Abstract
In this article, we compare two international participatory studies on poverty – one conducted in 1999 and published in 2000 as “Voices of the Poor: Crying out for Change” by the World Bank; the other, conducted from 2016 to 2019 as a partnership between the University of Oxford and the international movement ATD Fourth World, titled The Hidden Dimensions of Poverty. After introducing the subject, we present our theoretical background, distinguishing between participatory poverty assessments (PPA) and transdisciplinary research. We then discuss the methodological tools and processes deployed in the studies, before widening the discussion to broader issues concerning the participation of persons experiencing poverty in poverty research. We explore the extent to which each study empowered participants by involving them at each stage of the research process, whether space was opened up for participants to exercise greater agency through the cultivation of pro-poor alliances; whether power relations were recognized and/or countered, and finally, whether the studies had the potential to achieve transformative results. We conclude that while both studies were participatory in nature, the ATD Fourth World research followed a more demanding methodology, requiring deeper and more intensive participation of persons experiencing poverty at all stages of the research process.
Highlights
Persons experiencing poverty have not always participated in research destined to understand, explain, and influence their situation
We assess the extent to which the process features of two recent participatory studies on multidimensional poverty: 1) empowered participants; 2) cultivated alliances of pro-poor groups; 3) revealed power dynamics throughout the process; and 4) resulted in transformative knowledge about poverty
Using the methodological guide for the “Voices of the Poor” study and the Guidelines for Merging Knowledge and Practices when working with people living in situations of poverty and social exclusion (Ferrand et al, 2008), we discuss several dimensions related to the two studies, namely how “participation” was conceived in the two research projects; the role of the facilitators; and the question of time in both studies
Summary
Persons experiencing poverty have not always participated in research destined to understand, explain, and influence their situation. In 1886, Charles Booth began mapping poverty in London using census statistics, data from employers, local school boards officials, policemen, charity workers and clergy who were in contact with persons experiencing poverty and could report on their situations, as well as from observations made by field researchers based in settlement houses (O’Connor, 2016). In Rowntree’s study in York, a questionnaire survey including questions on income and household budgets was administered to 11,560 families. In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the practice of gathering data on poverty through questionnaire surveys and using the concept of income poverty remained methodologically hegemonic (Chambers, 2007)
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