Out of Poverty and into Something More Comfortable

Jeffrey M. Karabanow is an assistant professor at Dalhousie
University’s Maritime School of Social Work.

Within the increasingly popular tradition of journalistic/travel
diaries, the Globe and Mail’s John Stackhouse explores various remote
parts of the developing world in an attempt to expose the resilience of
poverty-ridden communities. His main objective is to highlight how
diverse peoples are struggling to create their own small-scale,
bottom-up approaches to community economic development. The reader is
introduced to individuals and families living in small communities and
villages in India, Bangladesh, East Timor, and Mali. These people are
struggling to exist within the whirlwind of internationally organized
and/or nationally subscribed “development,” which is generally (and
perhaps simplistically) described as misguided, misinformed, inept, and
often corrupt.

The author repeatedly argues that true and meaningful change will
emerge only through individual and community-based participation, and
that individual and collective empowerment is best fostered giving
marginalized groups a voice in transforming their local environments.
Several examples provide evidence of a growing underground movement
whereby disenfranchised people across developing countries are beginning
to demand local democracy and ownership/control within development
projects. Years of formal development stemming from the benevolence of
international agencies (such as the World Bank) or the hidden agendas of
state/local government are shown to have bred environmental degradation,
ethnic conflict, and worsening poverty.

Stackhouse introduces the reader to intrepid characters and remote
lands. The depressing picture that emerges—one of poor families
struggling in the face of environmental disaster and immense
poverty—is at odds with the Stackhouse’s suggestion that they are in
fact moving “out of poverty and into something more comfortable.”
Nevertheless, Out of Poverty is a thoughtful commentary on development
and poverty in the developing world.