Based on more than 30 case studies in eight different countries, this book explores the governance dynamics of local social innovations in the field of poverty reduction. The diverse team of contributors illustrate how different governance dynamics and welfare mixes enable or hinder poverty reduction strategies and analyse how they involve a variety of actors, instruments and resources at different spatial scales.

'A mesmerising book, full of story, truth, pain, lyricism, humour and astonishment: the stuff of a difficult life, fully lived, and masterfully transformed into art' SALMAN RUSHDIE 'Intimate and wise, poignant and compassionate, redemptive and raw. You have to read this beautiful book' CHERYL STRAYED, author of Wild An electrifying, dazzlingly written reckoning and an essential addition to the conversation about race and class, Survival Math takes its name from the calculations that award-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson made to survive the Portland, Oregon, of his youth. This dynamic book explores gangs and guns, near-death experiences, sex work, masculinity, composite fathers, the concept of 'hustle' and the destructive power of addiction - all framed within the story of Jackson, his family and his community. Mitchell S. Jackson presents a microcosm of struggle and survival in contemporary urban America - an exploration of the forces that shaped his life, his city, and the lives of so many black men like him. As Jackson charts his own path from drug dealer to published novelist, he gives us a heartbreaking, fascinating, lovingly rendered view of the injustices and victories, large and small, that defined his youth. 'Jackson's mesmerizing voice and style draws you into the survival calculations for millions of American kids and families, revealing a need-to-know reality for all of us' PIPER KERMAN, Author of Orange is the New Black 'Jackson's musings skillfully illuminate the bloodlines, both inherited and earned, that pulse through the body of America's gang-graffitied carceral state' TYEHIMBA JESS, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olio

In 1902, Jack London, posing as an out-of-work sailor, went underground into the belly of the beast: the slums of London's East End. With passion and vision, he used his skill as a journalist to expose the horrors of the Abyss to the world. Because of his ability to blend in with working people and put them at their ease, because he donned their clothing, and spent nights on the street --working odd jobs, sleeping in the homeless shelters--he gained an insight into the slum life which remains unique. By interweaving the personal stories of the people he encountered with political analysis, he produced a vibrant work of nonfiction, which remains relevant to this day. Consider the following: about one in five children in the US live in poverty. Poverty is war, and it rages on with no end in sight, and the management is still guilty of mismanaging the wealth. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the People of the Abyss are among us today.

Jack London was famous for his adventure stories, such as "White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild," but he was also a skilled political writer and social critic. He led a varied and colorful life as a journalist, laborer, fisherman, gold-prospector and even a vagrant. Jack London came to the East End of London in 1902, and "The People of the Abyss" is the result of his investigative journalism that paints a vivid and disturbing portrait. It is both a literary masterpiece and a major sociological study. London posed as a stranded American sailor, sleeping in doss houses and living with the destitute and starving - the record of what he saw there remains as powerful today as it was then. Published to coincide with the centenary of his visit to the East End, this important book is an incredible precursor to the writings of George Orwell, and remains a standard-bearer critique of capitalism.

In this persuasive study, social welfare and policy expert Paul Spicker makes a case for a relational view of poverty. Poverty is much more than a lack of resources. It involves a complex set of social relationships, such as economic disadvantage, insecurity or a lack of rights. These relational elements tell us what poverty is - what it consists of, what poor people are experiencing, and what problems need to be addressed. This book examines poverty in the context of the economy, society and the political community, considering how states can respond to issues of inequality, exclusion and powerlessness. Drawing on examples of social policy in both rich and poor countries, this is an accessible contribution to the debate about the nature of poverty and responses to it.

Since 1959 The John Harvard Library has been instrumental in publishing essential American writings in authoritative editions.

Jacob Riis s pioneering work of photojournalism takes its title from Rabelais s Pantagruel: One half of the world knoweth not how the other half liveth; considering that no one has yet written of that Country. An anatomy of New York City s slums in the 1880s, it vividly brought home to its first readers through the powerful combination of text and images the squalid living conditions of the other half, who might well have inhabited another country. The book pricked the conscience of its readers and raised the tenement into a symbol of intransigent social difference. As Alan Trachtenberg makes clear in his introduction, it is a book that still speaks powerfully to us today of social injustice.

Except for the modernization of spelling and punctuation, the John Harvard Library edition of "How the Other Half Lives" reproduces the text of the first published book version of November 1890. For this edition, prints have been made from Riis s original photographs now in the archives of the Museum of the City of New York. Endnotes aid the contemporary reader.

Why do some development projects succeed where others fail? This book looks at some macro and some less known micro success stories and considers what enabled them to bring change in some of the world's most deprived communities. Using case studies from ten countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, Tiwari's innovative approach offers a multi-layered understanding of poverty which provides insights into causal, enabling and impeding factors. While a macro level analysis of development is a common feature of the current literature, there has been little attempt to develop a micro level understanding of development at the grassroots. Tiwari's work fills this important gap while drawing attention to the importance of engaging local actors at an individual, collective, and state level, demonstrating how achieving a "convergence" of goals among all actors is a crucial component to a development project's success. Looking beyond the case studies to consider how this unique "convergence framework" might be usefully applied to other contexts, the book has profound implications for how we view fragile states and conflict zones, and the ability of the international agencies to take effective action. A unique study based on extensive empirical research, Why Some Development Works will make essential reading for students and researchers studying international development across the social sciences, as well as humanitarian and development practitioners and policy makers.

An ambitious new approach to African studies, utilizing indigenous sources to bring back the voices of the native Africans in their own words rather than that of colonizers and foreigners. Elizabeth Isichei explores the Atlantic slave trade, as reflected in the poetics of rumour and the poetics of memory -- an approach different from the quantitative and demographic studies which have transformed the subject over the past twenty years. To this and to her study of popular consciousness in the colony and postcolony, she brings together a wide range of disciplines -- ethnography, art and art history, and contemporary literary theory among them -- to look at the intellectual history of Africa, from African rather than European premises. The result is a history of popular consciousness which shows the experiences of ordinary people, often in protest to an ongoing experience of exploitation. Elizabeth Isichei is Professor of Religious Studies, Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand and author of over a dozen books on African history and religion. She holds an Oxford doctorate, and aD.Litt from the University of Canterbury, and is a fellow of the Royal Society [N.Z.]

Poverty Strategies in Asia is an examination of a wide range of measures aimed at reducing poverty in the region. It is widely recognized that while high and sustained economic growth is critical for poverty reduction, there are other policy interventions that may also be significant in a 'growth plus' approach to poverty reduction. This volume brings together a series of case studies on the poverty impact of alternative interventions in a broad range of Asian economies. The measures examined within the book cover trade liberalization both in general and in a specific market, infrastructure investment (particularly in roads), population policies, cash transfers, microfinance, employment guarantee programs and contract farming. The countries covered include the Philippines, Lao PDR, Pakistan, India and Thailand. While the results illustrated by the contributors are mixed, they demonstrate the potential for further progress in poverty reduction. This latest joint publication by the ADBI and Edward Elgar Publishing will be warmly welcomed by scholars and researchers of Asian studies and development. Professional economists within international and bilateral development agencies and policymakers will also find much to engage them.

For many progressives, racial identities are the engine of American history, and by extension, contemporary politics. They, in short, want to separate race from class. While policymakers and pundits find an almost metaphysical racism, or the survival of an ancient and primordial tribalism at the heart of American life, these inequities are better understood when traced to more comprehensible forces: to the contradictions in access to New Deal era welfare programs, to the blinders imposed by the Cold War, to Ronald Reagan's neoliberal assault on the half-century long Keynesian consensus. As Toure Reed argues in this rigorously constructed book, the road to a more just society for African Americans and everyone else, the fate of poor and working-class African Americans is inextricably linked to that of other poor and working-class Americans.

Some 2.5 billion human beings live in severe poverty, deprived of such essentials as adequate nutrition, safe drinking water, basic sanitation, adequate shelter, literacy, and basic health care. One third of all human deaths are from poverty-related causes: 18 million annually, including over 10 million children under five.

However huge in human terms, the world poverty problem is tiny economically. Just 1 percent of the national incomes of the high-income countries would suffice to end severe poverty worldwide. Yet, these countries, unwilling to bear an opportunity cost of this magnitude, continue to impose a grievously unjust global institutional order that foreseeably and avoidably perpetuates the catastrophe. Most citizens of affluent countries believe that we are doing nothing wrong.

Thomas Pogge seeks to explain how this belief is sustained. He analyses how our moral and economic theorizing and our global economic order have adapted to make us appear disconnected from massive poverty abroad. Dispelling the illusion, he also offers a modest, widely sharable standard of global economic justice and makes detailed, realistic proposals toward fulfilling it.

Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this classic book incorporates responses to critics and a new chapter introducing Pogge's current work on pharmaceutical patent reform.

This book is a succinct and distinctive presentation of current research addressing educational issues in relation to children and young people with disabilities in Southern contexts. Even though people with disabilities are disproportionately over-represented in the majority world, there is a lack of texts which bring together empirical insights highlighting the unique socio-economic and cultural realities of these contexts and the ways in which these have shaped developments in education. This book provides a comprehensive and critical overview of a range of issues, such as the dilemmas in conceptual translations, analysis of international aid and national policies, evaluation of various educational interventions, and issues interrogating the purpose of education. Bringing together various research projects conducted in eight different countries, this book successfully captures a unique spread of cross-cultural issues. It was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Inclusive Education.

People are hungry to make a difference in their community, yet most don't know where to start. In fact, 'serving the least' is often one of the most neglected biblical mandates in the church. Barefoot Church shows readers how today's church can be a catalyst for individual, collective, and social renewal in any context. Whether pastors or laypeople, readers will discover practical ideas that end up being as much about the Gospel and personal transformation as they are about serving the poor. Here they will see how the organizational structure of the church can be created or redesigned for mission in any context. Drawing from his own journey, Brandon Hatmaker proves to readers that serving the least is not a trendy act of benevolence but a lifestyle of authentic community and spiritual transformation. As Hatmaker writes, 'My hope is that God would open our eyes more and more to the needs of our community. And that we would see it as the church's responsibility to lead the charge.'

From the author of the eye-opening and controversial essay on poverty that was read by millions comes the real-life "Nickel and Dimed," as Linda Tirado explains what it's like to be working poor in America, and why poor people make the decisions they do.
We in America have certain ideas of what it means to be poor. Linda Tirado, in her signature brutally honest yet personable voice, takes all of these preconceived notions and smashes them to bits. She articulates not only what it is to be working poor in America (yes, you can be poor and live in a house and have a job, even two), but what poverty is truly like--on all levels. In her thought-provoking voice, Tirado discusses how she went from lower-middle class, to sometimes middle class, to poor and everything in between, and in doing so reveals why "poor people don't always behave the way middle-class America thinks they should."

'Standard' employment relationships, with permanent contracts, regular hours, and decent pay, are under assault. Precarious work and unemployment are increasingly common, and concern is also growing about the expansion of informal work and the rise of 'modern slavery'. However, precarity and violence are in fact longstanding features of work for most of the world's population. Lamenting the 'loss' of secure, stable jobs often reflects a strikingly Eurocentric and historically myopic perspective. This book argues that standard employment relations have always co-existed with a plethora of different labour regimes. Highlighting the importance of the governance of irregular forms of labour the author draws together empirical, historical analyses of International Labour Organisation (ILO) policy towards forced labour, unemployment, and social protection for informal workers in sub-Saharan Africa. Archival research, extensive documentary research and interviews with key ILO staff are utilised to explore the critical role the organization's activities have often played in the development of mechanisms for governing irregular labour. Addressing the increasingly widespread and pressing practical debates about the politics of precarious labour in the world economy this book speaks to key debates in several disciplines, especially IPE, global governance, and labour studies. It will also be of interest to scholars working in development studies and critical political economy.

Slum tourism is a globalizing trend and a controversial form of tourism. Impoverished urban areas have always enticed the popular imagination, considered to be places of 'otherness', 'moral decay', 'deviant liberty' or 'authenticity'. 'Slumming' has a long tradition in the Global North, for example in Victorian London when the upper classes toured the East End. What is new, however, is its development dynamics and its rapidly spreading popularity across the globe. Township tourism and favela tourism have currently reached mass tourism characteristics in South Africa and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In other countries of the Global South, slum tourism now also occurs and providers see huge growth potential. While the morally controversial practice of slum tourism has raised much attention and opinionated debates in the media for several years, academic research has only recently started addressing it as a global phenomenon. This edition provides the first systematic overview of the field and the diverse issues connected to slum tourism. This multidisciplinary collection is unique both in its conceptual and empirical breadth. Its chapters indicate that 'global slumming' is not merely a controversial and challenging topic in itself, but also offers an apt lens through which to discuss core concepts in critical tourism studies in a global perspective, in particular: 'poverty', 'power' and 'ethics'. Building on research by prolific researchers from ten different countries, the book provides a comprehensive and unique insight in the current empirical, practical and theoretical knowledge on the subject. It takes a thorough and critical review of issues associated with slum tourism, asking why slums are visited, whether they should be visited, how they are represented, who is benefiting from it and in what way. It offers new insights to tourism's role in poverty alleviation and urban regeneration, power relations in contact zones and tourism's cultural and political implications. Drawing on research from four continents and seven different countries, and from multidisciplinary perspectives, this ground-breaking volume will be valuable reading for students, researchers and academics interested in this contemporary form of tourism.

Why are development discourses of the 'poor child' in need of radical revision? What are the theoretical and methodological challenges and possibilities for ethical understandings of childhoods and poverty? The 'poor child' at the centre of development activity is often measured against and reformed towards an idealised and globalised child subject. This book examines why such normative discourses of childhood are in need of radical revision and explores how development research and practice can work to 'unsettle' the global child. It engages the cultural politics of childhood - a politics of equality, identity and representation - as a methodological and theoretical orientation to rethink the relationships between education, development, and poverty in children's lives. This book brings multiple disciplinary perspectives, including cultural studies, sociology, and film studies, into conversation with development studies and development education in order to provide new ways of approaching and conceptualising the 'poor child'. The researchers draw on a range of methodological frames - such as poststructuralist discourse analysis, arts based research, ethnographic studies and textual analysis - to unpack the hidden assumptions about children within development discourses. Chapters in this book reveal the diverse ways in which the notion of childhood is understood and enacted in a range of national settings, including Kenya, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom. They explore the complex constitution of children's lives through cultural, policy, and educational practices. The volume's focus on children's experiences and voices shows how children themselves are challenging the representation and material conditions of their lives. The 'Poor Child' will be of particular interest to postgraduate students and scholars working in the fields of childhood studies, international and comparative education, and development studies.

This unique book depicts the stories of Americans born in poverty, who achieved national or international fame. Accessible to students and lay readers, this scholarly study describes poverty as a disability that typically stunts important areas of growth in childhood. Wagner shows how poverty hampers individuals and groups for their entire lives, even many of those who emerge from poverty. Examples of individuals with difficult childhoods who faced residual lifelong challenges are presented in the stories of 27 Americans, including athlete Babe Ruth, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, singer Billie Holliday, author Jack London, actress Marilyn Monroe, black leader Malcolm X, singer Johnny Cash, comedian Richard Pryor, author Stephen King, and entertainer Oprah Winfrey. In over 200 engaging and accessible pages, Unlikely Fame yields insight into successful individuals and how they coped, adapted and ultimately achieved success.

There are many problems regarding poverty, inequality and growth in developing countries in Asia and Africa. Policy makers at the national level and at international institutions such as the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and others have implemented various policies in order to decrease poverty and inequality. This book provides empirical observations on Asian countries and Africa. Each chapter provides theoretical and empirical analysis on regional case studies with an emphasis on policy implications. The book will be of use to many who wish to assess and improve policies in developing countries and mitigate poverty and inequality, and stimulate growth, by drawing on relevant empirical research and economic theories. Clearly, there have been numerous policy failures and the book aims to provide a basis for improving policies and outcomes based on relevant empirical observations.

Does poverty lead to environmental degradation? Do degraded environments and natural resources lead to poverty? Or, are there other forces at play? Is the relationship between poverty and the environment really as straightforward as the vicious circle portrayal of 'poverty leading to environmental destruction leading to more poverty' would suggest? Does it matter if the relationship is portrayed in this way? This book suggests that it does matter. Arguing that such a portrayal is unhelpful and misleading, the book brings together a diverse range of analytical frameworks and approaches that can enable a much deeper investigation of the context and nature of poverty-environment relationships. Analytical frameworks and approaches examined in the book include political ecology, a gendered lens, Critical Institutionalism, the Environmental Entitlements framework, the Institutional Analysis and Development approach, the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, wellbeing analysis, social network analysis and frameworks for the analysis of the governance of natural resources. Recommended further reading draws on published material from the last thirty years as well as key contemporary publications, giving readers a steer towards essential texts and authors within each subject area. Key themes running through the analytical frameworks and approaches are identified and examined, including power, access, institutions and scale.

The failure of attempts to tackle global poverty have bred cynicism and 'compassion fatigue'. Eradicating Extreme Poverty provides an urgently needed fresh approach which will re-energise action on this issue. Rejecting traditional 'top-down' approaches, Xavier Godinot and his colleagues start from the experiences, capabilities and strategies of the poor themselves. They argue that the first step is a close connection with poor communities followed by a commitment to take action alongside them. Life-stories from Burkina Faso, France, Peru and the Philippines are used to show that the poor must be involved in their own liberation. After decades of failed development policies, this book outlines a radical new approach which will enliven debate amongst policy-makers, researchers, students and academics.

This unique book depicts the stories of Americans born in poverty, who achieved national or international fame. Accessible to students and lay readers, this scholarly study describes poverty as a disability that typically stunts important areas of growth in childhood. Wagner shows how poverty hampers individuals and groups for their entire lives, even many of those who emerge from poverty. Examples of individuals with difficult childhoods who faced residual lifelong challenges are presented in the stories of 27 Americans, including athlete Babe Ruth, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, singer Billie Holliday, author Jack London, actress Marilyn Monroe, black leader Malcolm X, singer Johnny Cash, comedian Richard Pryor, author Stephen King, and entertainer Oprah Winfrey. In over 200 engaging and accessible pages, Unlikely Fame yields insight into successful individuals and how they coped, adapted and ultimately achieved success.

The world of welfare has changed radically. As the poor trade welfare checks for low-wage jobs, their low earnings qualify them for a hefty check come tax time a combination of the earned income tax credit and other refunds. For many working parents this one check is like hitting the lottery, offering several months' wages as well as the hope of investing in a better future. Drawing on interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their kids to college. However, these dreams of upward mobility are often dashed by the difficulty of trying to get by on meager wages. In accessible and engaging prose, It's Not Like I'm Poor examines the costs and benefits of the new work-based safety net, suggesting ways to augment its strengths so that more of the working poor can realize the promise of a middle-class life.

Examination of welfare during the last years of the Poor Law, bringing out the impact of poverty on particular sections of society - the lone mother and the elderly. Social welfare, increasingly extensive during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was by the first third of the nineteenth under considerable, and growing, pressure, during a "crisis" period when levels of poverty soared. This book examines the poor and their families during these final decades of the old Poor Law. It takes as a case study the lived experience of poor families in two Bedfordshire communities, Campton and Shefford, and contrasts it with the perspectives of other participants in parish politics, from the magistracy to the vestry, and from overseers to village ratepayers. It explores the problem of rising unemployment, the provision of parish make-work schemes,charitable provision and the wider makeshift economy, together with the attitudes of the ratepayers. That gender and life-cycle were crucial features of poverty is demonstrated: the lone mother and her dependent children and the elderly dominated the relief rolls. Poor relief might have been relatively generous but it was not pervasive - child allowances, in particular, were restricted in duration and value - and it by no means approximated to the income of other labouring families. Poor families must either have had access to additional resources, or led meagre lives. Samantha Williams is a university lecturer in local and regional history at the Institute of ContinuingEducation, Cambridge, and a Bye-Fellow in History, Girton College, Cambridge.