Redefining Poverty by Peggy Simmons

MAP Seminar. ATD NYC June 2018

Green Windows: Art of Interchange was founded, in part, with principles I learned in anti-poverty projects when I was a full-time volunteer with the International ATD Fourth World Movement in the U.S. and Europe in the nineties. For example, with ATD I learned techniques for bringing people from very different backgrounds together as equal actors in social justice projects. One of these techniques is the Merging Knowledge participatory research method. 

I have continued to work with ATD in many ways, currently serving as president of the Board of Directors for ATD Fourth World USA as well as participating in an international project using Merging Knowledge to redefine poverty by determining the different dimensions of poverty.  In order for the United Nations to meet its Sustainable Development goal to "end poverty in all its forms, everywhere" by 2030, extreme poverty needs to be understood and measured as an experience more complicated than living on $1.90 or less per day. And people with first-hand experience of poverty must be on the forefront of defining that experience, as the experts. 

This Multidimensional Aspects of Poverty (MAP) project is being conducted in partnership with the University of Oxford over three years in six countries. In the USA, there have been groups working on the project in New York City, Boston, Appalachia, New Orleans, Gallup and Oakland. Here in Oakland, the work has been based at the West Oakland senior center, St. Mary's.

In each area, coordinators bring together groups of "peers": academics - researchers and teachers in disciplines related to poverty; practitioners - people who work alongside the poor but who may not have experienced poverty themselves such as social workers, teachers, people who work at public libraries; and activists - people with first-hand experience of poverty. The Merging Knowledge techniques that ATD has developed over decades guide each peer group to use its knowledge and experience to determine and define different dimensions of poverty before carefully "merging" their work with the other peer groups' in ways where no one knowledge set or language or voice dominates.

I had the opportunity to facilitate the "practitioner" group at St. Mary's Center in West Oakland. Our group was made up of St. Mary's staff, spiritual leaders, housing advocates, senior rights advocates, peace workers, etc. We were able to do the work from our own experiences as practitioners, with confidence that people with first-hand experience of poverty were also doing the work, representing themselves and bringing their expert knowledge to the research. The group I worked with found this way of working together fascinating, stimulating, thorough and rich. It is about thinking together, not winning an argument. We have too few opportunities to cooperate and collaborate in such a respectful way, especially with people different from ourselves and while remaining focused on the priority of having the real experts, those with first-hand experience of poverty, be equal actors and leaders, not clients, subjects or people we are speaking for. 

The knowledge of our three Oakland peer groups was then merged with the knowledge from 20 other groups in the USA. In June, we met in New York City to hone a draft of our national report in which we will have determined and defined different dimensions of poverty. The final report will be done by early next year. 
You can read more about this project here, including our recent seminar in NYC.

One of the fascinating parts of this project is talking about poverty in places as different as Gallup, Oakland and Appalachia. There are similarities that we are pulling out: about subjugation, health, voice, family stability, etc. But at the same time, the experience of the Navajo in New Mexico and the experience of African-Americans in New Orleans, as examples, must also be understood within their individual histories and current struggles. Part of the work we will have with the results of this research is seeing how to adapt it to our local and national situations and challenges. 

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