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Well said! Larry From: The Disability-Research Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tina Minkowitz Sent: 28 October 2012 18:27 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Fwd: r white: research on poor people good article, very relevant to research conducted "on" persons with disabilities. what do others think? best wishes, tina Begin forwarded message: <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/> Provoking Policy Thinking critically and writing provocatively about the implications of policy <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/2012/10/good-intentions-exploitation-an d-study.html> for people, places and politics. No fancy words, no jargon, just the facts, some questions, some answers and a whole lotta rant. <http://www.blogger.com/profile/14821162962079182515> My Photo <http://www.blogger.com/profile/14821162962079182515> policyprovocateur Policy provokes me to think, write and verbally spew. I currently work in ivory towers inspiring young people to engage in their world. I am a student of the human condition and my classroom is the world. I don't need credentials to have an opinion but I've got paper to prove I know a few things aboutpublic health <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/2012/10/good-intentions-exploitation-an d-study.html> , social welfare <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/2012/10/good-intentions-exploitation-an d-study.html> and economics. I'm coming out of the tower and taking the paper to the people and hope you will send some words back at me. <http://www.blogger.com/profile/14821162962079182515> View my complete profile SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2012 Good intentions, exploitation and studying 'the poor' I am an academic and thus I am required to do research and to write. As someone who studied sociology, social welfare, public health, international health, and economics I am plenty equipped to study poverty and the lives of poor people. And in my areas of study, these are the people of whom we ask questions, whether here or abroad.Were I to do a search of any library database using poverty as a keyword, I will get hundreds of hits for journal articles published in the past month alone. But I have decided that I will no longer study 'poverty' or 'the poor' because I find it exploitative in its convenience, somewhat useless in its findings and creates a conundrum in its recommendations: how to change poverty by changing the poor. We study how the poor shop, what they eat, what they drink, how fat they are, how (un)educated they are, how much health care they (don't) get, how they parent, and how a wide range of social, political and economic factors interact to influence their patterns of behavior. Given that the poor have been studied for more than a hundred years and are not responsible for their poverty, and that poverty is a result of social and economic policies and systems, the objective of studying the poor or poverty seems unproductive. For example, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Booth_(philanthropist)> Charles Booth's study of the poor in East London in the late 19th Century has findings similar to recent studies of the poor of East London. Finding that poverty did not change should not be surprising if the system that creates vast swaths of poverty: capitalism and social/political neglect, have not changed. That we are fascinated by the increases in inequality after creating systems that create such inequality makes us seem out of touch with the 'real world' outside of the towers of ivory. Through our 'engagement' with the poor and with poverty, academics have implicitly and explicitly made poverty, and especially the poor, the object of our inquiry and therefore the focus of our interventions. There is something inherently 'perverse' or 'interesting' or 'puzzling' about the behaviors of the poor that inspires intellectuals of all stripes to spend lots of time writing grants, seeking out 'controlled and randomized' samples (or more likely samples of convenience), and doing complicated qualitative and quantitative analyses using sophisticated software to find out wherein lies the problem of poverty and how we can change the behaviors of the poor to make them less poor or more 'functional' within their poverty. In the global arena, economists are leaving the theoretical equations of the classroom to test their ideas in the real world (see the books <http://books.google.com/books?id=JOMDsm5Gn9kC&dq=more+than+good+intentions& source=gbs_navlinks_s> More Than Good Intentions, <http://pooreconomics.com/> Poor Economics etc). Using localized research projects, these economists from <http://www.econ.yale.edu/> Yale and <http://www.povertyactionlab.org/> The Poverty Action Lab at MIT <http://www.povertyactionlab.org/> seek to find 'the answers to poverty' by comparing how samples of poor people respond to different 'aid' scenarios. I will not deny the fascinating results of these studies, but the power dynamics of the 'lab rat' experiences that poor people must endure at our expense in the production of knowledge, leaves me queasy; despite all the very careful ethical standards that are in place. The problem is not poor people. The problem is poverty. And there is no way to 'find answers to poverty' by studying poor people as they are not the creators of their demise. However, as people with power, we have chosen them as the 'object' of our research (though 'partners' is a more trendy notion - and lofty goal - I hesitate to tarnish the meaning of the word by using it in this context). We do this because it is challenging to find a sample of the top 1% to study in the same way that we study the bottom 1%. How fascinating it would be to find out about how the wealthy give to charity, pay their workers more, consume less, vote in a particular way, their savings patterns, their inheritance patterns, their parenting, consumption of pharmaceuticals and recreational drugs, their romantic relationships, their residential patterns etc. etc. However, the wealth and power of the rich insulates them from being subjected to the querying minds of academe. <http://iserp.columbia.edu/content/center-wealth-and-inequality> The Center for Wealth and Inequality at Columbia University was created several years ago in a groundbreaking move to study wealth and inequality and yet it still identifies poverty as the first item in its list of research interests. Among my colleagues around the globe, I would be hard pressed to find anyone who finds new research on poverty groundbreaking in any way. This particular blog post was inspired by an online discussion on the Spirit of 1848 listserv of the American Public Health Association - a left wing community of public health professionals from around the world interested in the issues of inequality and its impact on health. Recently, the conversation was exploring the issues raised in an article titled, 'Low income linked to poorer health in both US and England, despite different health systems', which was published in the American Journal of Public Health in late September. An article that created a resounding 'duh!' online. I think it is time to leave poor people alone; to use our power to protect them from our insatiable curiousity about their lives through actively fighting with them for social policies that raise their standard of living and education and gives them more access to resources and power. Replicability may be a founding principle of science but after a point we move to redundancy. If we still feel the need to ask questions of the poor, perhaps we can let them guide the way. This means we give up our 'intellectual superiority' and become servants to the poor, asking the questions to which they want answers. This may mean less articles for me to review for lofty (and not so lofty) journals but it may mean that more of what we write gets read by more people, and more of what we read educates us in a meaningful way that makes social change possible. Posted by <http://www.blogger.com/profile/14821162962079182515> policyprovocateur at <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/2012/10/good-intentions-exploitation-an d-study.html> 7:43 PM <http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=79377958457200493&postID=5902678 851738954052> <http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=79377958457200493&postID=5902678 851738954052&target=email> Email This <http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=79377958457200493&postID=5902678 851738954052&target=blog> BlogThis! <http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=79377958457200493&postID=5902678 851738954052&target=twitter> Share to Twitter <http://www.blogger.com/share-post.g?blogID=79377958457200493&postID=5902678 851738954052&target=facebook> Share to Facebook Labels: <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/aid> aid, <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/Center%20for%20Wealth%20an d%20Inequality> Center for Wealth and Inequality, <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/Charles%20Booth> Charles Booth, <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/development> development, <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/More%20than%20Good%20Inten tions> More than Good Intentions, <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/poor> poor, <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/Poor%20Economics> Poor Economics, <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/poverty> poverty, <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/research> research, <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/Spirit%20of%201848> Spirit of 1848 2 comments: 1. <http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b36-rounded.png> <http://www.blogger.com/profile/01872087780128897210> DaniRolfe <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/2012/10/good-intentions-exploitation-an d-study.html?showComment=1351432580511#c6053194237645675482> October 28, 2012 6:56 AM Great post! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think that more research that reveals how wealth is established and maintained is definitely needed. I look forward to your work if you do decide to pursue this innovative approach! Danielle Rolfe, Post-doctoral fellow (health sociology) University of Ottawa, Canada <x-msg://1663/> Reply 2. <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KU0jvCyg8o0/TiHGS5__5aI/AAAAAAAABCg/LJI_OYpk3a0/s 45/meJosue%252525CC%25252581.jpg> <http://www.blogger.com/profile/12711543214465586727> John (Juan) Donaghy <http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/2012/10/good-intentions-exploitation-an d-study.html?showComment=1351436071678#c4069209479446298820> October 28, 2012 7:54 AM From western Honduras I want to thank you for this article. Poverty is the problem and here the poverty (and the violence) are rooted in the injustice and inequality of a broken system. <x-msg://1663/> Reply ________________End of message________________ This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask] Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page. ________________End of message________________ This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask] Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.