Western Academic Activism and Poverty Research: What’s Not to Like

Abstract

Theorizing poverty requires reflection on the practical consequences of poverty research itself—and ultimately on the particular responsibility of the academic to participate in the eradication of global poverty through and beyond her research. Accordingly, I will discuss whether professional academics, based in the affluent West (or Global North), should engage in activism aimed at social and political change in the Global South. To answer this question, I will first examine a series of arguments from the ‘post-development’ perspective that point to problems of paternalism and self-aggrandizement within Western academic activism. However, though the concerns of post-development critics should be taken seriously, I will argue that this actually demands more, not less, activism from Western scholars.