Definition and Pathologization of Poverty

1
Definition and Pathologization ofPoverty

• After WWII, the UN and World Bank defined 2/3 of
  the world as poor and in need of development
  interventions. This is an example of
  objectification
• Poverty also became pathologised, seen against
  the norm of developed countries
  illiterate, underdeveloped, malnourished,
  small farmers, or landless peasants. This is
  an example of dividing practises.
• Subjectification of development discourse
  villagers in Nepal began to differentiate
  themselves in terms of being bikasi (developed)
  or abikasi (underdeveloped).
• Subjectification is the second process that
  Foucault identifies in the creation of discourse
  it involves the identification of subjects with
  the categories of discourse that have been set up
  by discursive institutions and completes the
  circle of power/knowledge.

2
Set up various technologies and knowledge
instruments through which development would be
measured

• Levels of poverty this was defined through
  standards of living those countries and regions
  in which per capita income was less than US 100
  per year were defined as poor.
• Yet large regions of the globe only used limited
  money exchange at this time they were largely
  subsistence economies who produced and exchanged
  goods locally or even traded goods, but not with
  money.
• These populations often involved household units
  that both cultivated and consumed the goods they
  produced. They were automatically defined as
  poor.
• Hunters and gatherers, fishers and other
  subsistence producers also became, through a
  stroke of the pen, defined as poverty-stricken.

3
Development or Destruction?

• Perhaps then, the goal of development discourse
  was the destruction of subsistence economies and
  societies and the introduction of market
  economies so that American and other goods could
  then be sold throughout the world?
• The antidote to poverty was usually the same
  prescription increased commercialization,
  especially of peasant and tribal agriculture.
• But commercialization involved capital-intensive
  inputs that many could not afford to purchase,
  e.g. Green Revolution technology. Many lost
  their lands in the process.
• Cash crops were substituted for subsistence
  crops. Rural areas lost the capacity to feed
  themselves.
• Capital intensity and cash crop production
  introduced new inequalities. They were capital
  and not labour intensive and displaced people
  from the land.
• Led to a massive increase in the unemployed and
  a huge low-cost labour force.
• Today, that labour force, often living at the
  margins of cities of urban areas, is referred to
  as the informal economy.
• In India, 92 of new jobs are in the informal
  sector. In Latin America, 75 of new jobs are
  in the informal sector.
• These jobs are characterized by low wages,
  temporary contracts, lack of regulation, no
  social security benefits and lack of pensions, or
  unemployment insurance. Also no health and
  safety regulations.

4
Development as Discourse

• (Continuation)

5
Development and Politics

• Allows certain questions to be asked, but
  disallows other questions from being asked.
• Example development becomes a matter of economic
  and technical indicators in which the social and
  cultural changes involved become masked.
• It deflects attention away from the politics of
  distribution, or the destruction of subsistence
  societies. In Fergusons phrase, it is an
  anti-politics machine.