CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2.2 CONCEPTUALISING RURAL DEVELOPMENT
2.2.2 Defining Rural Poverty
The concept of poverty is multi-dimensional and denotes an undesirable condition of life. It is also used to describe varying kinds of human deprivation in society. The complexity of the concept has resulted in the production of various scholarly theorisations and as a result, poverty cannot be confined to a single definition. Burkey (2003) notes that poverty, in its primordial form, is conceptualised as the lack of basic needs that are necessary for an individual human being to survive with dignity. Basic needs refer to essential amenities such as air, clean and safe water, nutritious food, physical and emotional security, appropriate clothing and shelter that are necessary for the individual to live a better life (Hart and Peet, 2009). The perspective of a basic needs approach suggests that, poverty affects individuals and communities, which
20 lack essential amenities to survive and sustain their individual members. The basic needs essential for a community to survive and sustain its members include, access to nutritious food, adequate communication systems, educational and health facilities, recreational facilities and transport, as well as a political system that provides mechanisms for participatory decision- making (Burkey, 2003). Therefore, basic needs are necessary for the community to function and sustain the well-being of its members.
The basic needs approach provides the framework for two economic definitions of poverty as absolute poverty and relative poverty. According to Schiller (1976), absolute poverty refers to a situation where an individual, community, country or region lacks resources to satisfactorily meet its basic needs. This is a situation in which the lack of money makes it impossible to acquire goods and services that are deemed necessary for an individual, community or country’s welfare. In this regard, an individual or household is considered to be relatively poor when his/her income is significantly less than the average income of the population. This refers to a situation where basic needs are met while other perceived needs and desires are still lacking. In essence both types of poverty are determined by income distribution and other income related variables.
Nonetheless, the concept of poverty has been described as ‘messy’ by researchers such as Laderchi et al, (2003) and Kirsten (2011). For example, Laderchi et al (2003:244) state that,
“The current approach to the identification of poverty and to policy formulation is rather messy: on the one hand, there is acknowledgement of its multidimensionality, combined with a pick and choose approach in advocacy with little consistency across studies. On the other hand, in practice the monetary approach retains its dominance in descriptions and analysis”.
To avoid the messiness, Kirsten (2011) argues that researchers try to adopt the less complex monetary approaches to define and measure poverty. The emphasis on the monetary and material aspects of poverty is useful for measuring consumption and expenditure patterns. In addition, Greeley (1994) asserts that the use of absolute and objective poverty lines generates information that empowers the poverty reduction agenda and encourages the appropriate allocation of resources.
It should be stated, however that, the monetary approach has been strongly challenged by various researchers such as Finnis (1980), Sen (1990) and Chambers (1995). These researchers
21 unearthed an array of non-material aspects of poverty and human well-being that are not captured by the monetary approach.
Finnis (1980), an Austrian philosopher proposed a comprehensive list of dimensions of poverty that are not addressed by the monetary approach. The list includes health and reproduction, knowledge and education and aspects that include gainful employment, participation in recreational activities, friendship and other valuable relationships. Finnis (1980) argues that poverty cannot be fully addressed without taking into account its non-material dimension.
Years later, Sen presents the argument that a standard definition of poverty that focuses only on the deficit or lack of income is quite narrow. Sen (1990) defines poverty, in his seminal work, “Development as Freedom”, as capability deprivation. The notion of capability deprivation highlights non-material aspects of poverty such as lack of participation in decision making processes, violation of human rights, powerlessness and susceptibility to violence. For Sen (1990), income and wealth are mere instruments or means that can be used to attain what really matters, which is the kind of life that an individual desires for him/herself and the choices and opportunities available to them. In this regard, capabilities denote the various types of freedom that the individual or community has in terms of the range of choices and opportunities made available to them. Critical to Sen’s argument is the notion of freedom which does not only allow people to live the kind of life they value but also influences their world. For Sen, poverty is synonymous to being unfree, hence the title of his book, Development as Freedom.2 Therefore, the critical works produced by Sen and Chambers have contributed immensely to the understanding of the non-material aspects of poverty and development. In particular, the various forms of deprivations which sustain poverty and entrap the poor to the extent that, Sen views poverty as both deprivation and un-freedom. To this end, non-material poverty entails being deprived of the freedom to choose from a range of goods and services that the poor are also entitled to.
In the same vein, Chambers lists different forms of deprivation that are not adequately captured by the standard definition of income poverty. These deprivations include vulnerability to shocks such as sudden changes in income, ill health, social inferiority, powerlessness,
2Sen (1990:10) lists five distinct types of freedoms which are viewed in an instrumental perspective namely;
political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and, protective security.
These freedoms must necessarily be in place in order to dismantle the iron cage of poverty and deprivation that robs the poor of their dignity and well-being.
22 humiliation and isolation. These deprivations all expose the “weakness in the correlations between income-poverty and some other deprivations” (Chambers, 1983:103).
Chambers is mostly credited for is his work on rural development in Africa that brought him closer to the reality of the poor in the continent’s rural areas. Chambers (1983) presents, in his book titled, Rural Development: Putting the last first, a thorough analysis of rural poverty in Africa. He describes poverty as a key component of African rural areas that are isolated and excluded. Chambers makes an interesting observation that the true reality of rural poverty in Africa has not been fully perceived by many development workers and researchers, yet the same people have attempted to define and address it. In his introductory chapter (1983:2) Chambers observes that:
“Outsiders are people concerned with rural development who are themselves neither rural nor poor. Many are headquarters and field staff of government organisations in the Third World. They also include academic researchers, aid agency personnel, bankers, businessmen, consultants, doctors, engineers, journalists, lawyers, politicians, priests, school teachers, staff training institutes, workers in voluntary agencies, and other professionals. Outsiders under-perceive rural poverty. They are attracted to and trapped in urban ‘cores’ which generate and communicate their own sort of knowledge while rural ‘peripheries’ are isolated and neglected”.
Chambers’ analysis reveals the deficiency evident in the way rural poverty has been narrowly defined by outsiders with no existential experience of rural life. The analysis also demonstrates how the isolated rural people have been excluded from defining their poverty and influencing policies aimed at addressing it. The several forms of deprivation that Chambers identifies reinforce each other and constitute what he terms the deprivation trap. Vulnerability and powerlessness are given particular attention and deserve further analysis in this study.
Vulnerability relates to how people living in the rural areas lack sufficient buffers to mitigate the impact of natural disasters such as ill health, death, famine and other physical incapacities.
It is this lack of buffers that forces the poor in rural areas to sell their assets and thus, amplify their poverty and makes them more vulnerable to the manipulation and exploitation by the ruling political elites (Mbeki, 2005; Chambers, 1983).
Powerlessness relates to the rural poor’s lack of power to bargain with the political elites or to protect themselves in the context of unequal social relations. Chambers (1983) notes that, powerlessness is reflected in situations where the rural elites act as a net to intercept benefits intended for the poor and in the inability of poorer people to bargain. Powerlessness affects
23 women mostly, and those who are physically weak, disabled or destitute. Vulnerability and powerlessness are the two forces that sustain rural poverty. According Myers (2011), powerlessness implies that the rural poor lack the ability and skills to influence the world around them and the social systems in which they live. Myers (2011) adds that powerlessness is often overlooked even by development practitioners because it causes discomfort and is also used by the powerful to exploit and manipulate poor people in the rural areas.
The theme of powerlessness is also explored by Friedmann (1992) who considers poverty as a condition of systematic disempowerment. Friedmann (1992) argues that structural conditions are deliberately created by the elite to keep the poor in their position and limit their access to social power to the level of everyday survival. In his extrapolation, Friedmann (1992) associates social power with civil society but explains that it is quite limited in contrast to other forms of power such as state, economic and political power. In this regard, Friedmann (1992:67) provides a succinct explanation of the different forms of power as noted here:
“Each form of power is based on certain resources that can be accessed by a collective actor. The state has the law on its side and a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence. Corporations have substantial access to financial resources, the power to shift capital from one place to another, and the power to hire and fire. The political community- parties, social movements, political action committees- has the power to vote, to stage street demonstrations and rallies, and to pressure politicians through lobbying. The power of civil society, finally, is gauged by the differential access of households to the bases of social power”.
Friedmann views the household as the social unit of the poor that exists within the framework of four overlapping domains of social praxis namely: state, political community, civil society, and corporate economy. Each of these domains is characterised by a different set of institutions through which it acts. For example, the core of the state consists of the formal executive and judicial arms of government while that of the political community consists of different political organisations. The household forms the core domain of civil society. There also exists domains such as churches and other voluntary organisations, where civil society and the state overlap.
The domain of economic power is the corporation and it is more complex due to its interconnection with the global economic system and other transnational corporations. To that end, Myers (2011:70) explains that:
“[W]here the corporate economy overlaps with civil society, we find the non-formal economic sector and popular economic groups. These interacting domains are the system within which the poor household struggles to find space, location and influence”.
24 The rural poor find themselves confined to the poverty trap with limited options to extricate themselves due to their powerlessness and vulnerability. As a result, the rural poor’s survival and well-being depends to a large degree on the goodwill of the political and economic elites who determine policy and the allocation of resources.
Rural poverty can also be defined as a condition of underdevelopment in which the rural poor live under impoverished conditions and in a state of deprivation. According to Pellekaan and Hartnett (1997), the following indicators are associated with rural poverty in Africa:
• Inadequate access to employment opportunities due to isolation of rural areas,
• Inadequate access to physical assets such as land due to the absence of land reform,
• Inadequate access to the means for supporting rural development due to lack of investment by government,
• Low endowment of human capital caused by inadequate and inequitable delivery of education, health, sanitation and domestic water-services,
• Destruction of natural resources which impacts negatively on agricultural production,
• Inadequate access to assistance for those who live at the margin and are often affected by transitory poverty caused by drought, floods or wars,
• Inadequate participation of the poor in the design and implementation of development programmes that results in failure to take the needs of the poor into account, and
• Low physical infrastructure to support rural economies.
The lack of access to resources and opportunities, together with inadequate infrastructure perpetuate rural poverty and expose the rural poor to many risks (Chronic Poverty Research Centre, 2004; Ahmed et al. 2007; Grant, 2011). A further observation by Lipton (1977) is that, those who are more vulnerable suffer the most because those who are more powerful in rural areas capture the benefits of programmes and exploit the poor. As a result, the hardships experienced by the rural poor force them to migrate to urban areas where rural poverty subsequently translates into urban poverty. In this respect, Todaro and Smith (2011) explain that the more developed countries tend to have a more urbanized population while less developed countries have the majority of their populations in rural areas. The less developed countries have fewer urban or big cities as a result of urban bias. Todaro and Smith (2011:315) define urban bias as, “[T]he notion that most governments in developing countries favour the
25 urban sector in their development policies, thereby creating a widening gap between the urban and rural economies”. This indicates that resources in less developed countries are being allocated more to the development of urban areas and big cities at the expense of rural areas.
As a result, urban areas become more attractive to the rural poor who are forced to migrate to urban areas in search of a better life.
The migration of the rural poor to urban areas and big cities comes with its own problems and challenges. It increases social cost in the areas of housing and social services in urban areas Rural-urban migration also increases the problem of crime, pollution, and crowding in urban areas (De Beer & Swanepoel, 2010).The growing number of slums and informal settlements on the periphery of urban areas indicates the extent to which rural poverty is being migrated to urban areas. To this end, there is a correlation between rural poverty and urban poverty. This suggests that a reduction in rural poverty would prevent rural people from migrating to urban areas in big numbers and gradually reduceurban poverty. The solution to rural poverty is sustainable rural development. This entails making rural areas more attractive and comfortable for the rural people and investors. It further entails atransformation of the undesirable conditions of life in rural areas into a state of opportunities, growth and enhanced quality of life. Hence, Cord (2011) asserts that, the challenges of rural poverty can be overcome when strategies that are focused on pro-poor growth of the rural sector are devised and vigorously implemented to grow the rural economy. Notwithstanding the above theoretical articulation of rural poverty, one of the objectives of this study is to investigate how people in the rural areas perceive and understand poverty.