Date of Award
7-7-2020
Publication Type
Master Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology
Keywords
Childhood, Discourse, Governmentality, Neoliberal, Policy, Poverty
Supervisor
Gerald Cradock
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This study analyzes policy-oriented approaches to addressing poverty on a municipal, provincial, and national level. Pairing the Foucauldian governmentality framework with the new sociology of childhood, I explore how neoliberal subjectivities are reinforced through Poverty Reduction Strategies, and how the public has come to accept the Poverty Reduction Strategies as progressive, virtuous, and best practice. Using a genealogical approach and discourse analysis, I orient the strategies among previous techniques of poverty reduction to demonstrate that they are a product of their history and have been legitimized over time. I discover that these strategies use virtuous language to pair social and economic well-being through techniques of human capital development and economic contribution. The explicit focus on childhood throughout serves as rationale for reducing poverty by reinforcing an adult/child binary where children are seen as innocent, dependent, and passive. Children are subjected to the most intervention because of their limitless potential. I conclude by arguing that it is imperative that children are seen as social beings who are capable of contributing to their social worlds.
Recommended Citation
Chapados, Sydney, "Impoverished Destiny: Neoliberal Governance in Poverty Reduction Strategies" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 8351.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/8351