Contesting representations of poverty: Ethics and evaluation

Abstract

This paper starts from the proposition that poverty is a contested concept and that debates about poverty are about more than questions of measurement and technical definition. Debates about poverty, I argue, are ultimately debates about the appropriate role of governments in the alleviation of poverty, and hence are about governance. On these grounds I claim that evaluations of competing conceptions of poverty should be interrogated not merely for their technical or epistemological soundness, but also on ethical grounds. To develop this argument, I explore representations of poverty in government policy. I look briefly at the Commonwealth Government’s1 understanding of poverty and more comprehensively at the South Australian Government’s Social Inclusion Unit. I find that, in both examples, poverty is represented to be an outcome of the poor choices of individuals, and proceed to reflect upon the inadequate ethical and governmental commitments that I find this particular representation of poverty entails.