Visiting the favelas, I get the strange impression that I was thinking in the negative.
Western concepts, such as the poverty threshold and subsistence, start from thinking that there is a limit, a line underneath which life must be really horrible. Of course the “poverty threshold” is a line governments use to indicate where priorities should be and which basic facilities a human being should have access to in order to have a decent life.
But favela dwellers think everything in a positive way. They have what they have and they will have what they will have. There is no minimum, there is just the absolute.
I was impressed today by the lady living in the house with no daylight. She is sending her three daughters to school, owns a personal computer so her daughter can study informatics at home, sings in church twice a week and smiles more than the people I saw behind the gate of Alphaville.
Western concepts, such as the poverty threshold and subsistence, start from thinking that there is a limit, a line underneath which life must be really horrible. Of course the “poverty threshold” is a line governments use to indicate where priorities should be and which basic facilities a human being should have access to in order to have a decent life.
But favela dwellers think everything in a positive way. They have what they have and they will have what they will have. There is no minimum, there is just the absolute.
I was impressed today by the lady living in the house with no daylight. She is sending her three daughters to school, owns a personal computer so her daughter can study informatics at home, sings in church twice a week and smiles more than the people I saw behind the gate of Alphaville.
day 4 09-04-09 SEHAB & corticos
The discourse on poverty has been very lively in the past, and I am sure if we find the time we can discuss page-long this important facet of human existence. The dimension relevant to our discussion I would situate in its root in early British Industrialization (surfaces in the work of Dickens and Engels – interesting enough this is also the period when the concept of slum emerged (a sidenote). You mentioned very rightly that the modern concept of poverty is a quantification of a qualitative reality, which even more a very subjective one. If someone is poor will strongly depend on the standpoint and often has been top-down imposed - just look at the gap between defined and perceived poverty around the world - we would be surprised how many slum dwellers do not judge themselves as poor. Here is the dangerous entrance gate to romanticizing poverty. Truly what is needed for a descent life can be highly discussed – wealth or friends, moreover if stretching decency to the concept of happiness. What is needed to have a decent life, what do we require to be happy. Admittedly a spongy terrain, maybe too emotionally-laden for an academic discourse but particular within this workshop very worth thinking about. Money doesn't make someone necessarily happier has been spatially well expressed in the settlements of Alphaville and Paraseipolis. As Jasper and Daan mentioned, the rich gave up aspects of their freedom…
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