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A rich person can plant a mango tree but the poor man can only plant a thorn bush.
” Women`s discussion group, Uttar Pradesh
Despite unprecedented growth in recent years, India has the largest number of poor people in the world. Moving Out of Poverty: The Promise of Empowerment and Democracy in India presents the experiences of poor people who have made it out of poverty. The study provides new insights on the processes and mechanisms that result in some poor people escaping poverty, while others remain stuck, and still others fall into poverty.
This book is a valuable resource for policy makers and practitioners studying India, and for those interested in poor peoples` experiences and the political economy of poverty mobility.
This is a truly innovative and pathbreaking study. Most studies of poverty simply ignore the fact that the poor exercise agency and find their own ways to not just cope with, but sometimes transcend, the limitations under which they are placed. Second, they ignore the institutional dimensions through which poor people are empowered. This study gives a vivid sense of the ways in which poverty is negotiated. It is methodologically pluralist. It uses the tools of social science but allows the voices of poor people to come through; it draws our attention to the different mechanisms by which the agency of the poor is enhanced or thwarted, and it gives a complex account of the relationship between poverty and democracy. But most importantly it places the lives of the poor, not the abstractions of policy, at the center of its attention. The study is rich, full of insights, and will inspire tremendous discussion. ISBN 9788171889570
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