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    Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World
    The Self-Help Myth: How Philanthropy Fails to Alleviate Poverty
    Ebook series2 titles

    Poverty, Interrupted Series

    By Erica Kohl-Arenas, Ananya Roy, Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales and

    ()

    About this series

    Encountering Poverty challenges mainstream frameworks of global poverty by going beyond the claims that poverty is a problem that can be solved through economic resources or technological interventions. By focusing on the power and privilege that underpin persistent impoverishment and using tools of critical analysis and pedagogy, the authors explore the opportunities for and limits of poverty action in the current moment. Encountering Poverty invites students, educators, activists, and development professionals to think about and act against inequality by foregrounding, rather than sidestepping, the long history of development and the ethical dilemmas of poverty action today.


     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of California Press
    Release dateJan 5, 2012
    Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World
    The Self-Help Myth: How Philanthropy Fails to Alleviate Poverty

    Titles in the series (2)

    • 1

      The Self-Help Myth: How Philanthropy Fails to Alleviate Poverty
      The Self-Help Myth: How Philanthropy Fails to Alleviate Poverty

      The Self-Help Myth: How Philanthropy Fails to Alleviate Poverty

      Erica Kohl-Arenas
      0 ratings
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      Can philanthropy alleviate inequality? Do antipoverty programs work on the ground? In this eye-opening analysis, Erica Kohl-Arenas bores deeply into how these issues play out in California’s Central Valley, which is one of the wealthiest agricultural production regions in the world and also home to the poorest people in the United States. Through the lens of a provocative set of case studies, The Self-Help Myth reveals how philanthropy maintains systems of inequality by attracting attention to the behavior of poor people while shifting the focus away from structural inequities and relationships of power that produce poverty. In Fresno County, for example, which has a $5.6 billion-plus agricultural industry, migrant farm workers depend heavily on food banks, religious organizations, and family networks to feed and clothe their families. Foundation professionals espouse well-intentioned, hopeful strategies to improve the lives of the poor. These strategies contain specific ideas—in philanthropy terminology, “theories of change”— that rely on traditional American ideals of individualism and hard work, such as self-help, civic participation, and mutual prosperity. But when used in partnership with well-defined limits around what foundations will and will not fund, these ideals become fuzzy concepts promoting professional and institutional behaviors that leave relationships of poverty and inequality untouched.  

      Can philanthropy alleviate inequality? Do antipoverty programs work on the ground? In this eye-opening analysis, Erica Kohl-Arenas bores deeply into how these issues play out in California’s Central Valley, which is one of the wealthiest agricultural production regions in the world and also home to the poorest people in the United States. Through the lens of a provocative set of case studies, The Self-Help Myth reveals how philanthropy maintains systems of inequality by attracting attention to the behavior of poor people while shifting the focus away from structural inequities and relationships of power that produce poverty. In Fresno County, for example, which has a $5.6 billion-plus agricultural industry, migrant farm workers depend heavily on food banks, religious organizations, and family networks to feed and clothe their families. Foundation professionals espouse well-intentioned, hopeful strategies to improve the lives of the poor. These strategies contain specific ideas—in philanthropy terminology, “theories of change”— that rely on traditional American ideals of individualism and hard work, such as self-help, civic participation, and mutual prosperity. But when used in partnership with well-defined limits around what foundations will and will not fund, these ideals become fuzzy concepts promoting professional and institutional behaviors that leave relationships of poverty and inequality untouched.  

    • 2

      Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World
      Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World

      Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World

      Ananya Roy
      0 ratings
      0 ratings

      Encountering Poverty challenges mainstream frameworks of global poverty by going beyond the claims that poverty is a problem that can be solved through economic resources or technological interventions. By focusing on the power and privilege that underpin persistent impoverishment and using tools of critical analysis and pedagogy, the authors explore the opportunities for and limits of poverty action in the current moment. Encountering Poverty invites students, educators, activists, and development professionals to think about and act against inequality by foregrounding, rather than sidestepping, the long history of development and the ethical dilemmas of poverty action today.  

      Encountering Poverty challenges mainstream frameworks of global poverty by going beyond the claims that poverty is a problem that can be solved through economic resources or technological interventions. By focusing on the power and privilege that underpin persistent impoverishment and using tools of critical analysis and pedagogy, the authors explore the opportunities for and limits of poverty action in the current moment. Encountering Poverty invites students, educators, activists, and development professionals to think about and act against inequality by foregrounding, rather than sidestepping, the long history of development and the ethical dilemmas of poverty action today.  

    Author

    Erica Kohl-Arenas

    Erica Kohl-Arenas is Assistant Professor at the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at The New School in New York.

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