Poverty Dynamics

Book excerpt: This collection of essays provides a state-of-the-art examination of the concepts and methods that can be used to understand poverty dynamics. It does this from an interdisciplinary perspective and includes the work of anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and political scientists. The contributions included highlight the need to conceptualise poverty from a multidimensional perspective and promote Q-Squared research approaches, or those that combine quantitative and qualitative research. The first part of the book provides a review of the research on poverty dynamics in developing countries. Part two focuses on poverty measurement and assessment, and discusses the most recent work of world-leading poverty analysts. The third part focuses on frameworks for understanding poverty analysis that avoid measurement and instead utilise approaches based on social relations and structural analysis. There is widespread consensus that poverty analysis should focus on poverty dynamics and this book shows how this idea can practically be taken forward.