Encountering Poverty

“Encountering Poverty is a genre-busting book, hybrid critical textbook and scholarly monograph, that pushes the reader to reflect on her or his preconceptions about, and desire to redress, global poverty. Its provocative arguments and deployment of innovative teaching tools will stimulate the most seasoned poverty scholar-educator.”—Eric Sheppard, coauthor of A World of Difference: Encountering and Contesting Development

“In a neo-neoliberal era of philanthrocapitalism, globalized microfinance, and expanding entrepreneurial efforts at enlisting ‘the poor’ in market foster care, Encountering Poverty critically reminds us that students of poverty need to think about their own complicity in the processes that produce the suffering of poor people. But far from leading us to a place of paralysis and moralistic self-flagellation, the authors advance a more reflective and constructive approach, arguing that we can still take modest steps against massive global inequality even as we navigate its contradictions and complexities. Out of the docility and dead ends of neoliberal responsibilization, Encountering Poverty enables new and more reflexive response abilities for a world in crisis.”—Matthew Sparke, author of Introducing Globalization