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The Poverty Discourse and the Poor in Sri Lanka
Author(s) -
Yapa Lakshman
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
transactions of the institute of british geographers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.196
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1475-5661
pISSN - 0020-2754
DOI - 10.1111/j.0020-2754.1998.00095.x
Subject(s) - poverty , sri lanka , nexus (standard) , basic needs , development economics , culture of poverty , theme (computing) , welfare , economic growth , political science , sociology , economics , socioeconomics , law , computer science , tanzania , embedded system , operating system
Sri Lanka is cited as an exemplary case of direct poverty alleviation because of a long history of social welfare and high values in quality of life indices. Notwithstanding, anti‐poverty measures in Sri Lanka founded on the international discourse of poverty and development do not serve the interests of poor people. This discourse begins by locating poor people in a distinct poverty sector and proceeds to examine its characteristics. Several attributes of that discourse make it intellectually incapable of seeing how poverty is socially constructed in a diffused nexus of production relations that extends far beyond the so‐called ‘poverty sector’. An alternative ‘substantive approach to poverty’ is presented. The arguments are illustrated using the theme of food production in Sri Lanka.