The Political Economy of Poverty and Social Transformations of the Global South
WORKSHOP: This cross-continental and interdisciplinary workshop will approach social change toward poverty eradication and prevention in an interdisciplinary and critical way taking current politics as the point of reference.
Arranged by the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP), the Arab and African Research Centre (AARC), the American University in Cairo, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), and the South-South Exchange Programme for Research on the History of Development (SEPHIS).
The event aims to enhance the understanding of the nature of social change and transformations (at global, national or local levels) in which poverty alleviation, eradication, and prevention is either the axis of a social strategy or a tangible result. In this sense, the workshop will focus on, but is not limited to, questions like:
- What are the main sources of social change in the global South?
- Who are its actors, and how do they express their agenda and action?
- What were the ideological and material conditions for poverty eradication in exceptional cases like the Scandinavian countries?
- Is it possible to find ideological and material conditions for poverty eradication in the South?
- Which experiences in the South provide an alternative path toward poverty alleviation, eradication, and prevention?
- Does the current geo-political mapping of the world render a South-based project for poverty eradication possible?
- Has neoliberalism changed the meaning and manifestation of poverty and its eradication?
- How is resistance to changes dealt with within the current political systems?
- How is the position of vested interests expressed in contemporary societies? How do they maintain the status quo and how successful are they in the face of protest and resistance?
- What is the role of the media?
Deadline for submission of abstracts = Monday July 9, 2012
