Rethinking what makes community

The title of this book, Rethinking Poverty — What makes a good society? It turns out, however, to be an authoritative unpacking of why our collective approach to poverty has failed and suggests some straightforward, no-nonsense remedies for changing the mindset with which we grapple with poverty. The book essentially makes the case that everybody must have a role and take responsibility in this endeavour.

It offers a powerful reframing of the central issue with a refreshingly open, bottom-up, place and community anchored, sine qua non of the society we must be invested in building for our grandchildren. The book is also refreshing because it studiously avoids jargon and sloganeering.

Knight begins with demolishing the current narrative in which poverty is framed, arguing that the general public tends to blame the poor for their plight, and that most efforts to grapple with poverty are doomed to actually make matters worse because the framing, in a post-welfare state mindset, simply does not resonate. We have already drunk the collective Kool-Aid which prevents us from asking the tough questions about fairness that used to be standard.

His second chapter essentially describes the fractured, divided society we are living in. In a masterful way, Knight exposes the paradox of an ever-richer society becoming ever poorer in many different ways, against the backdrop, it must be said, of a fraught Britain caught up in an existential Brexit battle. He lays out the way in which government, legislation, civil society, and the post-welfare realities have singularly failed. Knight neglects, or deliberately passes on, an opportunity to connect his analysis with the greater global backdrop which would echo the rather dismal — and artificially isolated — picture of the UK that he paints.

Surely no country has successfully grappled with this issue and we see this reflected exponentially everywhere. In chapter 3 we are introduced to the five principles for a good society. These come from the extensive research that the Webb Memorial Trust has been conducting throughout the UK which forms the raw data that the thesis of the book rests upon.

These five principles are:. This research was done with — rather than on or to — individuals and focused on children, black and minorities, organised groups of poor people, and grassroots groups. You can find out more about writing for Bristol University Press and Policy Press on our Information for authors page.

Policy Press uses cookies on this website. They are stored locally on your computer or mobile device. To accept cookies continue browsing as normal. Or go to the cookie policy for more information and preferences. Publishing with a purpose. Rethinking Community Development. Existing alongside the more familiar privations green polyhedrons in the diagram relating to lack of decent work, insufficient and insecure income and material and social deprivation, three dimensions are relational blue polyhedrons.

These draw attention to the way that people who are not confronting poverty affect the lives of those who are: social maltreatment; institutional maltreatment and unrecognised contributions. The three dimensions that constitute the core experience of poverty red circle and half-circles place the anguish and agency of people at the centre of the conceptualisation of poverty: suffering in body, mind and heart, disempowerment, and struggle and resistance.

These dimensions remind us why poverty must be eradicated. They also drive home that everyone, living in poverty or not, is dehumanised by the continued existence of poverty. All nine dimensions of poverty are closely interdependent and typically, in varying degrees, experienced together, cumulatively. While every dimension is evident in all countries and most contexts, each varies in form and degree according to: identity with discrimination on grounds such as ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation adding to that associated with poverty; l ocation , urban, peri-urban, rural; timing and duration , short spells differing from long spells, poverty experienced in childhood or in old age varying from that experienced in working age; cultural beliefs , concerning for example, whether poverty is generally thought to be caused by structural factors or by personal failings; and environment and environmental policy , from climate change, soil degradation, pollution and associated policies, to urban deprivation and inadequate public infrastructure.

Why are six of these dimensions of poverty often invisible in the development discourse? Arlette Farge, a French historian, has revealed how, in other centuries, societies made every effort to deny the suffering of people trapped in poverty because it is disturbing and challenging all those who take advantage of the established order.

When governments decide not to invest in education so that they can continue to dominate and manipulate their people, this is a type of disempowerment. The hidden dimensions of poverty that emerged from this research point to the need for new indicators and new policy recommendations that should be included in the forthcoming Human Development Report to increase its influence.

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