Elyse Gordon, University of Washington, Department of Geography
In my experience, any process of learning usually begins with actively unlearning. We need to recognize and unlearn before we can re-learn how to do something. Ask anyone trying to practice new habits: we must unlearn our old habits (be that donuts for breakfast, chronic stress, nail biting, multiple drinks at the end of the day to unwind, defensive and passive communication to avoid conflict…) before we can re-learn new habits.
This notion of ‘un-learning’ extends beyond habits. It is a vital part of critical thinking and growing into new epistemologies. Ananya Roy, in her beautiful and eloquent TEDxBerkeley talk, asks, “How can we ‘un-know’ our common assumptions about poverty?” She challenges us to grow into the discomfort of a messier, more complicated and relational understanding of poverty.
So, what might this look like?
First, it would recognize our current worldview about poverty. Unless you already identify as a member of the Relational Poverty Network and have devoted time to this unlearning process, chances are you’ve heard, and maybe even agree with, some of these common assumptions about poverty:
At this point, you might be saying, “wait, if I believe those things, does that mean I’ve done something wrong? I don’t know why I’d have to ‘unlearn’ these things about poverty – aren’t they true?”
There is no wrongdoing in initially taking these to be true; the media, public policy, NGOs and most social science research have reinforced these ideas about poverty and how to ‘fix it’. We recognize. We acknowledge. Now we start the hard work of “un-knowing”.
Un-learning is a painful process. It asks us to dismantle the scaffolding and architecture about how we make sense of the world. And, in the process of unlearning, we are not comforted with a guarantee of what new ways of knowing will emerge. We are left with a messiness that is, immediately, unresolved.
To un-know poverty might begin by negating the statements above.
This is a good starting point, in that it acknowledges and challenges our previously un-questioned beliefs about poverty. But this exercise of negation seems a bit reductive. It is too simplistic.
But, we’ve begun the process of unknowing. We’ve troubled the dominant knowledge, and given ourselves permission to ask something new and see things in a new way.
At this point, we can start to relearn poverty and poverty knowledge. Ananya Roy shares that her experiences in Calcutta highlighted how much poverty is a relational concept. To illustrate this, she shares the story of Ranjin, a slum-dweller, who sees himself as better off than an impoverished homeless person in the US, despite having lived in a slum for 12 years.
There is no uniform experience or definition of poverty.
This is the foundation of relearning poverty knowledge.
Much like Ananya’s own example, though, the process of relearning will be deeply personal. It asks us to look within ourselves and ask how our own identities, privilege and social position are constructed in relation to poverty, “the poor” and poor places.
In my own life, having negated the dominant assumptions, I can revisit the above list a third time, now with relational qualifiers.
This is not an exhaustive list, of course. It exemplifies my own personal and relational understanding of poverty, based on years of work with youth empowerment nonprofit programs. These experiences made my privilege quite visible, and challenged my assumptions about poverty and my ideas about expertise, benevolence and innovation.
I am still re-learning poverty through a relational lens. This will be a lifetime effort. Acknowledging that the dominant assumptions about poverty are not true, (and that they are actually detrimental to making a more just world), we make space for new relations, new insights, and new epistemologies.
To un-learn is to ask questions in a new way. To re-learn is to look for answers with new eyes and ears. As Ananya says, to “un-know poverty”, we must ask how poverty is produced and how wealth, power and privilege are maintained. We are asking new questions in the pursuit of new poverty knowledge.
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