The Shame of Poverty invites the reader to question their understanding of poverty by bringing into close relief the day-to-day experiences of low-income families living in societies as diverse as Norway and Uganda, Britain and India, China, South Korea, and Pakistan. The volume explores Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's contention that shame lies at the core of poverty. Drawing on original research and literature from many disciplines, it reveals that the pain of poverty extends beyond material hardship. Rather than being shameless, as is often claimed by the media, people in poverty almost invariably feel ashamed at being unable to fulfil their personal aspirations or to live up to societal expectations due to their lack of income and other resources. Such shame not only hurts, adding to the negative experience of poverty, but undermines confidence and individual agency, can lead to depression and even suicide, and may well contribute to the perpetuation of poverty. Moreover, people in poverty are repeatedly exposed to shaming by the attitudes and behaviour of the people they meet, by the tenor of public debate that either dismisses them or labels them as lazy and in their dealings with public agencies. Public policies would be demonstrably more successful if, instead of stigmatising people for being poor, they treated them with respect and sought actively to promote their dignity. This book, together with the companion volume Poverty and Shame: Global Experiences, presents comparable evidence from the seven countries, challenges the conventional thinking that separates discussion of poverty found in the Global North from that prevalent in the Global South. It demonstrates that the emotional experience of poverty, with its attendant social and psychological costs, is surprisingly similar despite marked differences in material well-being and varied cultural traditions and political systems. In so doing, the volumes provide a foundation for a more satisfactory global conversation about the phenomenon of poverty than that which has hitherto been frustrated by disagreement about whether poverty is best conceptualised in absolute or relative terms. The volume draws on the ground-breaking research of an international team: Grace Bantebya-Kyomuhendo, Elaine Chase, Sohail Choudhry, Erika Gubrium, Ivar Lødemel, JO Yongmie (Nicola), Leemamol Mathew, Amon Mwiine, Sony Pellissery and YAN Ming.

What does it mean to be poor in Britain and America? For decades the primary narrative about poverty in both countries is that it has been caused by personal flaws or ‘bad life decisions’ rather than policy choices or economic inequality. This misleading account has become deeply embedded in the public consciousness with serious ramifications for how financially vulnerable people are seen, spoken about and treated. Drawing on a two-year multi-platform initiative, this book by award-winning journalist and author Mary O’Hara, asks how we can overturn this portrayal once and for all. Crucially, she turns to the real experts to try to find answers – the people who live it.

This book challenges thinking about the nature and causes of poverty in both the Global North and Global South. Together with a companion volume providing more detailed interdisciplinary and theoretical insights into the phenomenon of shame in relation to poverty, the book shows how the pain of poverty is emotional as well as material.

The shame experienced by people living in poverty has long been recognised. Nobel laureate and economist, Amartya Sen, has described shame as the irreducible core of poverty. However, little attention has been paid to the implications of this connection in the making and implementation of anti-poverty policies. This important volume rectifies this critical omission and demonstrates the need to take account of the psychological consequences of poverty for policy to be effective. Drawing on pioneering empirical research in countries as diverse as Britain, Uganda, Norway, Pakistan, India, South Korea and China, it outlines core principles that can aid policy makers in policy development. In so doing, it provides the foundation for a shift in policy learning on a global scale and bridges the traditional distinctions between North and South, and high-, middle- and low-income countries. This will help students, academics and policy makers better understand the reasons for the varying effectiveness of anti-poverty policies.

The key concepts of the book are media, class, poverty, and shaming. The contributors to this book examine how certain social relations and their cultural meanings in the media, namely class and poverty, are transformed into factual or moral attributes of people and situations. Class and poverty are not understood as certain things and actions, or concepts and numbers; both class and poverty are assumed to be, above all, particular social relationships or a set of relations between people, things and symbols. Without denying that contempt for the destitute Other is an affect found throughout history and in various socioeconomic contexts, the chapters in this book – through their concern with the mediated gaze on class – narrate predominantly the challenges brought about by the media’s spectacular take on poverty and low status as they (at least) coincide with the neoliberal era. This volume will be essential reading for the scholars specialising in the study of media and social inequalities form the vantage points of Media Studies, Sociology, Anthropology or European Studies.

"Hunger and Shame" is a passionate account of child malnutrition in a relatively wealthy populace, the Chagga in Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Views of family members, health workers and government officials provide insights into the complex of ideas, institutions and human fallibility that sustain the shame of malnutrition in the mountains. Discussing the moral and practical dilemmas posed by the presence of malnourished children in the community, the authors explore the shame associated with child hunger in relation to social organization, colonial history and the global economy. Their discussions challenge the reader to ask fundamental questions concerning ethics, the politics of poverty and shame and social relations.

Abramsky shows how poverty - a massive political scandal - is dramatically changing in the wake of the Great Recession.