Poverty and Privilege Course Guide

7/27/2019 Poverty and Privilege Course Guide

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he Atlantic Bridge Suite A night to remember. For those looking for an unforgettably opulent - not to mention unforgettably

pensive - holiday experience, a night in the Bridge Suite at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas is the thing for you. Located on the

ppropriately-named Paradise Island, and owned by South-African entrepreneur Sol Kerzner -- the man behind Sun City -- the $450

illion, 600-acre resort is a wonderland of sumptuous, over-the-top hedonism, with the Bridge Suite the jewel in its crown.

million people die every year from poverty-related causes. Thats nearly 50,000 deaths every day. Every year, between 9 and 11 million of

ese deaths are children. Thats 25,000 - 30,000 children dying every day from poverty.These statistics account for one third of all human

aths. More people die as a result of extreme poverty than of any other cause.

o-called because it occupies a bridge between the resort's two main buildings - the 23-story Royal Towers - the suite is not only the

ost extravagantly luxurious of its kind in the world, but also, at $25,000 per night, by some distance the most expensive. Guests, noturprisingly, tend to be limited to the ranks of the world's super-rich. Michael Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Celine Dion and Michael

rdan have all stayed in the suite, as have Bill Gates and Donald Trump, although it is most frequently occupied either by Saudi

eikhs or high-rolling businessmen in town to try their luck at the resort's casino, the largest in the Caribbean.

oughly 1.4 billion people suffer extreme poverty, defined as trying to survive based on the purchasing power of what $1.25 buys in the USA. Of

e 2.2 billion children in the world, 600 million are victims of extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is increasingly concentrated in fragile states and

ritories, defined as those with very weak institutions and poor policies. These areas are home to 9 percent of the population living in

veloping countries, but nearly 27 percent of the extreme poor. These places are often sources of war, terrorism and refugee crises.

he Bridge provides its guests with an unrivalled degree of designer luxury and customer care. Decorated in extravagant shades of

d, gold and black, and with enough gilt fittings to fill a small palace, its 12 ft (3.6 meter) high floor-to-ceiling windows offer breath-king views over the Atlantis-themed resort below and out across the Caribbean. The living room has its own grand piano and two

ntertainment centres. Its 10 rooms include a 50 x 25 ft (15 x 7.6 meter) living room, complete with grand piano, two entertainment

enters and an 800 square foot (244 square meter) balcony; a dining room with a 22-karat gold chandelier and custom-designed 10-

eater table; and a kitchen with its own private entrance so the suite's seven dedicated staff - including butlers, cooks and maids - can

ome and go without disturbing its guests.

e average yearly income of the richest 20% of people in the world is about 50 times greater than the yearly income of the poorest 20% of

ople. 8 million people die from lack of food and nutrition every year about 24,000 deaths each day. Every year, 5.8 million children die from

nger related-causes. Every day, thats 16,000 young lives lost. For the first time in history, over 1.02 billion people do not have enough to eat.

ats one sixth of humanity - more than the population of the United States, Canada and the European Union combined.

he King Bedroom boasts his-and-her marble bathrooms, a four posted bed covered in hand-painted linens, a private lounge and aalk-in dressing area. The Queen bedroom, although smaller, is no less spectacular, with custom-made draperies and carpets,

esigner furniture and wardrobes that, according to one journalist, are so big "you could drive a car into them."

ch year, over 10 million children in developing countries die before the age of five. More than half of these deaths are attributed to malnutrition,

hich claims a child's life every 5 seconds. Approximately 146 million children in developing countries, about 1 out of 4, are underweight. An

timated 250 million preschool children are vitamin A deficient. An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A-deficient children become blind

ery year. Half of them die within 12 months of losing their sight. This is easily corrected with an inexpensive vitamin supplement.

ven its size and magnificence those who rent the suite could be forgiven for not actually stepping outside it for the duration of their

ay. Should they wish to do so, however, they have all the resort's other facilities available to them as well, including 11 swimming

ools, 35 restaurants, an 18-hole golf course and a patchwork of lagoons, waterslides, cascades and Mayan ruins designed to re-eate the mythical lost continent of Atlantis.

1 billion people don't have safe water and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Dirty water and poor sanitation account for the vast majority of 1.8

llion child deaths each year from diarrhoea - almost 5,000 every day - making it the second largest cause of child mortality. Deaths from

arrhoea can usually be prevented with very inexpensive oral rehydration salts. Poor sanitation and drainage contribute to malaria, which claims

e lives of 1.3 million people a year, 90% of which are children under the age of five.

or those who can't quite stretch to the $25,000 nightly charge, rooms elsewhere in the resort rent for a slightly more manageable

50 (low season). You might not get the butlers, marble bathrooms and grand piano, but at least you'll get the chance to gaze up at

e bridge' and dream.

.5 million people live with HIV/AIDS, 63 percent of which live in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2006 alone, 4.3 million people became infected withV and 2.9 million people died of AIDS. More than 10 million children in Africa have been orphaned by AIDS. Girls and women are especially

lnerable to HIV infection and to the impact of AIDS. Globally, more than half of all people living with HIV are female. In Sub-Saharan Africa,

omen now account for 57% of HIV infections and young African women (ages 15-24) are 3 times more likely to become infected than men of

Poverty and Privilege

Course Guide and Reader

Dr Sally Matthews

Department of Political and

International Studies

2012


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This Reader contains texts from various sources. Copyright regulations have been followed

in using the texts concerned.

The background to the front page was compiled using excerpts from the following two

websites:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/10/12/ultimate.hotelsuite/and

http://www.heartsandminds.org/poverty/hungerfacts.htm.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/10/12/ultimate.hotelsuite/http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/10/12/ultimate.hotelsuite/http://www.heartsandminds.org/poverty/hungerfacts.htmhttp://www.heartsandminds.org/poverty/hungerfacts.htmhttp://www.heartsandminds.org/poverty/hungerfacts.htmhttp://edition.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/10/12/ultimate.hotelsuite/


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Seminar Plan

Date Topic Seminar Readings

16 February Introduction23 February Inequality and Injustice STWR, Gosselin, Pogge

1 March Inequality and Injustice Young

8 March Charity Wainaina, Singer (x4), Kuper (x2)

15 March Renouncing Privilege, Using

Privilege

Cohen, Bailey, Frye, Matthews

22 March Solidarity and Activism Young, Collins, Ferber, Bartky,

Scholz, Ture and Hamilton

29 March Solidarity and Activism Focus on

Occupy Wall Street

Van Wyk, Flynn

April Holidays

19 April Black Elites Du Bois, Peterson , hooks,

Matthews

26 April White Anti-Racists Biko, Frye, Thompson, Matthews

(and revisit Bailey)

3 May Male Feminists Heath, Kahane, Frye, Harding.

10 May Ethical Consumers Siegle, Cook, Dickinson, Hale,

Moberg and Lyon.17 May NGOs Van Rooy, Shivji, Manji and OCoill.

24 May Revision and/or Presentations


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Setting the Tone

Most of us feel quite outraged or disturbed when we think about the vast inequalities that

characterize our country and our world. For those whose sense of outrage is a little dulled at

the moment, here are a couple of articles to encourage a flare up!

Scavengers Survive on Municipal Dump Site

By Thembeni Plaatjie (Grocotts Mail, 1 April 2010)

Take an afternoon drive towards Grahamstown's industrial area and you are likely to see

streams of people walking along the road. They are not coming from work, they are

coming from the municipal dump site. These Grahamstonians are carrying big plastic bags

filled with cans, food tins, clothing, books, electronic appliances, vegetable peels, bread

and even raw fish. The dumping site is a scavenging ground for the dirt poor.

Phindile Makhasi (50) of Sun City informal settlement in the coloured area, says

they have to risk their lives to get food. "When a waste truck offloads its load, we all run

there in an effort to sort out bits of scrap food. It's tough, but we've got no choice, there

are no jobs. I live with my son and four grand children, and my health is not good. We are

feeding and dressing our children from the dump. Some of the things we get them here

are healthy for consumption and we therefore see no problem eating or dressing them. We

sometimes sell the things we find here to the residents in the township," said Makhasi.

A woman at the dump site states the dump site is her only remedy. "We wake up

every day to go to the dumping site to search for food and other valuables because there

are no jobs in the townships. We collect tins and sell them to nearby cheeks [scrap

yards], and we sometimes get R5 to R10 in exchange for the tins. My husband is also not

working, we both collect the tins. Two fingers on my right hand side are not functioning,

and I applied for the disability grant two times, but the computer rejects me."

Nyanisile Bonani (50), of Transit Camp, who calls himself a spiritual being says he

goes to the site to get food for his dogs. Bonani says this dump site is a socialisation that

was created by God. People say we are going to die because we eat condemned stuff,

but we are still alive, and we are not sick because God is within us. He is protecting us.

People even laugh at us, they look down upon us, explains Bonani.

He even lambasted the educated elite for neglecting their countrymen. The

educated people dont have a heart, they dont feel for their brothers and sisters. They

sometimes come here and collect people to do occasional jobs at their homes and pay

them R5 for a four hour job. What is that?, asked Bonani before adding that they only

think about themselves.

Makana Municipality Environmental Health and Cleansing assistant director Johann

Esterhuizen said people are not allowed to enter the site. They are trespassing. We put

fences around the site, and people cut it to get to the site. In the near future we will put

security guards to keep people away, said Esterhuizen.

He added that people throw the food in the garbage because its not good,

therefore the food found in the site is not conducive for human consumption.


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What credit crunch? Club launches 35,000 cocktail

By Aditya Chakrabortty (The Guardian, 8 December 2007)

Economists may be warning of tough times ahead and homeowners fretting about the state

of the property market, but one London nightclub remains undeterred. Today, it willlaunch the world's most expensive Christmas cocktail, costing 35,000 a glass.

The Movida nightclub, a hangout of celebrities, footballers and the super-rich, has

already taken a small number of orders for the drink, named the Flawless.

The cocktail consists of a large measure of Louis XII cognac, half a bottle of Cristal

Rose champagne, some brown sugar, angostura bitters and a few flakes of 24-carat edible

gold leaf. The drink is described as warming and refreshing, but that is not the main

reason for the exorbitant cost: at the bottom of the crystal glass is an 11-carat white

diamond ring.

Customers will also be treated to an unusual floorshow. The drink will be mixed in

the presence of two security guards, who will then watch over the client's table until it is

finished."They're definitely paying for the show as well," said Ed Rollason the Movida's bar

manager. "And they'll have the attention of everyone else in the bar." Among the first to

order the drink was Max Reigns, 28, a property developer and manager. He intends to give

it to his girlfriend for Christmas.

"I just thought it would be a nice thing to do for her. She has so many other things."

Asked whether he couldn't think of a better use for 35,000, he replied: "It's about the

same as a holiday, isn't it?"

According to What Car? 35,000 would buy a Porsche Boxster Open and still leave

you with plenty of change for the glove compartment. Alternatively, it would get you just

short of 31,500 shares in the troubled mortgage-lender Northern Rock, according to prices

yesterday afternoon.As an annual income, 35,000 is more than about three quarters of the workforce

earns in a year.

Others treated news of the drink as further evidence of the spending power and

irresponsibility of the super-rich. "It's like sticking two fingers up at the rest of society,"

said the Labour MP Sion Simon. "You might as well set fire to your money in front of those

less well-off. It's a very deliberate way of saying 'We are not part of the same country as

you.'"

The drink will appeal to "the stupid segment of the super-rich", said the social

commentator Peter York. "It is so gauche, so crashingly crass, that everyone else will see

the buyers as barely literate, as one step up from a potato.

"It will be one of those things that unite both the middle class and the old rich in abelief that the super-rich come out of some kind of primeval ooze."

Nor did the cocktail appeal to others in the drinks industry. "It sounds pretty

revolting and most people I know wouldn't spend as much as 2.50 on it," said Tim Martin,

chairman of the JD Wetherspoon pub chain. "They'd be better off with a pint of Abbot

Ale."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/adityachakraborttyhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardianhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardianhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/adityachakrabortty


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SECTION A

Section A, which will run during the first term, focuses on the general theme of inequality

and responds to general questions around the relationship between privilege and poverty.

Each theme runs for one week.

Inequality and Injustice

Seminars: 23 February and 1 March

Now you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure

The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor

And there's a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong

You see, you hear these funny voices

In the Tower of Song

- Leonhard Cohen, Tower of SongWe live in an extremely unequal world where there are very

great differences between the wealth of some and the poverty of

others. But does this mean that we live in a radically unjust world. How do inequality and

injustice relate to one another? Also, while debates about inequality tend to focus on

material inequality, it may be better to think about equality and justice in relation to other

terms, such as oppression or (mis)recognition it may be that material inequalities are areflection of (or a feature of) oppressive relations between people rather than being the

primary ill. The first set of readings help us to get some sense, firstly, of the scale of

inequality both within and between nations; and, secondly, to start thinking about what

makes inequality (or certain kinds of inequality) unjust.

Seminar Readings

(I suggest you read them in the order listed below)

- Share the World Resources (STWR), 2011, Poverty and Inequality, available online athttp://www.stwr.org/poverty-inequality/overview.html.

- Gosselin, Abigail. 2009. Global Poverty and Individual Responsibility. Lanham:Lexington Books, Chapter 1 and Chapter 5 (esp. pp. 172-192). [NOTE: for copyright

reasons only Chapter 1 is included in the Reader. The books is available on short loan

in the library. Please ensure that you also read Chapter 5.]

- Pogge, Thomas, 2002, World Poverty and Human Rights: CosmopolitanResponsibilities and Reform. Cambridge: Polity, Chapter 1.Young, Iris Marion. 1990.

Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press, Chapter

1.
http://www.stwr.org/poverty-inequality/overview.htmlhttp://www.stwr.org/poverty-inequality/overview.html


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Additional Readings

- Jaggar, Alison (ed.). 2010. Thomas Pogge and his critics. Cambridge: Polity.- Pogge, Thomas. 2002. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan

Responsibilities and Reform. Cambridge: Polity.

- Pogge, Thomas (ed.). 2007. Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who OwesWhat to the Very Poor?Oxford: Oxford University Press.

- Symposium on World Poverty, Ethics and International Affairs, 19(1): 1-83.- Bailey, Alison, 1998, Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Fryes Oppression, Journal of

Social Philosophy, vol 29 no 3, 104-119.

- The rest of the Gosselin and Young books.


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Charity

Seminar: 1 March

Why do I sense, benevolence

You stand tall at my great expense

Thick words of gratitude, what a price to pay

Stuck in my throat, I sell every word I say

But I don't want your charity

Twisting me round

I don't want your charity

Keeping me down...

- Skunk Anansie, Charity.

Perhaps the most obvious way in which wealthy individuals can try to reduce globalinequality is through charity of some sort. We can give away some of our wealth, either

directly to individual poor people or to organizations that respond to the plight of the poor.

But how helpful is charity as a response to poverty?

Seminar Readings


- Wainaina, B., 2007, Oxfamming the Whole Black World, Mail & Guardian, 12 March.- Singer, P., 1972, Famine, Affluence and Morality, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1

(1): 229-243.- Singer, P., 1999, The Singer Solution to World Poverty, The New York Times Magazine,

September 5, 1999, pp. 60-63.

- Kuper, A., 2002a, More than Charity: Cosmopolitan Alternatives to the SingerSolution, Ethics and International Affairs, 16 (1): 107-120.

- Singer, P. (2002a) Poverty, Facts and Political Philosophies: A Response to Morethan Charity, Ethics and International Affairs, 16 (1): 121-124.

- Kuper, A., 2002b, Facts, Theories and Hard Choices: Reply to Peter Singer, Ethics andInternational Affairs, 16 (1):125-126.

- Singer, P. (2002b) Achieving the Best Outcome: Final Rejoinder, Ethics andInternational Affairs, 16 (1): 127-128.

Additional Readings

- Weinar, Leif, 2011, Poverty is no Pond: Challenges for the Affluent, in Giving Well:The Ethics of Philanthropy, ed. By P. Illingworth, T. Pogge and L. Weinar, Oxford:

Oxford University Press.


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Renouncing Privilege, Using Privilege

Seminar: 15 March

Rent a flat above a shop, cut your hair and get a job.Smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend you

never went to school.

But still you'll never get it right

'cos when you're laid in bed at night watching

roaches climb the wall

If you call your Dad he could stop it all.

You'll never live like common people

You'll never do whatever common people do

You'll never fail like common people

You'll never watch your life slide out of view, anddance and drink and screw

Because there's nothing else to do.

- Pulp, Common People.Perhaps rather than simply giving away some of our money, relatively privileged people

should renounce their position of privilege entirely and become one with the poor in the

words of the revolutionary, Amilcar Cabral, we should commit class suicide. How feasible is

this and helpful would it be?

Seminar Readings


- Cohen, G.A. (2001) If youre an egalitarian, how come youre so rich?, Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press, chapter 10.

- Bailey, A., 1999. Despising an identity they taught me to claim. In: C.J. Cuomo andK.Q. Hall, eds. Whiteness: feminist philosophical reflections. Lanham: Rowman and

Littlefield, 85107.

- Frye, M. (1992) Who Wants a Piece of the Pie? in Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism,Berkeley: Crossing Press.

- Matthews, S. (2011), Renouncing Privilege, Using Privilege, under review.Additional Readings

- Bartky, Sandra, 2002, Sympathy and Solidarity, in Sympathy and Solidarity andother essays, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

- Kruks, Sonia, 2005, Simone de Beauvoir and the Politics of Privilege, Hypatia, 20(1):178-205.


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Solidarity and Activism

Seminars: 22 and 29 March

total identification with an oppressed group [by someonewho is not a member of the oppressed group] in a system that

forces one group to enjoy privilege and to live on the sweat of

another, is impossible.

- Steve Biko,White Racism and Black Consciousness,(Biko 2004[1971], p.71)

Seminar Readings

(I suggest you read them in the order listed below)For 22 March

- Young, Iris Marion, 2003, From Guilt to Solidarity. Dissent Magazine, Spring.Available online at http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=504.

- Collins, Patricia Hill, 1989, Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender asCategories of Analysis and Connection, Key Note Address given at Integrating Race

and Gender into the College Curriculum, workshop at Memphis State University,

May 1989.

- Ferber, Abby, 2010, Dismantling Privilege and Becoming an Activist, Privilege: areader, Boulder: Westview, pp. 251-256.

- Scholz, Sally, 2008, Political Solidarity, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press,Introduction and Chapter 5.

- Ture, Kwame and Hamilton, Charles V., 1992[1967], Black Power: the politics ofliberation in America, New York: Vintage Books, Chapter 3 (The Myths of Coalition).

For 29 March

- Van Wyk, Lisa, 2011, Occupational Hazards: Privileged Protestors or Voice for theVoiceless? Mail & Guardian, 11 October.

- Flynn, Daniel, 2011, The Rich Kids of Occupy Wall Street, FrontPage Magazine, 4November.

Additional Readings

- hooks, bell, 1986, Sisterhood: Political Solidarity between Women, Feminist Review,23, pp. 125-138.

- Bartky, Sandra, 2002, Sympathy and Solidarity, in Sympathy and Solidarity andother Essays, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 69-90.

- Young, Iris Marion, 2011, Responsibility for Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press,particularly Chapter 5.


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SECTION B

Section B, which will run during the second term, focuses on specific kinds of elite groups

and the actions they take in response to poverty.

Black Elites

Seminar: 19 April

An individual who cant relate to the Black community, understand and

be understood by her [/his] own people, isnt well educated.

- Johnetta Cole (first African American female president of SpelmanCollege, USA).

In the context of white racism, what role should relatively

privileged black people play in achieving racial justice or in improving the lot of poorer black

people? Is their role different to that, say, of a white person attempting to uplift poor black

people? Should they be motivated by some kind of racial solidarity? Do African elites have a

particular role to play in addressing poverty in Africa? These are the kinds of questions that

are explored in this weeks readings.

Seminar Readings

(I suggest you read them in the order listed below)- Du Bois, WEB, 1903, The Talented Tenth, in The Negro Problem, a collection of

articles by African Americans, New York: James Pott and Company. Available online

at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=174.

- Peterson, C., 2001, Returning to the African Core: Cabral and the Erasure of theColonized Elites, West Africa Review.

o Note: this is also a chapter in a book by Peterson, called DuBois, Fanon,Cabral: The Margins of Elite Anti-Colonial Leadership.

- hooks, bell, 2010, Class and Race: The New Black Elite, Privilege: A Reader, Boulder:Westview, pp. 169-178.

- Matthews, Sally, 2010, The Ambivalence of African Elitehood,Journal of Asian andAfrican Studies, 45(2):170-180.

Additional Readings

- Fanon, Frantz, 1963, The Wretched of the Earth, London: Penguin.- Cabral, Amilcar, 1973, National liberation and culture, in Return to the Source:

selected speeches of Amilcar Cabral, edited by Africa Information Service, New York

and London: Monthly Review Press.


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- Cabral, Amilcar, 1973, Identity and dignity in the context of the national liberationstruggle, in Return to the Source: selected speeches of Amilcar Cabral, edited by

Africa Information Service, New York and London: Monthly Review Press.

- Chilcote, Ronald H., 1991, Amilcar Cabrals Revolutionary Theory and Practice: acritical guide, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner.


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White Anti-Racists

Seminar: 26 April

In this section we look at

questions such as: What role

can white people play in

struggles against racism?

Should black people be

sceptical or welcoming of such

involvement? What does it

mean to participate in

opposing a system of

discrimination that favours

you? Are there distinctive

contributions that white

people can make to the

struggles of black people?

Readings

(I suggest you read them in the

order listed below)

-

Revisit Alison Baileysarticle above.

- Biko, Steve, 2004[1970], Black souls in

white skins, I Write

What I Like Steve

Biko: a selection of his

writings, Johannesburg:

Picador Africa, pp. 20-28.

- Frye, Marilyn, 1992, White Women Feminist, in Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism,1976-1992, Freedom: Crossing Press.

- Thompson, Becky, 2010, Subverting Racism from Within, Privilege: a reader, Boulder:Westview, pp. 213-232.

- Matthews, Sally, 2012 (forthcoming), White Anti-Racism in Post-Apartheid SouthAfrica, Politikon.

Additional Readings

- Alcoff, Linda Martn, 1998, What Should White People Do? Hypatia 13(3): 6-26.- Kivel, Paul, 2002, Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice,

Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers.


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- Bhmke, Heinrich, 2010, The White Revolutionary as Missionary: ContemporaryTravels and Researches in Caffraria, New Frank Talk: critical essays on the Black

condition, no. 5.

- hooks, bell, 1994, Holding my Sisters Hand: Feminist Solidarity, in Teaching toTransgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, New York: Routledge.


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Male Feminists

Seminar: 3 May

Do you have to be a woman to be a

feminist? Can a man contribute

meaningfully to feminist struggles or is

such a man an unwelcome intruder on

womens space? Some of the issues here

are similar to those raised above in relation

to white anti-racists and more generally to

the privileged (how) can those who

benefit from unjust discrimination work to

end it?

Seminar Readings


- Heath, Steven, 1989, Male Feminism, in Men in Feminism, London and New York:Routledge.

- Kahane, David J., 1998, Male Feminism as Oxymoron, in Men Doing Feminism, editedby Tom Digby, London and New York: Routledge.

- Frye, Marilyn, 1983, On Separatism and Power, in The Politics of Reality: essays infeminist theory, Berkeley: Crossing Press.

- Harding, Sandra, 1998, Can Men be Subjects of Feminist Thought, in Men DoingFeminism, edited by Tom Digby, New York: Routledge, pp. 171-195.

Additional Readings

- Digby, Tom (ed.), 1998, Men Doing Feminism, New York: Routledge.- Harding, Sandra, 1991, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from womens

lives, New York: Cornell University Press, Chapter 11.

- Other chapters in the books Men in Feminism and Men Doing Feminism referencedabove.


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Ethical Consumers

Seminar: 10 May

The ethical consumerism movement has taken

off in the West. More and more consumers,

realizing that their consumption choices impact

upon distant producers far away, are choosing to

buy goods that they hope will have the most

beneficial (or least damaging effects) on the

people producing them. While ethical

consumerism covers a broad range of consumer

choices (including those based on environmental

concerns or those relating to animal rights), we

will focus on ethical consumerism in terms of

consumer choices relating to the fair trade

movement and related questions of justice. Does

buying fair trade goods really beneficially

impact upon distant producers? What kinds of

consumer practices are most ethical? Is ethical

consumerism just a fad which makes the wealthy feel good about their unsustainable

consumption habits while bringing few benefits for poor producers?

Readings


- Siegle, Lucy, 2011, Wake up and smell the coffee, or find the techno-serf dead, Mail& Guardian, 21 October.

- Cook, Ian, et al., 2004, Follow the thing: papaya,Antipode 36(4): 642-664.- Dickinson, Roger, A. and Carsky, Mary L., 2005, The Consumer as Economic Voter, in

The Ethical Consumer, edited by Rob Harrison, Terry Newholm and Deirdre Shaw,

London: SAGE.

- Hale, Angela, 2000, What hope for ethical trade in the globalised garmentindustry?Antipode 32(4): 349-356.

- Moberg, Mark and Lyon, Sarah, 2010, Whats Fair? The Paradox of Seeking Justicethrough Markets, in Fair Trade and Social Justice: Global Ethnographies, New York

and London: New York University Press.

Additional Readings

- Other chapters in the books The Ethical Consumerand Fair Trade and Social Justicereferenced above.

- Goodman, Michael K., 2004, Reading fair trade: political ecological imaginary and themoral economy of fair trade foods, Political Geography, 23: 891-915.

Yes, Id likea grande

mocha

skinny, fair

trade

Kenyan

roasted

Sorry, were out

of fair trade.

Hmm, okay

free trades

fine.


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- Jones, Ellis; Haenfler, Ross; Johnson, Brett; with Klocke, Brian, 2001, The BetterWorld Handbook: from good intentions to everyday actions, Gabriola Island: New

Society Publishers.

- Lyon, Sarah, 2006, Evaluating fair trade consumption: politics, defetishization andproducer participation, International Journal of Consumer Studies, 30(5): 452-464.

- Nicholls, Alex and Opal, Charlotte, 2005, Fair Trade: Market-Driven EthicalConsumption, London: SAGE.


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Non-Governmental Organizations

Seminar: 17 May

The number of non-governmental organizations

(NGO) has increased dramatically over the last ten to

twenty years. Many NGOs deal directly with poverty

and inequality and so their staff and volunteers are

actively involved in struggles against poverty and

inequality although they themselves are not poor.

Recently quite a few strident critiques of the role of

NGOs (particularly in Africa) have been heard. Are

NGO workers really the most appropriate people to

confront poverty in Africa and elsewhere? Do they

undermine struggles against injustice all the while

apparently working to further them?

Seminar Readings


- Van Rooy, Alison, 2001, Good news! You may be out of a job: reflections on the pastand future 50 years for Northern NGOs, in Debating Development: NGOs and the

Future, edited by Deborah Eade and Ernst Ligteringen, Oxford: Oxfam GB.

-

Shivji, Issa, 2007, Silences in NGO Discourse: the role and future of NGOs in Africa,Nairobi and Oxford: Fahamu.

- Manji, Firoze and OCoill, Carl, 2002, The Missionary Position: NGOs andDevelopment in Africa, International Affairs 78(3): 567-583.

Additional Readings

- Pogge, Thomas, 2011, How International Non-Governmental Organizations ShouldAct, in Giving Well: The Ethics of Philanthropy, ed. By P. Illingworth, T. Pogge and L.

Weinar, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

- Eade, Deborah (ed.), 2000, Development, NGOs and Civil Society, Oxford: Oxfam GB.- Eade, Deborah and Ligteringen, Ernst (eds), 2001, Debating Development, Oxford:

Oxfam GB.

Poverty and Privilege Course Guide

Documents

Transcript of Poverty and Privilege Course Guide