Who We Are

The Relational Poverty Network convenes a community of scholars, teachers, policy makers and activists, 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.

Acknowledgements:

The Argentine workshops in 2010 and 2012 were funded by an NSF OISE seed grant (#0962689).  The Relational Poverty RCN network is currently funded by NSF grant (BCS-1252810) from 2013-2018.

The College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington has also provided substantial support to this network.

The Department of Geography, our staff members and our graduate students, who provide crucial support to this project. Our research assistants Magie Ramírez, Elyse Gordon, Mónica Farías, Joe Eckert, Tish Lopez, Austin Crane, Jordyn Vandeleur, Stella Jones, Koji Pingry, Sam Nowak, and Helen Olsen have all supported this project.

We are deeply grateful for all this support.