BUILDING GLOBAL CITIZENRY THROUGH TEACHING ABOUT POVERTY

Farida C Khan Professor of Economics Co-Director, Center for International Studies

Poverty Measures
$1 a day $2 a day Percentage below poverty line

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The higher the bar, the greater the proportion of people in poverty

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Where is poverty to be found?

What percent is poor in each nation?

If poverty is hunger, how well do nations provide food for their people?

What do we understand by these numbers?

Cultural definitions Historical experiences Economic processes Visual understanding?

Images
Heres what we might see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nf1jCtnxM
Or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFgb1B dPBZo

How should images be used?

To clarify the magnitude of the problems? Might they create misunderstandings about societies? To enable students to appreciate their circumstances? Might they instill static ideas about certain regions that are poor?

How should information be provided?

Not too abstract? Not too dehumanizing? To generate interest? To maintain respect for humanity? To overcome objectification?

POSSIBLE MODELS to IMPART INFORMATION

Technical Models Historical Models Cultural Models Mix of the above?

Technical Models
Source: World Bank, UNDP, IMF, NGOs Human Development Index (UN): development indicators include income poverty, life expectancy, literacy & schooling Millennium Development Goals (UN) http://www.endpoverty2015.org/ http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ poverty.shtml

Millennium Development Goal 1 ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER

Target 1: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day * Conflict leaves many displaced and impoverished

Millennium Development Goal 1 ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER

Target 2: Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people * Low-paying jobs leave one in five developing country workers mired in poverty * Half the worlds workforce toil in unstable, insecure jobs

Millennium Development Goal 1 ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER

Target 3: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger * Rising food prices threaten limited gains in alleviating child malnutrition

Breaking the Link Between Poverty and Per Capita Income

Kerala and Sri Lanka Hans Rosling Video: http://www.ted.com/index.h p/talks/hans_rosling_revea ls_new_insights_on_povert y.html NGOs and delivery of basic services (Grameen Bank and micro-credit)

Historical Model
What has been our thinking about other countries? Mercantilism: State interest and colonization Liberalism: Stationary economies Advent of development economics in 1940s/50s

Historical Model
W.W Rostow: Stages of Growth, R. Nurkse: Balanced Growth, etc. Suggests that there are underdeveloped/traditional and developed societies in a spectrum Traditional societies included slave systems of early Greece and Rome; peasant societies in India, Egypt, China Confluence of development and time

Historical Model
Dependency and World Systems theorists (60s/70s): Development and colonization causes underdevelopment Modern models of growth create system of dependence and debt that worsen poverty

Historical Model
1980s/90s: Neo-liberal policies - increase growth through market policies to trickle down Kuznets curve? (growth inequality) State provision of goods and services Juxtaposition of images of rich and poor Sense of entitlement but actual conditions worsened in some places

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
Economic crises such as rising prices, reduced credit, global recession Climate change and environmental degradation

NGOS
Micro-credit Advocacy Projects

Cultural Model
Pre-modern Cultural contingency Cultural differences; civilizational differences; Policies based on understanding of a unified nature - how much do anthropologists inform understanding of poverty?

Cultural Model
Other regions in the world multiplicities of indigenous peoples How have cultures contended with colonization and modernity

Marshall Sahlins
"Hunters and gatherers have by force of circumstances an objectively low standard of living. but taken as their objective, and given their adequate means of production, all the people's material wants usually can easily be satisfied (a common understanding of 'affluence'). ... The world's most primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is an invention of (modern) civilization."

Cultural Model
NATURE HITS BACK? We see the environment as what we use but our daily habits, interactions, architecture changes the environment. Environmental degradation goes hand in hand with the homogenization and unification of cultures and the desire to consume in a single manner.

TEACHING TIPS
1. Keep the connection between micro and macro: case studies should be used for generalizations 2. Focus on a single region or country or have the student do so 3. Have the student tie this in with his/her language class, literature, science 4. Learning more about a place will generate love and ownership 5. Have the student do a creative project; a video, narrative, poem, song encourage action

TEACHING TIPS
1. Suggest that the student should make a pen friend in the country 2. Encourage Study Abroad to destinations other than Western Europe 3. Teach about heroes that fought poverty 4. Explain global resource scarcity and the impossibility of a global American lifestyle 5. Encourage involvement with a NGO or charity organization; encourage the act of giving to make a difference