Poverty Knowledge in South Africa: A Social History of Human Science, 1855–2005
Cambridge University Press, 2/5/2015
EAN 9780521198752, ISBN10: 0521198755
Hardcover, 346 pages, 23.5 x 15.7 x 2 cm
Language: English
Poverty is South Africa's greatest challenge. But what is 'poverty'? How can it be measured? And how can it be reduced if not eliminated? In South Africa, human science knowledge about the cost of living grew out of colonialism, industrialization, apartheid and civil resistance campaigns, which makes this knowledge far from neutral or apolitical. South Africans have used the Poverty Datum Line (PDL), Gini coefficients and other poverty thresholds to petition the state, to chip away at the pillars of white supremacy, and, more recently, to criticize the postapartheid government's failures to deliver on some of its promises. Rather than promoting one particular policy solution, this book argues that poverty knowledge teaches us about the dynamics of historical change, the power of racism in white settler societies, and the role of grassroots protest movements in shaping state policies and scientific categories. Readers will gain new perspectives on today's debates about social welfare, redistribution and human rights, and will ultimately find reasons to rethink conventional approaches to advocacy.
Part I. Lay Knowledge Meets Human Science, 1855–1940
The Co-production of the 'Poor White Problem'
1. Before poverty measurement
conjuring worlds without want
2. The human sciences in interwar South Africa
William Macmillan, I. D. MacCrone, and the Carnegie Commission
Part II. The Limits of Invention, 1940–70
Social Reform and Quantitative Objectivity
3. The minimum standards moment
Edward Batson and the Poverty Datum Line (PDL)
4. Rethinking governmentality
urban planning, rural betterment, and the apartheid state
Part III. The People's Facts
Epistemic Mobility and the Negotiated Settlement, 1970–2005
5. Agitation through quantification
white student activists in the era of black consciousness
6. From people's power to corporate power
poverty research and the transition to democracy
7. Baselines and battle lines
social surveying after apartheid
Conclusion
Epilogue.