2016 Salzburg Workshop in Philosophy and Poverty, 12 & 13 May 2016
Invited Speaker: Monique Deveaux (Guelph)
Global Justice from Below?: The Value of Social Movement Approaches to Poverty Reduction
Abstract: In their analyses about how best to reduce global poverty, philosophers and political theorists have overlooked the role of social movements led by, and for, the poor in the global South. I argue that these social movements, which consist in collective political action as well as formal organizations of the poor, are normatively and politically significant for poverty reduction efforts and global justice generally. I offer three related reasons for why this is so. The first highlight the way in which poor-led social movementspoliticize poverty — its causes and its remedies. Part of this politicization includes an emphasis oninequality (as opposed to absolute poverty alone) as a core wrong for which poor communities seek redress. This more political view of poverty relates to a second reason why poor-led movements are significant, namely, because they actively mobilize the poor to resist the political exclusion and social marginalization of poor communities. Here I draw on Frantz Fanon and work in development ethics to flesh out the value of this form of political resistance to goods of collective empowerment and self-respect. And third, I argue that poor-led social movements are very often radical democratic struggles, both in their organizing tools and strategies and in their ultimate aims. The democratic content of these politicized anti-poverty struggles should, I argue, lead theorists to consider global poverty in terms of the relative social-political power and powerlessness of communities at the national and global levels, rather than simply in terms of material deprivation.
Bio: Monique Deveaux is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Global Social Change at the University of Guelph, Canada. She is also the founding and current director of "Initiatives in Global Justice" at the University of Guelph. Monqiue is the author of Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States (Oxford University Press, 2006) and Cultural Pluralism and Dilemmas of Justice (Cornell University Press, 2000). She co-edited Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy: Texts and Cases (Oxford University Press, 2014) as well as Reading Onora O’Neill (Routledge, 2013). Recently published papers include “The Global Poor as Agents of Justice” (Journal of Moral Philosophy, vol. 12 (2015): 125-50) and “Normative Liberal Theory and the Bifurcation of Human Rights” (Ethics and Global Politics, vol. 2, no. 3 (September 2009): 171-19.)
Abstract: In their analyses about how best to reduce global poverty, philosophers and political theorists have overlooked the role of social movements led by, and for, the poor in the global South. I argue that these social movements, which consist in collective political action as well as formal organizations of the poor, are normatively and politically significant for poverty reduction efforts and global justice generally. I offer three related reasons for why this is so. The first highlight the way in which poor-led social movementspoliticize poverty — its causes and its remedies. Part of this politicization includes an emphasis oninequality (as opposed to absolute poverty alone) as a core wrong for which poor communities seek redress. This more political view of poverty relates to a second reason why poor-led movements are significant, namely, because they actively mobilize the poor to resist the political exclusion and social marginalization of poor communities. Here I draw on Frantz Fanon and work in development ethics to flesh out the value of this form of political resistance to goods of collective empowerment and self-respect. And third, I argue that poor-led social movements are very often radical democratic struggles, both in their organizing tools and strategies and in their ultimate aims. The democratic content of these politicized anti-poverty struggles should, I argue, lead theorists to consider global poverty in terms of the relative social-political power and powerlessness of communities at the national and global levels, rather than simply in terms of material deprivation.
Bio: Monique Deveaux is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Global Social Change at the University of Guelph, Canada. She is also the founding and current director of "Initiatives in Global Justice" at the University of Guelph. Monqiue is the author of Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States (Oxford University Press, 2006) and Cultural Pluralism and Dilemmas of Justice (Cornell University Press, 2000). She co-edited Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy: Texts and Cases (Oxford University Press, 2014) as well as Reading Onora O’Neill (Routledge, 2013). Recently published papers include “The Global Poor as Agents of Justice” (Journal of Moral Philosophy, vol. 12 (2015): 125-50) and “Normative Liberal Theory and the Bifurcation of Human Rights” (Ethics and Global Politics, vol. 2, no. 3 (September 2009): 171-19.)
