CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

1.    Introduction: Poverty, ideology and development

Uncomfortable questions

Deconstructing the politics of poverty measures

Understanding poverty as ideology

The fundamental relativity of modern poverty

Three dominant approaches and a framework

Appendix: Note on the use of the terms ‘neoliberal’ and ‘globalisation’ in this book

2.    Unpeeling the politics of poverty measures

The politics of representation

The politics of prioritisation

The politics of conception and production

The plentiful pathways of poverty analysis

Conclusion: The moral politics of poverty studies

3.    Money-metric measures of poverty

Clarifications on the metric of money and unidimensionality

The arbitrariness of money-metric poverty measurement

Secular underestimations of absolute poverty

Conclusion

4.    Multidimensional measures of poverty

Direct approaches to poverty measurement

Composite indicators and quandaries of aggregation

Subtle ideological shifts in Senology

Conclusion

5.    The social exclusion approach

A synthesis of the social exclusion approach

The ambiguities of social exclusion

Differentiating social exclusion from poverty

The benefits of differentiation

Conclusion

6.    Locating modern poverty within the creation and division of wealth: Towards a structuralist and institutionalist political economy approach in poverty studies

Production, distribution and redistribution: The classical triad

Supply, demand and terms of trade and wages

The fallacy of productivity reductionism and development

Conclusion

7.    Social policy and the tension between identification and segregation within social ordering and development

Social policy and social ordering in development

Universalising universalism

Conclusion

8.    Conclusion: Poverty as ideology in an age of neoliberalism

Deconstructing for social justice

The poverty of poverty studies

The return of segregation

The political consequences of shifting modalities of targeting

Beyond absolute poverty

Re-politicising social justice within global development agendas

 

Notes

Bibliography

Index