Rethinking poverty alleviation: a ‘poverties’ approach

Abstract

This article argues that the practice of poverty alleviation is greatly limited by a vision of poverty that fails to capture the locally specific causes of and solutions to the challenges that threaten human well-being. This problematic vision of poverty takes real-world form in such initiatives as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. It is a key reason why this and other contemporary poverty-alleviation efforts do not show greatly improved results compared with previous efforts. By reframing our understanding of the challenges to human well-being from poverty to ‘poverties’, however, we might envisage a new approach to policy development in relation to poverty that moves us towards a truly sustainable development.

Keywords:

• Aid
• Methods
• Sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Caleb Wall, Steve Bass, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft of this article. Any flaws or weaknesses are my own, and probably stem from not listening to these comments closely enough. I would also like to thank Therese Gleason Carr for her superlative copy-editing.

The author

Edward R. Carr is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina. His work generally focuses on understanding local strategies by which people manage economic and environmental change. It engages with issues of environmental migration, food security, gender, and development theory. Contact details: Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA. [email protected]