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- Convenor:
-
Keetie Roelen
(The Open University)
Send message to Convenor
- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Interrogating development through stories and experiences
- Location:
- Library, Seminar Room 2
- Sessions:
- Friday 21 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel focuses on the psychosocial side of poverty, seeking to present new research and stimulate debate about psychosocial causes and effects of poverty (including issues of shame, hope, aspirations) and how policies can engage with these.
Long Abstract:
Greater understanding of the psychosocial side of poverty will be crucial for 'opening up development'. Reflections of lived experiences of poverty provide insight into complex realities that are context-specific but also share commonalities across places and spaces. The latter may hold especially true in times of austerity and widespread contraction of public services across the global North and South. Investigations into the psychosocial side of poverty give rise to questions such as: How does poverty affect psychological wellbeing, and lead to feelings of shame, reduced cognitive bandwidth, or withdrawal from social situations? How do psychosocial effects of poverty impede efforts to reduce poverty, both from individual and wider social perspectives? Can interventions that aim to improve psychosocial outcomes, such as hope or aspirations, play a role in poverty reduction?
In this session, we - the Study Group on Multidimensional Poverty and Poverty Dynamics - together with the panellists explore psychosocial dimensions of poverty from across low and middle-income countries. The panel traverses disciplines and contexts, reflecting on the linkages between inequality and mental wellbeing in China, aspirations and urban-rural migration in India and intergenerational transmission of psychosocial wellbeing in Latin America.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 21 June, 2019, -Kundan Mishra (University of Massachusetts Boston)
Paper short abstract:
Using mixed methods study, this paper explores the interaction between household aspirations and migration decisions. In this paper, I use a capabilities approach based framework to understand migration decisions and the distinction between the agency of migrant individuals and household.
Paper long abstract:
The priorities and aspirations of rural migrants are undermined by explanations of rural-urban migration through aggregated indicators of economic growth. The capabilities approach as a conceptual framework continues to highlight the agency of individuals and communities in understanding key human development issues. This paper extends the capabilities approach to understand the agency of rural migrant households under conditions of economic distress. Seasonal migration is a form of rural-urban migration in which individuals and families migrate towards urban and peri-urban areas for work during the agricultural lean season. In Odisha, seasonal migration presents an empirical puzzle where individuals and families migrate without a substantial improvement in well-being. Through a mixed-methods study of migrant households in rural Odisha, this project pursues two key objectives. First, the project tests the human capital and human security arguments that emphasize improvement in well-being and mitigation of risk as the underlying reasons for rural-urban migration. Second, this project examines the agency of households characterized by their aspirations, priorities and decision-making process to understand the persistence of seasonal migration. The focus group discussions in the first phase corroborate the priorities and aspirations from existing theoretical and empirical work. The first phase of household surveys, reflecting these priorities, seeks to capture household level data about well-being indicators, risk indicators, aspirations, and priorities. Then using focus group discussions will be used to inform and corroborate initial findings from the surveys. Finally, the relationship between household priorities and aspirations, and household decisions to migrate are analyzed through regression models.
Oscar Siu (University of Aberdeen)
Paper short abstract:
In China, there is a gap between the claim of commitment to well-being and equality by policy makers and their practice in political reality. This article discusses the challenges concerning the introduction of well-being to development policy to mitigate the gap between the poor and rich in China.
Paper long abstract:
Despite its economic growth, China maintains a high degree of the gap between the poor and rich. According to a report released by Beijing University, about one-third of the nation's wealth is possessed by merely one percent of households. By contrast, only one percent of the wealth is owned by the poorest 25 percent of grassroots households. The Gini coefficient has already increased to 0.465 in 2016, according to the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics.
On the other hand, since 2006, the happiness index, subjective well-being, mental health issues and positive psychological language has gained its popularity and become a hot topic in Chinese academia of public policy and development studies, gaining attention of policy makers at all levels. For instance, the "Happiness Index" has been introduced by certain provinces to measure the well-being of the people regarding their subjective experience and objective living conditions.
Based on the literature review of the relation between well-being and income in Chinese context, it has been argued that there is a gap between the claim of commitment to well-being and equality by policy makers, and their actual practice of those policies due to various public administrative reasons. Thus, this article seeks to explore the contextual challenges in terms of the introduction of "well-being" in order to mitigate the problem of income inequality in China. It is hoped that this research can contribute to the interdisciplinary dialogue between public administration and positive psychology to mitigate the gap between the poor and rich.
Katie Wright (University of East London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines gendered processes of inter-generational transfer via engagement with real-life portraits of Latin American migrant fathers and their sons. Specifically it explores how far psychosocial transfers can be taken up and used as assets to exit poverty and acheive human wellbeing.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines gendered processes of inter-generational transfer via engagement with real-life portraits of Latin American migrant fathers and their sons. It incorporates understandings of intergenerational transmission (IGT) that are not solely related to the transfer for material goods but include psychosocial assets (such as norms and beliefs that are socially constructed and central to the lives that people value) reflecting a more holistic concept of human-centered development. Specifically it explores how far tensions in migrant father and son relationships (linked to periods of separation as well as repartnering in the host country contexts) can be overcome in order that psychosocial transfers can be taken up by sons and converted into assets or competencies. Finally, it deepens understanding of how far gendered ideologies and practices continue to echo across the generations, influencing the decisions taken by migrant fathers and their sons at critical life junctures and their prospects for exiting poverty and achieving human wellbeing outcomes.