Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I The Inconvenient Truth: Poverty is Real
- PART II Turning the screw on poor people: shame, stigma and cementing of a toxic poverty narrative
- PART III Flipping the Script: Challenging the Narrative war on the Poor
- Notes
- Selected Further Reading
- Index
8 - Changing Times: Fighting Poverty, not the Poor
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I The Inconvenient Truth: Poverty is Real
- PART II Turning the screw on poor people: shame, stigma and cementing of a toxic poverty narrative
- PART III Flipping the Script: Challenging the Narrative war on the Poor
- Notes
- Selected Further Reading
- Index
Summary
“We have a saying that movements begin with the telling of untold stories. These untold stories change people's understanding.”
Rev Dr Liz Theoharis, Co-Chair, Poor People's Campaign, talking to Project Twist-It“It's through listening to each other's stories, through exploring each other's perspectives that we will learn to transcend the fixed idea of ourselves and come together.”
Shona McCarthy, Chief Executive, Edinburgh Festival FringeSpeaking up and speaking out: making ourselves Heard
With all that we now know about the potency and impact of the poverty narrative, the challenge we face boils down to this: can we come to a collective understanding of the role played by this ‘story’, by this powerful poverty ‘narrative’ that is strategically framed and weaponised ad nauseam, in shaping our perceptions and, importantly, in keeping people poor and marginalised? And crucially, if we accept that this narrative has a fundamental and negative role in our societies, what can we do to change it? Can we end the shame game? Can we overthrow the labels, stereotypes and stigma? What can we do to tell a different story that can then be used to help fight for policies that protect the poor and give people a fighting chance, rather than cement and promote the privileges of the rich?
Can we tell a different story?
The answer, it turns out, is that awareness of the narrative, how it frames the poor, and how it contributes to entrenching poverty and social injustice, is growing. A different story is already beginning to take shape. Telling a different story – reworking how we communicate about poverty and inequality – is by necessity part and parcel of the political landscape. The dominant poverty narrative is pervasive because it penetrates the entire culture from politics and media to television and beyond.
However, the emergence of a different story to counter this toxic, destructive narrative is happening on a number of fronts.
In the first instance, alternative, sensitive and humane portrayals of poverty are breaking through as people find platforms, including books and social media, to tell their own stories and, by doing so, challenge cultural norms about what it is to be poor.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Shame GameOverturning the Toxic Poverty Narrative, pp. 221 - 250Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2020