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Shame, Humiliation and Social Isolation: Missing Dimensions of Poverty and Suffering Analysis

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World Suffering and Quality of Life

Part of the book series: Social Indicators Research Series ((SINS,volume 56))

Abstract

While people living in poverty talk about isolation, shame, and humiliation as being key aspects of their lived experiences of suffering, until recently, there has been no international data on these aspects – making them “missing dimensions” within poverty analysis and within research into suffering. Drawing upon international fieldwork and datasets from Chile and Chad, this chapter examines the relevance of social isolation, shame and humiliation in contexts of poverty, to research on suffering. The chapter suggests that the use of particular indicators of shame, humiliation, and social isolation can better recognize distributions of suffering. It can also help identify individuals and sub-groups within those living in multidimensional poverty – or of the general population at large – that are affected by concrete and particularly hurtful situations. Consequently, they can help to identify levels of suffering which are higher within a specific population. We argue that these types of indicators could form the basis of more refined measures that help generate more concise data on suffering.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Sheffield, 388 Glossop Road, Rm 8.04, Sheffield, S10 2JA, UK

    Diego Zavaleta

  2. Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, Mansfield Road, Oxford, UK

    China Mills

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  1. China Mills
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  2. Diego Zavaleta
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Correspondence to China Mills .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Emeritus Faculty of Sociology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

    Ronald E. Anderson

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Mills, C., Zavaleta, D. (2015). Shame, Humiliation and Social Isolation: Missing Dimensions of Poverty and Suffering Analysis. In: Anderson, R. (eds) World Suffering and Quality of Life. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 56. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9670-5_19

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