Rethinking Asian poverty in a time of Asian prosperity

Abstract

Southeast Asia is a development success story. By 2025, it is forecast that extreme poverty in the region will have been ‘eradicated’. Does this mean that the challenges so evident in the 1960s when the countries of the region began to pursue development have been met, and the objectives achieved? The paper makes a case for thinking afresh about development and the poverty project, recognising that development is never neatly achieved but, rather, re‐worked, re‐engineered and re‐imagined over time. This is done through identifying different categories of ‘poor’, each produced through different poverty‐making processes, measured and viewed in different ways, and their poverty addressed using different approaches and policies. With specific reference to the cases of Laos and Thailand, and drawing on longitudinal research in the latter country, it is argued that while economic growth does trickle down, it trickles down in quite discrete and often contingent ways. Furthermore, there is always development work to be done, because development creates its own work.

Teaching development studies in times of change

“…In his insightful contribution to this Special Issue on ‘Rethinking Asian Poverty in a Time of Asian Prosperity’, Rigg offers a way forward through the dual challenges of causality and complexity by suggesting we ‘think about poverty not as a state, but as a process’ that ‘changes in texture over time’ [emphasis in original] Rigg (, this volume). Here, Rigg uses the term ‘texture’ to describe the manner in which poverty is conceived of, felt and experienced, and also the manner in which poverty is ‘re‐worked, re‐engineered and re‐imagined through time’ Rigg (, this volume).…”

“…In his insightful contribution to this Special Issue on ‘Rethinking Asian Poverty in a Time of Asian Prosperity’, Rigg offers a way forward through the dual challenges of causality and complexity by suggesting we ‘think about poverty not as a state, but as a process’ that ‘changes in texture over time’ [emphasis in original] Rigg (, this volume). Here, Rigg uses the term ‘texture’ to describe the manner in which poverty is conceived of, felt and experienced, and also the manner in which poverty is ‘re‐worked, re‐engineered and re‐imagined through time’ Rigg (, this volume). When poverty is conceptualised as a lived emotional and aspirational experience, rather than simply as a material phenomenon, then changes in how poverty is felt and perceived necessitate the conceptualisation of development not as a linear process with a fixed end point (the alleviation of poverty), but as a shifting subjectivity that is ‘never neatly achieved’ (Rigg, ).…”

“…Here, Rigg uses the term ‘texture’ to describe the manner in which poverty is conceived of, felt and experienced, and also the manner in which poverty is ‘re‐worked, re‐engineered and re‐imagined through time’ Rigg (, this volume). When poverty is conceptualised as a lived emotional and aspirational experience, rather than simply as a material phenomenon, then changes in how poverty is felt and perceived necessitate the conceptualisation of development not as a linear process with a fixed end point (the alleviation of poverty), but as a shifting subjectivity that is ‘never neatly achieved’ (Rigg, ). As Rigg comprehensively explains:

Development needs vary across populations groups and spaces; solutions have become less technical and therefore harder simply to ‘address’; resultant policies are increasingly challenged; the interventions flowing from policies do not always deliver results, or at least the results expected; and development subjects chafe against the policies that are meant to improve their lives through the growth logic that underpins the development mission.

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“…As Rigg comprehensively explains:

Development needs vary across populations groups and spaces; solutions have become less technical and therefore harder simply to ‘address’; resultant policies are increasingly challenged; the interventions flowing from policies do not always deliver results, or at least the results expected; and development subjects chafe against the policies that are meant to improve their lives through the growth logic that underpins the development mission. Rigg (, this volume).

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“…Here, Rigg uses the term 'texture' to describe the manner in which poverty is conceived of, felt and experienced, and also the manner in which poverty is 're-worked, reengineered and re-imagined through time ' Rigg (2018, this volume). When poverty is conceptualised as a lived emotional and aspirational experience, rather than simply as a material phenomenon, then changes in how poverty is felt and perceived necessitate the conceptualisation of development not as a linear process with a fixed end point (the alleviation of poverty), but as a shifting subjectivity that is 'never neatly achieved' (Rigg, 2018). As Rigg comprehensively explains:…”