Hostname: page-component-669899f699-tzmfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-29T20:21:13.780Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Poverty in Global Perspective: Is Shame a Common Denominator?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2013

ROBERT WALKER ,
GRACE BANTEBYA KYOMUHENDO ,
ELAINE CHASE ,
SOHAIL CHOUDHRY ,
ERIKA K. GUBRIUM ,
JO YONGMIE NICOLA ,
IVAR LØDEMEL ,
LEEMAMOL MATHEW ,
AMON MWIINE  and
SONY PELLISSERY
...Show all authors
ROBERT WALKER*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Intervention, Oxford Institute of Social Policy, Barnett House 32 Wellington Square, OX1 2ER
GRACE BANTEBYA KYOMUHENDO
Affiliation:
Department of Women and Gender Studies, Makerere University, PO Box 7062, KampalaUganda email: [email protected]
ELAINE CHASE
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Intervention, Oxford Institute of Social Policy, Barnett House 32 Wellington Square, OX1 2ER email: [email protected]
SOHAIL CHOUDHRY
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Intervention, Oxford Institute of Social Policy, Barnett House 32 Wellington Square, OX1 2ER email: [email protected]
ERIKA K. GUBRIUM
Affiliation:
Oslo & Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Norway email: [email protected]
JO YONGMIE NICOLA
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Intervention, Oxford Institute of Social Policy, Barnett House 32 Wellington Square, OX1 2ER email: [email protected]
IVAR LØDEMEL
Affiliation:
Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Oslo, Norway email: [email protected]
LEEMAMOL MATHEW
Affiliation:
Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat 388001India email: [email protected]
AMON MWIINE
Affiliation:
Department of Women and Gender Studies, Makerere University, PO Box 7062, KampalaUganda, email: [email protected]
SONY PELLISSERY
Affiliation:
Institute of Rural Management, Anand, India email: [email protected]
YAN MING
Affiliation:
Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Jianguomen nei dajie 5, Beijing, China100732 email: [email protected]
*
email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Focussing on the psychosocial dimensions of poverty, the contention that shame lies at the ‘irreducible absolutist core’ of the idea of poverty is examined through qualitative research with adults and children experiencing poverty in diverse settings in seven countries: rural Uganda and India; urban China; Pakistan; South Korea and United Kingdom; and small town and urban Norway. Accounts of the lived experience of poverty were found to be very similar, despite massive disparities in material circumstances associated with locally defined poverty lines, suggesting that relative notions of poverty are an appropriate basis for international comparisons. Though socially and culturally nuanced, shame was found to be associated with poverty in each location, variably leading to pretence, withdrawal, self-loathing, ‘othering’, despair, depression, thoughts of suicide and generally to reductions in personal efficacy. While internally felt, poverty-related shame was equally imposed by the attitudes and behaviour of those not in poverty, framed by public discourse and influenced by the objectives and implementation of anti-poverty policy. The evidence appears to confirm the negative consequences of shame, implicates it as a factor in increasing the persistence of poverty and suggests important implications for the framing, design and delivery of anti-poverty policies.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 215 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alkire, S. and Foster, J. (2011), ‘Counting and multidimensional poverty measurement’, Journal of Public Economics, 95 (7–8): 476–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumberg, B., Bell, K. and Gaffney, D. (2012), Benefits Stigma in Britain, London: Turn2Us.Google Scholar
Beresford, P., Green, D., Lister, R. and Woodward, K. (1999), Poverty First Hand: Poor People Speak for Themselves, London: CPAG.Google Scholar
Besharov, D. and Couch, K. (eds.) (2012), New Thinking about European Poverty Measures and Lessons for the United States, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Castell, S. and Thompson, J. (2007), Understanding Attitudes to Poverty in the UK: Getting the Public's Attention, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Chandler, D. (2004), Semiotics: The Basics, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chase, E. and Walker, R. (2012), ‘The co-construction of shame in the context of poverty: beyond a threat to the social bond’, Sociology, published online before print 17 October 2012, DOI: 10.1177/0038038512453796Google Scholar
Clasen, J., Gould, A. and Vincent, J. (1998), Voices Within and Without: Responses to Long-Term Unemployment in Germany, Sweden and Britain, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Dean, H. (2009), ‘Critiquing capabilities: the distractions of a beguiling concept’, Critical Social Policy, 99: 261–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dean, H. (2010), Understanding Human Need, Bristol: Policy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edin, K., Lein, L., Nelson, T. and Clampet-Lundquest, S. (2000), Talking to Low-Income Fathers, Newsletter, 4, 2, Joint Center for Poverty Research, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Furukawa, E., Tangney, J. and Higashibara, F. (2012), ‘Cross-cultural continuities and discontinuities in shame, guilt, and pride: a study of children residing in Japan, Korea and the USA’, Self and Identity, 11 (1): 90–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, C. and Greenblatt, S. (2000), Practicing New Historicism, Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hick, R. (2012), ‘The capability approach: insights for a new poverty focus’, Journal of Social Policy, 41 (2): 291–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ILO (2012), Text of the Recommendation Concerning National Floors of Social Protection, Geneva: International Labour Organisation.Google Scholar
Judge, L. (2012), ‘Introduction’, in Ending Child Poverty by 2020, London: Child Poverty Action Group, pp. 6–9.Google Scholar
Lister, R. (2004), Poverty: Key Concepts, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Marlier, E., Atkinson, A. B., Cantillon, B. and Nolan, B. (2007), The EU and Social Inclusion: Facing the Challenges, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Matsaganis, M., Levy, H. and Flevotomou, M. (2010), Non Take Up of Social Benefits in Greece and Spain, Working Paper No. EM7/10, Colchester: EUROMOD.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narayan, D., with Patel, R., Schafft, K., Rademacehr, A. and Koch-Schulte, S. (2000a), Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us? New York: World Bank and Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narayan, D., Chambers, R., Shah, M. and Petesch, P. (2000b), Voices of the Poor: Crying Out for Change, New York: World Bank and Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodogno, R. (2012), ‘Gender and shame: a philosophical perspective’, in Latu, I., Scmid Mast, M. and Kaiser, S. (eds.), Gender and Emotion: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, Oxford: Peter Lang Publishers.Google Scholar
Ruxton, S. (2002), Men, Masculinities and Poverty in the UK, Oxford, Oxfam GB.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheff, T. (2003), ‘Shame in self and society’, Symbolic Interaction, 26 (2): 239–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. (1983), ‘Poor, relatively speaking’, Oxford Economic Papers, 35: 153–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spicker, P. (1984), Stigma and Social Welfare, London: Croom-Helm.Google Scholar
Tangney, J. and Dearing, R. (2002), Shame and Guilt, London: Guildford Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, D. (2011), ‘Wellbeing and welfare: a psychosocial analysis of being well and doing well enough’, Journal of Social Policy, 40 (4): 777–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, M. and Walker, R. (2009), Coping with Complexity: Child and adult poverty, London: CPAG.Google Scholar
Townsend, P. (1979), Poverty in the United Kingdom, Harmondsworth: Penguin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Oorschot, W. (2002), ‘Targeting welfare: on the functions and dysfunctions of meanstesting in social policy’, in Townsend, P. and Gordon, D. (eds.), World Poverty: New Policies to Defeat an Old Enemy, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Walker, R. and Chase, E. (2013), ‘Separating the sheep from the goats: tackling poverty in Britain for over four centuries’, in Gubrium, E., Pellissery, S. and Lødemel, I. (eds.), The Shame of It: Global Perspectives on Anti-poverty Policies, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Walker, R.et al. (2013), ‘Shaming people in poverty: some implications of a possibly global phenomenon’, Journal of Development Studies, under review.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, R., Chase, E. and Lødemel, I. (2012), ‘The indignity of the Welfare Reform Act’, Poverty, 143: 9–12.Google Scholar
Wong, Y. and Tsai, J. (2007), ‘Cultural models of shame and guilt’, in Tracy, J., Robins, R. and Tangney, J. (eds.), The Self-Conscious Emotions, New York: Guildford Press.Google Scholar