Table Of ContentPhilosophy and Poverty 2
Valentin Beck
Henning Hahn
Robert Lepenies Editors
Dimensions of
Poverty
Measurement, Epistemic Injustices,
Activism
Philosophy and Poverty
Volume 2
Series Editors
Henning Hahn, Institute of Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Gottfried Schweiger, Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, University of
Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
Clemens Sedmak, Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, University of Salzburg,
Austria, Department for Theology, King’s College London, London, UK
Advisory Editors
Txetxu Ausín, Institute for Philosophy, Spanish National Research
Council, Madrid, Spain
Gillian Brock, Philosophy Department, University of Auckland,
Auckland, New Zealand
Luis Cabrera, Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith
University, Brisbane, Australia
Alberto D. Cimadamore, Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP),
Norway, International Relations, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos
Aires, Argentina
Stefan Gosepath, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Nicole Hassoun, Philosophy Department, Binghamton
University, Binghamton, USA
H. P. P. Lötter, Philosophy Department, University of Johannesburg, Auckland
Park, South Africa
Corinna Mieth, Legal and Political Philosophy Department, Bochum
University, Bochum, Germany
Darrell Moellendorf, International Political Theory, Frankfurt
University, Frankfurt, Germany
Alessandro Pinzani, Philosophy Department, Universidade Federal de Santa
Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil
David Schweickart, Philosophy Department, Loyola University
Chicago, Chicago, USA
Mitu Sengupta, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada
Makoto Usami, Philosophy and Public Policy, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
PHILOSOPHY AND POVERTY
This series provides a forum for the whole range of philosophical research on
poverty and poverty alleviation, broadly construed. Whereas most existing research
focuses on global, absolute poverty, and most existing literature falls within the
post-Rawlsian liberal camp of political philosophy, this series is not restricted to
one specific understanding of poverty, nor does it follow any single philosophical
approach. “Philosophy and Poverty” broadens the philosophical discourse on
poverty by including the disciplines of philosophy of science, epistemology and
history of philosophy.
Single volumes address such diverse topics as global and social justice and poverty;
the conceptualisation of poverty; ethical issues in poverty alleviation; philosophical
interrogations of poverty policies, social services and development aid; poverty in
the history of philosophy; the philosophy of “poverty science” and research; issues
of intersectionality and the relation of poverty to gender, age, race and disability;
and feminist, critical, radical and postcolonial perspectives on poverty, poverty
research and alleviation. Volumes in the series are of interest to scholars working in
philosophy, poverty research and development studies, as well as social policy
experts.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15416
Valentin Beck • Henning Hahn
Robert Lepenies
Editors
Dimensions of Poverty
Measurement, Epistemic Injustices, Activism
Editors
Valentin Beck Henning Hahn
Institute of Philosophy Institute of Philosophy
Freie Universität Berlin Freie Universität Berlin
Berlin, Berlin, Germany Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Robert Lepenies
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental
Research GmbH – UFZ
Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany
ISSN 2662-4389 ISSN 2662-4397 (electronic)
Philosophy and Poverty
ISBN 978-3-030-31710-2 ISBN 978-3-030-31711-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31711-9
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Chapters “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Poverty Measurement, Epistemic Injustices and Social
Activism” and “Beyond Poverty” are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license
information in the chapters.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
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Acknowledgment
This book is the outcome of a journey that started with the 2017 Conference on
Dimensions of Poverty in Berlin (https://dimensionsofpoverty.wordpress.com/).
The conference brought together scholars of philosophy and poverty research from
all over the world, with contributions selected from more than 100 submissions
from 33 countries. We thank all those who submitted, and especially the 51 speakers
who made it possible to achieve the disciplinary and intellectual diversity reflected
in this volume.
Above all, we would like to thank Stefan Gosepath for his support and enthusi-
astic encouragement of this project. We gratefully acknowledge funding from the
Centre for Advanced Studies, Justitia Amplificata, sponsored by the Deutsche
Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG), of the Freie Universität of Berlin, and the Goethe-
Universität of Frankfurt am Main, led by Stefan Gosepath and Rainer Forst.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial and organizational support from the
Haus der Kulturen der Welt. In particular, we would like to thank Veronika Gugel,
Annette Bhagwati and Bernd Scherer for their help.
During the conference, the wonderful staff at HKW provided us with catering
and technical support. Valerie Bignon of the Goethe-Universität of Frankfurt am
Main provided us with excellent coordination and assistance. The drei-freunde
Filmverleih enabled us to show “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker” (Denis
Tanovic) at the beginning of the conference. We thank YSI INET for sponsoring the
attendance of a number of early-career economists at our conference and Jenny Tue
Anh Nguyen, Melissa Vergara Fernández, Ingrid Kvangraven and Kevin Tang for
collaborating with us on preparatory webinars. Together with stipends from Justitia
Amplificata, we were able to include many stellar new voices on philosophy and
poverty in the conference and in this volume.
We would like to thank Christian Schemmel, Adriano Mannino, Leif Wenar,
Varun Gauri, Daniel Putnam, Tamara Jugov, Caleb Yong, Tully Rector, Cristian
Dimitru and Montserrat Culebro Juárez for their encouragement and for discussing
the project or individual articles with us. We would also like to express our sincere
gratitude to Christian Meyer and Anna auf dem Brinke for their help with the
peer review.
v
vi Acknowledgment
Our greatest thanks also go to Georgy Kopshteyn and Elise Hedemann for their
outstanding editorial assistance and to Sophia Obermeyer and Gizem Kaya for their
excellent contributions. Furthermore, we want to thank two meticulous anonymous
reviewers and the editorial staff at Springer for their helpful comments and
suggestions.
Contents
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Poverty Measurement,
Epistemic Injustices and Social Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Valentin Beck, Henning Hahn, and Robert Lepenies
Part I P overty as a Social Relation
Beyond Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Jonathan Wolff
Poverty as a Social Relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Daniel Putnam
Metrics, Politics and Definitions: How Poverty Lost Its Social
Context and What This Means for Current Debates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Philipp Lepenies
Part II E pistemic Injustices in Poverty Research
Scientific Ghettos and Beyond. Epistemic Injustice in Academia
and Its Effects on Researching Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Franziska Dübgen
Is the Debate on Poverty Research a Global One?
A Consideration of the Exclusion of Odera Oruka’s
‘Human Minimum’ as a Case of Epistemic Injustice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Jonathan O. Chimakonam
Hairiness and Hairlessness: An African Feminist View of Poverty . . . . . . 115
Sharon Adetutu Omotoso
Western Academic Activism and Poverty Research:
What’s Not to Like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Mitu Sengupta
vii
viii Contents
Part III Philosophical Conceptions in Context
Giving Well: Philanthropy for Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Patricia Illingworth
Absolute Poverty in European Welfare States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Gottfried Schweiger
Povery, Wealth, and Aid: A Sociological Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Bettina Mahlert
Part IV M easuring Multidimensional Poverty
Multidimensional Poverty Measures as Policy Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Sabina Alkire
Poverty: Beyond Obscurantism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Sanjay G. Reddy
An Absolute Multidimensional Poverty Measure
in the Functioning Space (and Relative Measure
in the Resource Space): An Illustration Using Indian Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Caroline Dotter and Stephan Klasen
Poverty in All Its Forms: Determining the Dimensions
of Poverty Through Merging Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Xavier Godinot and Robert Walker
The Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty Across
Countries: A Proposal for Selecting Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Francesco Burchi, Nicole Rippin, and Claudio E. Montenegro
Capability Deprivation and the Relational Dimension
of Poverty: Testing Universal Multidimensional Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Nicolas Brando and Katarina Pitasse Fragoso
Multidimensional Poverty Measurement: The Value of Life
and the Challenge to Value Aggregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Nicole Hassoun, Anders Herlitz, and Lucio Esposito
Part V C ountry Cases
Mapping Out Non-monetary Dimensions of Well-Being
by Ethnicity in Rural Cameroon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Hans Tino Ayamena Mpenya, Francis Menjo Baye,
and Boniface Ngah Epo
Contents ix
Rising Tide of Precariat and Denizens in Neoliberal
Capitalism: The Case of Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Eda Keskin
Measuring Capabilities: Using Financial Diaries in Bangladesh . . . . . . . . 385
Julio Linares and Yu-hsuan Su
Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
