especially Global South/Global North and poor/non-poor, in ways that are in tension with her laudable aims to promote global solidarities and amplify voices often absent from normative accounts. Alternate framings are noted from scholarship on poverty and its stigmatizations.

Also discussed is Deveaux’s modified Grounded Normative Theory method (see Ackerly et al. 2021), under which the normative scholar uses secondary sources rather than primary research to gain empirical insights that can inform the development of normative claims. Further, Deveaux presents her grounded approach as non-foundational and wholly practice-based. It is focused not on developing and defending universalist moral principles, but on bringing the insights of ‘poor-led’ activist groups to bear in global justice dialogues. Questions are raised around how the initial selection of those groups is to be justified in such an approach, and how the theorist can justify the rejection of other groups as exemplars without at least implicitly relying on universalist or context-transcendent moral principles. Ultimately, it is suggested, while empirical engagement can greatly enrich and inform the development of normative claims, that engagement will be guided by prior normative suppositions.

Seeking to re-centre global poverty dialogues

One of the central contributions of Deveaux’s book is to extend and systematically defend her claims for understanding those facing poverty as potential agents of global justice (see Deveaux 2015, 2016, 2018). In addition, she argues that ‘if moral and political philosophies is to contribute to efforts to end severe poverty, it must put poor people’s organized struggles at the centre of normative discussions about poverty and its alleviation’ (Deveaux 2021, 1).

Such struggles are key to Deveaux’s analysis because she sees them as able to challenge some structural and relational causes of poverty that are underemphasized in normative dialogues. She critiques approaches to poverty alleviation such as Peter Singer’s which are focused on direct transfers from those living in relative affluence globally (see Singer 2009; Deveaux 2021,53–62). Such approaches, she argues, understand poverty in terms of material scarcity or unmet needs, and so they miss how transfers to meet some material needs can permit the structural causes of poverty to persist. For Deveaux, they also miss some of the most significant ways in which those facing poverty can and have sought to collectively address its causes.

She argues further that theorists such as Thomas (Pogge 2008) who do offer structural analyses of global poverty err in focusing on global institutions and processes, and by focusing on ‘agents in the global North – governments, institutions, multinational corporations, and citizens,’ as effectively the exclusive bearers of duties to reform them (Deveaux 2021, 71). She holds that Pogge and numerous other theorists give too little attention to domestic structures that sustain oppressive and exclusionary social relations, and too little attention especially to those facing poverty who seek to collectively challenge such structures (Deveaux 2021, 15). She sees the capabilities approach, especially as developed by Amartya (Sen 1999; see Robeyns and Byskov 2020), as an improvement for its emphasis on social and political structures that influence individual entitlements. It also is assessed as falling short, however, in failing to focus on collective capabilities, specifically ones salient to ‘reversing the collective social and political disempowerment of the poor’ (Deveaux 2021, 88).

Overall, Deveaux offers compelling arguments for a shift away from an us/them global framework narrowly focused on the duties of the relatively globally affluent. Such a framework remains relatively common, for example in accounts of global citizenship and cosmopolitanism focused on motivating the discharge of duties to address global poverty and injustices (Buckland et al. 2022; see Erez 2020; Brown and Hobbs 2022). Deveaux calls instead for a focus on establishing appropriate forms of solidarity with ‘poor-led’ groups. Drawing on accounts of political responsibility and solidarity offered by Iris Marion Young (2010; and Brooke Ackerly 2018; see also Gould 2020), she provides a nuanced understanding of what such solidarity would entail:

Where they are able to, people living in poverty can voice support for the work that poor organizations do, and contribute to their collective work and mobilization. Outsiders or would-be allies can help to amplify poor movements’ calls for pro-poor social policies and reforms, and demand that poor-led organizations be treated as stakeholders at all levels of social and economic planning and decision-making. … (Deveaux 2021, 234).

Significantly, Deveaux further specifies that ‘it is up to poor activists to say what kind of solidarity is needed, and from whom’ (Deveaux 2021, 234). Thus, she seeks to place in the dialogic driver’s seat those often framed as recipients, as lacking full agency relative to those framed as donors. She provides compelling reasons for theorists to reject approaches, which do not view all persons as actual or potential agents of global and social justice.

Her account also may, however, reinscribe some dichotomies in ways that are in tension with, and could ultimately undercut, its ethic of solidarity. In what follows, I focus on two us/them framings which remain prevalent: Global North/Global South, and especially poor/non-poor. Relatedly, I consider whether Deveaux’s modified grounded normative theory approach, which takes primary moral insights from the practices of certain grassroot groups, gives sufficient reason to select some groups and reject others. If not, that could challenge the strong dichotomy drawn between some groups, and in fact undercut the strong emphasis on the insights of ‘poor-led’ groups in the account. I will begin with the latter.

Selection of model grassroots groups

Deveaux, in seeking to put the struggles of those facing poverty at the centre of normative analysis, focuses on two types of ‘poor-led’ collectives: organizations and social movements. Organizations are defined as standing groups focused on specific improvements to members’ livelihoods, e.g. community infrastructure. Social movements are understood to entail ‘poor-led activism on a larger scale, which is more focused on effecting social change than on discrete livelihood goals’ (Deveaux 2021, 13). She notes that the two often overlap, with local associations forming nodes in larger social movement networks. She gives primary emphasis to movements, however, as focused on social and political transformation (2021, 13).

She cites as an exemplar Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers Movement/Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). Others include movements of unemployed and impoverished piqueteros (road blockers) and cacerolazos (pot bangers) pressing the Argentinian government to do to more to address poverty and precarious employment, and the global Via Campesina network of rural workers. For Deveaux, each exemplifies ways in which movements comprised those facing poverty can politicize it and engage in critical consciousness raising (Chapter 4). Such movements also are understood as valuable for enabling the development of collective capabilities central to transforming the social, economic and political structures that perpetuate poverty (Chapter 5). She focuses in particular on how ‘poor-led’ grassroots movements can help develop collective political capabilities, necessary for engagement ‘in oppositional activism and effective claims-making, with the aim of protesting arrangements that disadvantage or oppress the poor, and [to] influence public policy’ (Deveaux 2021, 153).

Overall, she holds that normative theory per se can play only ‘a modest role in helping to advance transformative, pro-poor policy responses to poverty, by drawing attention to the structural injustices that perpetuate the subordination and needs deprivation of people living in poverty. Ultimately, however, the kind of theory that best advances social change is that which is grounded in the shared practices of political struggle’ (Deveaux 2021, 234). That struggle is again to be led by the activists themselves, who set the terms of solidarity and support.

We can note again that in foregrounding the actions and understandings of the grassroots actors, Deveaux employs a type of grounded normative theory method. Grounded normative theory typically involves the conduct and/or analysis of original empirical work to inform the development of normative arguments (Ackerly et al. 2021; see Ackerly 2018; Cabrera 2020). It is intended, especially where qualitative field work is involved, as a means for the theorist to gain a better understanding of the normative and empirical dynamics within a given context, to expand the set of normative claims and possible objections to be engaged, and to practice more inclusive and accountable engagement with actors in the context. Deveaux offers a potentially valuable extension of the approach, focused on detailed engagement with secondary literature and case studies on specific movements.

Significantly here, her grounded normative approach is also practice-based and non-foundational. It emphasizes insights for normative theorizing to be taken from selected grassroots groups’ practices and their own moral understandings (see also (Ackerly 2018, Ch. 4; Ackerly 2020). Such an approach can be contrasted to one that would begin with some foundational presumptions about human moral equality, universal rights, etc., where preliminary normative claims are developed and then informed and typically revised as the theorist engages with those in salient empirical contexts (Mansbridge 1983; see Tonkiss 2013; Cabrera 2020, Ch. 5). It can also be contrasted with approaches that seek to engage the views of both grassroots groups that are highlighting injustices and struggling against exclusions, and the views of power-holding groups opposing those struggles in various ways (Cabrera 2020, Ch. 8).

As Deveaux’s careful presentation shows, there is a great deal to be learned from the practices of anti-poverty groups comprised largely of persons who themselves face poverty. A tension arises for such a practice-based, non-foundational approach, however, around case selection: how it can distinguish between grassroots anti-poverty groups which should be looked to by the grounded normative theorist for such insights, and those which should not. The issue ultimately leads to questions around whether Deveaux has justified her strong emphasis on ‘poor-led’ groups in the book.

Consider that Deveaux rejects the Indian organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as an exemplar group. The RSS was formed in 1925, in the waning decades of British imperial rule over India, as a means of inculcating a sense of collective pride among Hindus, including by daily martial training. The organization, whose membership is now estimated at several million, has since served as the centrepiece in an expansive network of groups seeking to promote a right-wing Hindu nationalist ideology, and to put their interpretation of Hindu values at the centre of Indian public culture (Jaffrelot 1996, 2021).

Former RSS organizer Narendra Modi (see Jaffrelot 2021) was elected prime minister in a coalition government headed by the affiliated Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014, and with an outright majority in 2019 (see Cabrera 2020, Ch. 8). Thus, the RSS, besides being involved in some welfare and direct humanitarian provision to those facing poverty through its 50,000-plus local chapters, and through thousands of schools it has created (Mohan 2016), has been able to successfully lobby the Modi government for some anti-poverty policies (Chacko 2019), 406–10). Further, organizations affiliated with the RSS in the broader Hindu nationalist ‘family,’ or Sangh Parivar, include ones such as Seva Bharti focused directly on poverty alleviation, as well as a large farmer’s association, labour and women’s groups, among numerous others.

For Deveaux, however, the RSS is expressly not to be included among exemplar ‘pro-poor’ organizations or movements. She notes that not ‘all forms of poor-led politics are necessarily emancipatory, democratic, or “progressive.” There exist grassroots social movements that use pro-poor rhetoric to advance deeply exclusionary ideologies – notably the xenophobic and militaristic RSS … Such groups are very much in the minority of poor-led politics, however, and my discussion of the challenges and limitations of poor movements in bringing about socially progressive antipoverty policies and reforms will not focus on these outlier examples’ (Deveaux 2021, 18).

Such a rejection of the RSS and the broader Hindu nationalist movement may be entirely defensible on normative grounds. I have elsewhere critically engaged the views and actions of the Bharatiya Janata Party and affiliated Hindu nationalist groups, such as the RSS, based in a grounded normative study involving numerous interviews with its members and critics in India (Cabrera 2020, Ch. 8). The point here, however, is that Deveaux’s rejection of the RSS raises some specific issues for a grounded normative account that is presented as wholly practice-based and non-foundational. That is because it may only be possible to reject a group, such as the RSS based on some foundational moral principles of equality, non-discrimination, etc., brought by the theorist to the case selection process. Thus, political theory may independently play much more than the modest role Deveaux ascribes to it in addressing global poverty (2021, 234).

To see this more clearly, we can consider Deveaux’s stated case selection rationale, based in principles of affect and presumed effectiveness. First, to be included in the analysis as groups whose struggles can provide grounded normative insights, they must be ‘poor-led,’ and their members must themselves face poverty. Those requirements are based in a ‘belief that those most affected ought to direct the path of change – best encapsulated by the slogan, “nothing for us without us”’ (Deveaux 2021, 3). Second, such ‘poor-led’ groups are said to be ‘usually better able to envision the radical transformations needed to deliver lasting and socially just poverty reduction’ (Deveaux 2021, 19). Thus, their efforts should be more effective.

We can note that the first part of the selection rationale could appear to entail the inclusion of the RSS and affiliates, insofar as a significant proportion of their grassroots members face poverty and would be among ‘those most affected.’ While the RSS does have a formal leadership structure and cadre of more than 2,000 pracharaks, or full-time organizers, the large majority of its membership consists of non-paid volunteers taking part in branch activities. Thus, it could be comparable to exemplars noted by Deveaux who work closely with NGOs or have international organizational structures but which nonetheless maintain a grassroots character (2012, 45).

The RSS would appear then to be rejected under the second part of the selection rationale, based in effectiveness. To reinforce, this is a sense of effectiveness closely tied to a normative outcome: ‘socially just poverty reduction’ (Deveaux 2021, 19). The RSS is found not to meet that criterion and thus should not be included. Such a conclusion, however, is based in some underlying or foundational conception of justice, specifying what it would mean for poverty reduction to be socially just. It is that conception of justice that is being used to determine which groups’ understandings and practices should be taken to inform broader normative dialogues about global poverty and justice.

If that is so, then the case appears weakened for a key dichotomy drawn in the book, between ‘poor-led’ and ‘non-poor-led’ organizations and movements. At the least, more would need to be said about the explicit conception of ‘socially just’ poverty reduction presumed, and why ‘poor-led’ movements are to be understood as able to effectively promote justice in ways ‘non-poor-led’ ones would not. As it stands, the conception of socially just poverty reduction is intimated rather than elaborated, and it is not possible to fully assess how poor-led groups would better promote it.

Similarly, when Deveaux states that ‘those most affected ought to direct the path of change’ (Deveaux 2021, 3), she is offering an ‘all affected’ principle similar to ones prominent in dialogue on setting the boundaries of democratic communities. We can note first that such principles typically rest on foundational moral principles of autonomy or equality, but these are also left implicit in the account. Additionally, numerous challenges have been mounted to all affected, all subjected and cognate normative principles of inclusion and standing (Goodin 2007; Abizadeh 2008; Owen 2012). Given the central role Deveaux’s version of the principle plays in her account, it would seem important to detail and defend it, and to show how it integrates into the broader underlying conception of justice that excludes groups such as the RSS.

Overall, it appears that Deveaux’s account is not fundamentally practice-based, or wholly grounded in the insights of activists. Rather, it incorporates some foundational normative assumptions in the process of selecting the activists from whom insights should be drawn. The most significant implication of this is that her account, as it stands, is not able to justify the strong emphasis placed on the insights of the groups selected, or of ‘poor-led’ groups more generally. It certainly is plausible to think that such a justification could be developed, but that would require making explicit some key assumptions about what constitutes socially just poverty reduction and why the insights of those affected by poverty should be given primacy in relation to it.

The next section considers two other dichotomous framings that create some significant tensions in the account. Both, it will be suggested, could be addressed through relatively small changes in approach.

Solidarity, global north/south, and ‘the poor’ as a category of persons

I will focus on Deveaux’s decision to draw her case studies only from grassroots groups based in countries of the ‘Global South,’ and especially on a tendency to speak of ‘the poor’ as a distinct category of persons. Both risk undercutting efforts to develop the kind of solidarity she identifies as central to addressing global poverty.

One of Deveaux’s primary aims – and again one that is exceedingly well met – is to highlight ways in which those often treated as recipients in normative dialogues are better understood as potential agents of global justice. Thus, she justifies her exclusive focus in the book on grassroots ‘South’ groups by noting that the normative theories she is critically engaging have also focused on such groups. At the same time, she highlights that she could have drawn numerous case studies from North countries, and that there are numerous connections between movements in the South and North. She in fact asserts the following:

Comparative studies that eschew the global North/South binary can better illuminate shared strategies in solidarity-building in the face of social and structural processes that exclude, subordinate, and oppress particular social groups—including those whose struggles traverse borders, like Indigenous people and people with disabilities (Deveaux 2021, 21).

Overall, fine-grained, compelling detail is offered on numerous cases in the South, but relatively little is said about structures and relations sustaining poverty and exclusion in the North, e.g., the social and political structures in the United States, which leave 500,000–600,000 persons sleeping in homeless shelters or on the street each night (Meyer, Wyse, and Corinth 2022).

Ultimately, such omissions at least run the risk of reinforcing the same us/them, donor/recipient dichotomies Deveaux seeks to dismantle. In giving scant emphasis to the struggles of those in the North, her account may give the impression that such countries are populated mainly by persons who, if not framed expressly as donors, are materially comfortable. Thus, they are able to extend solidarity to the global poor from a position of strength – which itself may imply a problematic hierarchy. The inclusion of at least one extended case study from a North country could have helped to highlight connections and potential for solidarity, while also helping to distance the account from ‘the generic developing-world backdrop taken for granted in much moral theorizing about poverty’ that Deveaux rightly critiques (2021, 20).

The second dichotomy is related but may be more significant. This is one drawn between ‘the poor’ and others. I will note that I write here as one who has referred to ‘the global poor,’ as a distinct group numerous times. That includes in works seeking like Deveaux’s to call attention to the significant forms of agency often exercised by persons facing poverty (Cabrera 2005, 2010, Ch. 6). More generally, the use of term ‘the global poor’ remains relatively common in both normative and empirical literatures (e.g. Sénit and Biermann 2021). Thus, the concern raised here is directed not solely to Deveaux, but to any author seeking to avoid the reinforcement of problematic dichotomies and hierarchies in the current global system.

Throughout the book, Deveaux refers to ‘the poor’ and ‘poor people’ as a category of persons, mostly in the Global South countries under study, as distinct in part from ‘nonpoor outsiders’ who could join in solidarity with them (Deveaux 2021, 205). ‘Poor-led’ organizations are framed as working ‘to secure a voice for the poor’ (2021, 3). Emphasis is again placed on normative theories recognizing ‘the central importance of the poor … as agents of justice’ (2021, 67), and a key task for movements is said in a chapter sub-heading to be ‘Building the Collective Political Capabilities of the Poor’ (2021, 161). In numerous other places ‘the poor’ or ‘poor people’ is used to refer to a discrete category of persons (2021, 127, 152–53, 165, 187, 190).

I will suggest that such a categorization should be rejected where possible, and problematized and offered with explicit caveats if it is used. We can note here the analysis offered by leading poverty researcher Ruth Lister, whose treatments of agency by those facing poverty inform Deveaux’s account (Deveaux 2021, 22 n75, 31 n104). Lister notes stigmas attached to clearly derogatory labels for those facing poverty. She also, however, highlights problems of ‘representational agency’ attaching to terms widely used by researchers, observing that “there lies a deeper problem … in the very word ‘poor’—and even more so ‘the poor,’ which objectifies and distances … People in poverty themselves are often reluctant to wear what is perceived as a stigmatizing label, with its connotations of inferior as in ‘poor quality’” (Lister 2015, 143).

Lister connects the label to a ‘poverty-shame nexus’ and processes of othering central to it. ‘Othering describes how the “non-poor” treat “the poor” as different. It is a dualistic process of differentiation and demarcation that draws a line between “us” and “them”, which establishes, maintains and justifies social distance’ (Lister 2015, 142). She notes that a common tactic adopted by persons facing poverty in countries such as the United Kingdom who do not want to accept the ‘poor’ label is to ascribe it to persons in developing countries, thus reinforcing forms of North/South othering (2015, 143; see Shildrick and MacDonald 2013).

It is that type of othering – a dichotomy between global haves and have nots – that may be implied by presenting ‘the poor’ or ‘the global poor’ as categories of persons. Lister uses several alternative terms, including ‘people who live with poverty’ (2015, 139), ‘people in poverty’ (142), ‘people with experience of poverty’ (158). The latter may be particularly useful here. It highlights how poverty may be experienced in childhood or another life phase but is not necessarily a permanent condition and is not some feature of personal identity that can be said to constitute a category of persons. Similarly, it seems more attuned to the multidimensional nature of poverty, inviting inquiry about which aspects of poverty and/or exclusions a person may have experienced, in ways that a blanket categorization as ‘poor’ does not.

Viewing persons as having had experience of poverty also could add nuance to the idea of ‘poor-led’ organizations and movements. For example, Lister relates serving on an independent commission where half the members ‘had direct experience of poverty’ at some point in their lives and were able to share some powerful insights from that experience (2015, 142). Similarly, those who emerge as leaders of grassroots anti-poverty organizations may see their own circumstances significantly improve over time. They would still be able to speak from direct experience of poverty, even if they didn’t strictly qualify as members of ‘the poor’ after they had assumed stable, ongoing leadership positions.

More generally, a shift from ‘the poor’ could mitigate some stigma-related challenges to developing the kinds of cross-border solidarities Deveaux seeks to promote. It could help to encourage a move highlighted by Lister from sympathy, as a sense of pity and concern for the other; effectively to empathy, as a sense of compassion developed in striving to understand the others’ experiences and emotions. Lister has investigated aspects of sympathy among factors contributing to social distancing from those experiencing poverty. She notes that ‘Even “sympathetic Othering” can serve to widen social distance by emphasizing difference or evoking pity. Thus, overall, the Othering of “the poor” means that they are typically targets of, at best, the non-poor’s pity or indifference … but rarely treated as equal fellow citizens’ (Lister 2015, 144).

Other researchers have investigated empathy as a factor in fostering more positive attitudes towards those experiencing poverty, and they have explored how interventions designed to increase understanding can lead to greater social empathy and willingness to act in solidarity (see (Willer, Wimer, and Owens 2015; Wagaman, Compton, and Segal 2018; Santos 2020). The suggestion here is that avoiding dichotomous framings such as ‘the poor’ and ‘the global poor,’ in implied distinction from the ‘non-poor,’ is one way to avoid implicitly reinforcing global social distance, and of making it more possible to develop the trans-border solidarity that Deveaux very persuasively portrays as an inspiring ideal.

The possible adoption of some framework emphasizing aspects of regional and global citizenship could help to reinforce connections, shared interests and aims, and would more closely align with efforts to advance solidarities across borders. That is in part because citizenship rests on a foundation of equal standing among persons. Conversely, theorists of cosmopolitanism and global citizenship who seek practical ways to motivate the uptake of the globally oriented duties they espouse could take some important lessons from Deveaux’s account. In particular, it highlights a need for such theorists to fundamentally expand their conceptions of the moral agents to be motivated and/or engaged.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors of this symposium and the anonymous reviewer for their helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.