Beyond Development

Local Histories of Global Poverty

Abstract

The UK-based Poverty Research Network received funding from the AHRC/GCRF (2017-2019) and developed a project which aimed to look beyond the way in which poverty has been represented by mainstream narratives in international development and to explore local histories of global poverty. It aimed to establish a network that examined the global problem of poverty from local perspectives and to expose the narratives behind the numbers of global poverty. The project was interdisciplinary, working with both academics and activists, but interrogated the importance of history in particular. It asked how history can deepen and
diversify understandings of the long-term causes of poverty and how history can be used as a tool of resistance against impoverishment and stigmatisation. The articles in this special issue develop from these global conversations.