The Poverty Research Network aims to bring together different scholars working on the theme of poverty and social justice. Its members are concerned with the politics of poverty at both the global and the local level, and interrogating some of the paradigms of globalization. The network provides a forum for inter-disciplinary and global discussions on different approaches to poverty research and connections to current issues. This includes investigating the cultural and historical contexts of attitudes towards poverty, wealth, and charity around the world, and contemporary global debates on inequality and humanitarian strategies.
Poverty has had global dimensions and has driven movement on a global scale, but the identities, meanings, and politics of poverty have rarely been explored. This history of poverty offers a way to reflect critically upon the politics and identity categories of existing global histories. The project does not aim to universalise the identity of poverty but to explore the experiences and cultures associated with poverty, as well as its politics and, in doing so, to offer an alternative approach to global history.
In late 2016 we were awarded an exciting grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), to establish a Research Network for International Development. Beginning on 1 November 2016, the 24-month grant will internationalise the Poverty Research Network by holding workshop events at partner institutions in Bangladesh, Brazil, Mexico, Slovenia, and Senegal.
These workshops will explore how different narratives of poverty and poverty reduction have been conceptualised and articulated in specific countries, and feed these back to policymakers and practitioners at home.
