11. Assumptions (methodological)

  • Poverty is a composite concept and expressed in terms of lack of food security, safety and other essentials like income, education, health services, political influence, human rights etc.
  • What is poverty should not be defined ex ante; it is revealed through a process of research.
  • Poverty is an experience, it comes with a meaning; an understanding, a feeling (cf. the distinction between emic (seen from the inside-out) and etic (seen from the outside-in) perspective. (Jentoft 2007).
  • Alleviating poverty require the investment in and of various human, social, natural and man-made capitals (such as education, health, organization.).
  • Poverty is not only a “situation”; it is also a process; it evolves – like deprivation, exploitation, marginalisation, exclusion.
  • In order to understand “the situation” we must be able to describe these process and the forces/determinants which are at play.
  • Poverty means different things in different contexts (countries, fisheries, cultures); it must be understood within its particular context.
  • Poverty does not necessarily leave people passive and “empty handed”; they are likely to act upon it.
  • Poverty is not only about capitals/possessions – or lack of such – but also about social relations (e.g. stratification, subordination, power) and how people interact (e.g. exchange, exploit, manipulate, obfuscate, build coalitions).
  • Poverty alleviation and eco-system conservation may only be possible under specific institutional, ecological and developmental conditions (Adams et al. 2004)
  • The links between eco-system conservation and poverty alleviation are dynamic and locally specific (Adams et al. 2004).
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