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
 The higher
the bar,
QuickTime™ and a
the greater
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture. the
proportion
of people
in poverty
 QuickTime™ and a
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are needed to see this picture.

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
Here’s what we might see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nf1j-
CtnxM

Or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=LFgb1BdPBZo
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/pov
erty.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 world’s 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