Materializing Poverty

Erin B. Taylor is an Australian anthropologist who received her PhD from The University of Sydney in 2009. She lectured there for three years before taking up a research fellowship at The University of Lisbon. During this time, she helped found the popular anthropology website PopAnth: Hot Buttered Humanity.

• ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Wealth of PovertyChapter One. More than Artifacts: The Materiality of PovertyChapter Two. Building Futures: Squatting as an Enabling ConstraintChapter Three. Too Big to Ignore: The State and the Persistence of SquattingChapter Four. ¡Crisis is Coming! Material Manifestations of Immaterial EndsChapter Five. Moving Places: Barrios as Barometers of National ProgressChapter Six. Flexible Identities: Negotiating Values Through Material FormsCodaGlossaryBibliography

What is poverty? In answer, we need more than statistics, we need to understand what is experienced as poverty. Through scholarly and incredibly rich ethnography Taylor shows the consequence of appreciating that it is the poor rather than the rich whose experience is dominated by materiality. Materializing Poverty is an account that respects both the creativity and the constraints that may accompany poverty. People from all disciplines would be better educated in this essential issue by reading this empathetic engagement which goes beyond the meaning of poverty to how the poor create meaning.