Explaining Global Poverty

Description

The twenty-first century is characterized by extremes of poverty and wealth, of scarcity and abundance. The vast inequalties of wealth distribution between the developed west and the impoverished developing world is a complex problem. This book recognises that Africa in particular has manifested this global disgrace and symbolizes the nature of poverty to the western world.

In order to truly emancipate the poverty stricken around the world we must necessarily understand the reasons for its existence. In a departure from traditional critical realist theory, Gruffydd-Jones argues the benefits of reassessing the relevance of objective inquiry and emphasizes its primacy over normative theory in the battle to truly understand the reasons for the African crisis. This approach brings us a book of real relevance for inequality in the modern world and gives us an important platform from which to move forwards in the fight against poverty.

Contents

Part 1: Poverty, Need and Objectivity in Social Inquiry 1. Poverty and Development in Africa: Twentieth-Century Orthodoxies 2. Critical Perspectives: From Global Structure to Local Agency 3. Objectivity, Need and the Dialectics of Emancipation 4. Marxism, Imperialism and Africa Part 2: Explaining Poverty: The Massive Presence of the Past and the Outside 5. The Presence of the Past: Slavery, Colonialism and Primitive Accumulation 6. The Presence of the Outside: Revolution, Counter-Revolution and the Production of Absence 7. Neo-Colonialism and the Reproduction of Poverty: Contemporary Dialectics of Accumulation and Dispossession. Conclusion

Related Subjects

1. Human Rights
2. Theory & Political Sociology
3. Social Theory