‘Power, not Pity’: Poverty and Human Rights

Abstract

‘Power, not pity’ is a demand articulated by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign in the United States. The article discusses the ways in which some poverty activists are deploying an ethical discourse of human rights as a way of thinking about, talking about and mobilising against poverty and as a way of articulating concrete demands. They are staking a claim to power and to recognition as well as redistribution. It concludes that as an ethical discourse human rights performs an important symbolic and mobilising function but that its effectiveness as a political tool in combating poverty is yet to be proven.

Keywords:

• Activism
• Citizenship
• Human Rights
• Poverty
• Recognition

Acknowledgements

Thanks to two anonymous referees and the editors for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

¹As a member of the Commission it had a big impact on my understanding of poverty and my subsequent conceptualisation of it (Lister 2002).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ruth Lister

Ruth Lister is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University and a Labour member of the House of Lords. She is honorary president of the Child Poverty Action Group and has published widely on poverty, citizenship, social justice and gender