Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements [Hardcover]

This book rejects familiar ethical framings of problems of poverty and inequality, arguing that they have produced apolitical solutions that ignore the demands of poor organizations and movements. Deveaux argues that normative thinking about poverty should engage with the insights and goals of pro-poor activists in order to develop action-guiding norms that better align with their justice claims. Defending the idea of a political responsibility for solidarity, she shows how nonpoor outsiders--individuals, institutions, and states--can help to advance a radical anti-poverty agenda by supporting the efforts of these movements.This is an open access title available under the terms of a [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International] license. It is free to read at [Oxford Scholarship Online] and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.Poverty is not only about material deprivation, but also about the subordination and disempowerment of poor populations. So why isn't the emancipation and empowerment of the poor a core goal of ethical arguments for poverty reduction? Deveaux argues in this book that philosophers fail to prioritize these ends, and to recognize the moral and political agency of poor people, because they still conceive of poverty narrowly and apolitically as mere needs scarcity. By comparison, poor activists and critical poverty researchers who see deprivation as structural exclusion and powerlessness advocate a poor-centered, poor-led, approach to reducing poverty. Stuck in an older paradigm of poverty thinking, philosophers have failed to recognize the power and moral authority of poor communities--and their movements for justice and social change.If normative ethicists seek to contribute to proposals for just and durable poverty reduction, they will need to look to the insights and aims of pro-poor, poor-led social movements. From rural landless workers in Brazil, to urban shack dwellers in South Africa, to unemployed workers impol€