Poverty, agency and relational inequality: recognising the poor’s agency via a deliberative approach to anti-poverty policies

Pitasse Fragoso, Katarina;et.al.
(2020) Philosophy and Child Poverty: Reflections on the Ethics and Politics of Poor Children and their Families — ISBN: [9783030224516], accepted/in-press

Files

No attached file found for this publication.

Details

Authors
  • Pitasse Fragoso, Katarinaorcid-logoUCLouvain
    Author
  • et. al.
Abstract
In this paper, we provide a partial normative analysis of the relational dimension of poverty, i.e. an account that is concerned with certain patterns of social and political relations amongst poor and non-poor individuals. While a relational dimension of poverty has been increasingly acknowledged in the literature, many share an underdeveloped notion of what exactly this means. One plausible way to develop it is by analysing the inferior social position held by poverty-stricken individuals in terms of an increased risk of being dominated by others and of a systematic lack of esteem. In this understanding, the agency of an impoverished individual is undermined at both the individual and institutional level, divesting those in poverty of the full capacity to make important decisions affecting their lives. This diagnosis hints at the possibility of redressing the social and political position of impoverished individuals by rethinking the way we design public policies to alleviate poverty. In this vein, we argue that a deliberative strategy is a promising way for recognizing the poor as full citizens with power to make important decisions, capable of speaking by and for themselves and of making joint decisions with policy-makers on what should be done to alleviate poverty. The paper is structured as follows: after introducing a conceptualisation of the relational dimension of poverty, we outline how domination and lack of esteem characterize the problematic social and political relations in which the poor are trapped. Next, we show how this negatively impacts the agency of those living in poverty (i.e. control and social uptake). Finally, we suggest a deliberative strategy for involving poverty-stricken individuals in policy-making processes.
Affiliations

Citations

  • APA
  • Chicago
  • FWB

Pitasse Fragoso, K., & et al. (2020). Poverty, agency and relational inequality: recognising the poor’s agency via a deliberative approach to anti-poverty policies. In Nicolas Brando, Gottfried Schweiger (ed.), Philosophy and Child Poverty: Reflections on the Ethics and Politics of Poor Children and their Families. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/224935