The escalators image

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The escalators image

• A presentation to accompany a reflection or a
  workshopbased on the escalators metaphor

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About social inequalitiesBefore escalators,
ladders
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Budgets and their impact on the ladderWhere are
priorities headed?

• By examining public budgets, we were able to
  observe the impact of budgets on the ladder.
  Some measures which improved the situation of
  the wealthiest or of the middle class took
  priority over measures improving the situation of
  people whose essential human needs were not
  being met. Why?

Source Collectif pour un Québec sans
pauvreté Translation NCCHPP
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Legislation for a poverty-free QuebecWhere are
priorities headed?

• In December 2002, the unanimous adoption by the
  National Assembly of the Act to Combat Poverty
  and Social Exclusion mandated that the incomes
  and living conditions of all persons living in
  poverty be improved. The citizens movement has
  been closely following this.

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Knowledge forum about essential needs (Carrefour
de savoirs sur les besoins essentiels)The
escalators
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A few years laterThe systems inconsistencies

• The metaphor applies to many situations. Often
  programs and local projects are meant to help
  people and communities to move up the steps.
• Meanwhile, policies, decisions or public budgets
  send a contradictory message they move people
  down the steps. Burdens are imposed on people and
  communities that neutralize and can even oppose
  their efforts to improve their situations.

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Example 1Budgets and escalators
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• Lets report a positive announcement here.
• On November 4, 2008, the government announced the
  full indexation of all social assistance
  benefits.
• This decision is recurrent. Thus, it is systemic
  and has an effect on the escalators. 
• It took three years and a lot of pressure from
  citizens before the government finally decided
  to deactivate the downward button it had
  activated in 2005. However, it is only one button
  among many. The rest must still be addressed.

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Example 2The two 17M questions and the
Minister

• This was the situation in the spring of 2006.

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Example 3Street kids and the mayor

• This example was given by a participant in the
  fall of 2008.

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Its up to us todayIn pursuit of awareness

• Its our turn to continue to explore this image,
  produced by people reflecting together, as we
  are doing, and to enrich it with examples of
  situations that occur to us.

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Its up to us today In pursuit of awareness

• A dual objective
• explore the potential of the escalators
  metaphor to reveal the systemic aspects of
  situations and take action accordingly
• explore the potential of sharing and
  crisscrossing our knowledge

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Playing with the modelIn pursuit of awareness

• September 2008. The image is tested during an
  international seminar on research-action against
  oppression in Vercheny, France.
•  
• Those participating propose examples of
  escalator situations and attempt to
  schematically represent the situations and the
  dynamics they reveal.
•  
• It works.
•  
• Shall we continue today?

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Your turn!
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• Thank you and have a good workshop!

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Another round of examples
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Example 1The poorest and the wealthiest

• Do you know who makes up the poorest fifth of the
  population in your social environment? What is
  the average income of this group? Is the
  situation for this group improving or getting
  worse? In Canada and in the United States, the
  wealthiest thousandth of the population has
  regained, since the 1980s, the same share of
  income it had in the 1920s.

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Exemple 1 The poorest and the wealthiest

• Do you know who makes up the poorest fifth of the
  population in your social environment? What is
  the average income of this group? Is the
  situation for this group improving or getting
  worse? In Canada and in the United States, the
  wealthiest thousandth of the population has
  regained, since the 1980s, the same share of
  income it had in the 1920s

Sharp rises in interest rates   Accumulation of
public debt   Increased pressure on states to
reduce their social spending
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Example 2Indebtedness

• Debt is as old as the world, a fortune (un)maker
  which enslaves a lot of people. What escalator
  situations related to the cost of borrowing money
  do we encounter in our social environment?

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Example 3What about school?

• Given the different situations of families, what
  role does school play in our social environment?
• Does it affect the escalators? In what way?
• Can we find examples?

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• Conception and graphic design Vivian Labrie
• With thanks to the Collectif pour un Québec sans
  pauvreté and to the Carrefour de savoirs sur les
  besoins essentiels for allowing the use of
  iconography developed between 1998 and 2006
  (including the escalators image, which was first
  drawn by Richard Fecteau, the pre-budgetary
  illustration shown in slide 3, and part of the
  vocabulary in the illustration in slide 4), to
  Emmanuel Bodinier for the Vercheny photos (slide
  13), and to Alain Noël for the graph based on the
  data from Atkinson and Piketty (slides 23 and 24).

Good luck with your workshops! And keep us
informed, if you wish, about your experiences,
by writing to us at the following address
ncchpp_at_inspq.qc.ca.  Vivian Labrie, 2011
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• A tool from the presentation kit for A Workshop
  on Inequalities using the Escalators Metaphor
• Labrie, V. (2011) A Workshop on Inequalities
  using the Escalators Metaphor. Presentation kit.
  Montréal NCCHPP.  Available for consultation
  online at www.ncchpp.ca/docs/escalators_EN.pdf