Poverty and Shame: Perspectives and Practices Concerning Anti-Poverty Measures

This project examines services, policies, and measures targeted to people in poverty, both in developing and rich states. It builds on previous research showing that the experience of shame connected to poverty is similar, despite significant differences in the characteristics of the poverty experienced. The project focuses on how and to what degree the implementation of programs and services respects users? dignity or, conversely, strengthens the feelings of shame most people in poverty already experience. While the shame experienced by persons in poverty has long been recognised, little attention has been paid to the implications of the poverty-shame nexus for designing effective anti-poverty measures. Shame is an important dimension to consider when developing and implementing anti-poverty measures. Attention to this dimension across the spectrum of professional practice will enhance the effectiveness of these measures by promoting human dignity and fostering sustainable economic growth. The project consists of two work packages conducted in five countries (China, India, Norway, US, Uganda), representing a maximum-difference comparative design. The project teams have gathered interview and observational data with welfare system clients/users and providers/street level bureaucrats. Each team had two field sites, one with government-provided welfare services and another with non-government provision. In WP1, Engaging and Observing Stakeholders: Negotiating Shame via Anti-Poverty Measures, research teams analysed national anti-poverty services and measures through a poverty-shame lens. In WP2, Crafting Dignity-Based Anti-Poverty Measures, the teams merged the analysis and findings from WP1 to generate policy- and practice-relevant knowledge and dissemination. Key findings, outputs and dissemination channels include: Participation in a special session at the International Labour Office 4th Conference dedicated to the Regulating for Decent Work Network (July 2015). This was an important forum for dissemination of findings to policymakers and practitioners. Our work here built on earlier policy work by core team members related to the 2012 adoption of the principle of respect for dignity in the ILO?s recommendation on Social Protection Floors -- one of few additions ratified by ILO members, and today incorporated in the Sustainable Development Goals (goal 1.3) of 2015. Development of an international PhD/MA course at Beijing Normal University, with co-funding from a sister project (UTFORSK - NFR/SIU). The course focused on theories and findings from the project, and included affiliated researchers from India, China and Norway as lecturers. A similar course was offered at the Oslo and Akershus University College International Summer School in summer 2015. The PhD/MA courses contributed both in terms of theory development and in dissemination of project findings. Guest researcher stipend for Ivan Lødemel at New York University (Sept 2015-Sept 2016), where he complemented project work with close contact with important policy actors including UNDP, UNICEF and the World Bank. Analytical country reports for each case country written by respective project teams. The reports were presented at a 5-day project meeting in Oslo in June, 2016, along with a summary report collating findings from the five sites. Based on the national reports and summary report, the project researchers produced articles to a special number of the journal Social Quality. A new round of field visits to key users and stakeholders in 2017 to disseminate findings. Important findings include: the national, central/federal programs in all case countries (excepting Norway) fall short of the principles for implementation to which the countries have committed. In terms of protection of rights, there is a gap between the text of laws and regulations and their actual implementation. The way people are treated also affects the achievement of anti-poverty goals. There is little respect for users? dignity when public programs are implemented in ways that entail discrimination and harassment. Accordingly, people with slightly more means drop out of, or decline to enroll in, programs as a means of maintaining dignity?a luxury the poorest can seldom afford. This finding is also relevant to developed welfare states such as Norway, as in the case of Kvalifiseringsprogrammet, which led to social stratification in welfare where the most vulnerable are essentially disqualified from «results-based»programs. In the US, which previously has had a comparable welfare system to European states, the trend is increasingly towards regressive and repressive programs for the poorest. With respect to our studies of workfare, some public housing measures now resemble the 19th century «workhouse» model. Home page: http://www.hioa.no/eng/Forskning-og-utvikling/Hva-forsker-HiOA-paa/Forskning-og-utvikling-ved-Fakultet-for-samfunnsfag/Sosialforsk/Poverty-and-shame

While the shame experienced by persons in poverty has long been recognised, little attention has been paid to the implications of the poverty-shame nexus for the design of effective anti-poverty measures. Shame is an important dimension to consider when developing and implementing anti-poverty measures. Attention to this dimension across the spectrum of professional practice will enhance the effectiveness of these measures by promoting human dignity and fostering sustainable economic growth. The proposed study consists of two work packages conducted in six international study sites representing a maximum difference comparative design. In WP1, titled Engaging and Observing Stakeholders: Negotiating Shame via Anti-Poverty Measures, research teams analyse t he changing world of anti-poverty provision in international study sites through a poverty-shame lens. In WP2, titled Crafting Dignity-Based Anti-Poverty Measures, the teams merge the understandings gained from WP1 in order to translate this knowledge into broader policy making and the practical realms of professional practice. Taken together, these work packages offer the empirical grounds to 1) Explore the social construction of shame as expressed in stakeholder discourses; 2) Identify the cultural coincidence of shame and anti-poverty measure implementation as revealed in these discourses; and 3) Perceive how measures promote dignity and individual agency or the converse and develop policy guidelines accordingly.