Critical thinking in the study of poverty

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to urge the researcher or the public policy maker to make a necessary reflection before facing the analysis of poverty: any possible appreciation of this phenomenon is a neutral question.

Urge to be aware of how the symbolic, ideological and paradigmatic elements structure the conception of poverty, with practical consequences. The adopted concepts guide its analysis and measurement, as well as the political interventions to face it. Therefore, at once, they create a material reality that feeds back the social representations of poverty and the attitude of the Administration and Society towards it. In this sense, the concept of poverty is a social construct resulting from a specific historical context, as well as a constructor of materiality.

In the last decades, the consensus on poverty has changed from purely economic conceptions to more comprehensive, multidimensional and multidisciplinary approaches.

Keywords: poverty, study, concept, measurement, multidimensional, multidisciplinary, representations, social imaginaries, discourses, paradigms, symbolic fields, public policies, social policies.