The Relational Poverty Network convenes a community of scholars, working within and beyond academia, to develop conceptual frameworks, research methodologies, and pedagogies for the study of relational poverty. Launched at a historical moment of dramatic income inequality and enforced austerity in the global North, the RPN thinks across geographical boundaries to foster a transnational and comparative approach to poverty research. In doing so, it pays attention to new global geographies of development, new forms of regulating poverty, and analyses from those often marginalized by poverty debates. Building on a long tradition of critical work on poverty, it shifts from thinking about ‘the poor and poor others’ to thinking about relationships of power and privilege.
Our members come together to
i) expand thinking about the causes of poverty
ii) develop collaborative projects that cross disciplinary and geographical boundaries
iii) bring scholars, teachers, policy makers and activists into intentional collaboration
iv) build the next generation of scholars and scholarship on relational poverty
RPN members partner with other organizations across our networks to build awareness and effect change through our research.