Governing the Poor: Exercises of Poverty Reduction, Practices of Global Aid

Suzan Ilcan; Anita Lacey

ISBN 10: 0773538054 / ISBN 13: 9780773538054

Published by McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011

About this Item

Minor shelf wear. Owner signature on fly leaf. Sparse pencil MARKINGS in text. Otherwise a square, tight book. Index. xi, 321 pp.

Seller Inventory # 049183

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Governing the Poor: Exercises of Poverty Reduction, Practices of Global Aid
• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0773538054
• ISBN 13: 9780773538054
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Political Science

About this title

Synopsis

Every day, we are barraged by statistics, images, and emotional messages that present poverty as a problem to be quantified, managed, and solved. Global generations present the poor as a heterogeneous group and stress globalized solutions to the problem of poverty. Governing the Poor exposes the ways in which such generalized descriptions and quantifications marginalize the poor and their experiences.

Drawing on field research in Namibia and the Solomon Islands and case studies of international organizations such as USAID and Oxfam, Suzan Ilcan and Anita Lacey argue that aid programs have forged new understandings of poverty that are more about governing the poor through neo-liberal reforms than providing just solutions to poverty. By analyzing these programs they reveal that concepts of privatization, empowerment, and partnership are tools that treat the poor as a governed entity within a system of actors - governments, international organizations, and private businesses - that make up the global aid regime.

An illuminating work of critiques and solutions for the current global aid regime, Governing the Poor shows the consequences of championing market-based solutions to poverty while neglecting to provide social infrastructure.

About the Authors

Suzan Ilcan is professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

Anita Lacey is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Auckland.