Critical Global Poverty Studies Group (CGPS)
Critical Global Poverty Studies Group (CGPS) encompasses an interdisciplinary network of scientists attempting to reframe poverty research and to generate innovative pedagogical activities. CGPS views poverty as produced through political, economic, and cultural mechanisms, that are connected and recurrent across space and also (co)produced through human actions and places. We argue for the simultaneity of the operation of materials processes and social constructions of poverty. CGPS have a central concern with social and global justice and we view the poor as creative agents with capacity to define their actions and futures. Members of the group see their work with clear ethical dimensions that are concerned with global and social justice.
CGPS is committed to engaging multiple audiences including policy actors, academics, social movements, non-governmental organizations, and the public broadly. We explicitly separate policy and action, arguing that there are multiple forms of action and social change, emanating from multiple sites and politics.
CGPS is now developing a large research project centred on the role of the middle classes in relation to the poor. It currently develops a research initiative examining how middle classes understand and respond to poverty across the globe. A recent workshop in Bergen (January 2010) explored the potential for comparative research on the links between middle class vulnerability, identities and poverty politics in Argentina, South Africa, Norway and the United States.
