[Photo credit: M Mungroo, From left: Professor Nobuhle Hlongwa, Professor Betty Mubangizi, Professor Cheryl Potgieter and Professor Sarah Bracking]
On 25 November 2015, UKZNdaba online published an article on Professor Sarah Bracking’s inaugural lecturer at UKZN. The article can be found here by clicking on this linkfound here by clicking on this link.
The 12 November 2015 lecture titled, “Poverty in South Africa: residual, performative or structurally reproducing”? highlights some of the measurements in South Africa on poverty, but cautions on better understanding the causes and the actual action taken by government to its alleviation. The article further states:
In her lecture, she talked about the extent of poverty in South Africa and some characteristics that define what it means to measure. ‘The importance of measurement is to try and catalyse social change by giving citizens and policy makers the knowledge they need to act and spend wisely for a better South Africa,’ she said.
‘However, measurement in itself tells us nothing about the causes of poverty, and little about what policy makers may in fact do with the evidence, particularly when it competes with other spending priorities,’ explained Bracking.
In her lecture she examined what the category of poverty does in public policy discourse, and how poor people sit at the bottom of a social order which often produces wealth for others because of their poverty.
The lecture then progressed to asking whether poverty is a small residual problem of cleaning up conditions for a small group who have somehow been left behind, like waiting for growth to do its job, or whether the macro-economy of South Africa and global financialisation are producing the same conditions that will continue to cause poverty into the future.
The inaugural lecture presentation can be found here by clicking on this link.