Poverty, Disease and Violence SOCI220 Poverty, Disease and Violence

Structural Violence Suffering caused by historically given and economically driven processes and forces that constrain human agency (poverty, racism, sexism, extreme inequalities, political oppression)

Structural violence prevents development, as defined by Amartya Sen Development as freedom: not only income, but also political and civil liberties, and social and economic arrangements

The world’s poor are the chief victims of structural violence. Paul Farmer: In order to understand suffering, we should analyze individual biographies in the larger matrix of culture, history and political economy

A glaring case of structural violence: Haiti Haiti: the poorest country in the western hemisphere HIV/AIDS and political violence are the leading causes of death among adults Haiti was ruled by a dictatorship until the 1990s, and since then, military coups have interrupted democratic rule

Haiti Population: 8.7 million Per capita income: USD 1,800 Ratio of population living under poverty line: 80 percent Life expectancy at birth: 57 years Infant mortality rate: 64 per thousand HIV/AIDS adult prevalence rate: 5.6 percent (280,000 people living with HIV/AIDS)

Two Haitian biographies in the 1990s Acephie: a young woman who dies of AIDS Chouchou: a young man who dies because of political violence Similarities: both were poor and rural, both of their lives were “touched” by the military

Two biographies Both Acephie and Chouchou endured extreme suffering But their stories are not atypical in Haiti Why?

“Making sense of structural violence” Axis of gender Axis of race and ethnicity Refugee or immigrant status etc…

Notice the parallels between Paul Farmer’s treatment of structural violence and Amartya Sen’s discussion on poverty as capability deprivation

A closer look at HIV/AIDS and other diseases See: http://www. un

** Poverty causes HIV to spread How? Malnutrition, unequal income distribution decrease resistance to disease But also, Practices of poor people for “coping” with poverty make them vulnerable to HIV infection

** In turn, HIV/AIDS causes poverty How? Reduction in income as a result of disease and death Reduction in household resources (labor, financial, food, etc.) Dissolution of households; loss of productive assets Reduction of the community’s ability to assist the ill

Vicious cyle between HIV/AIDS and poverty “AIDS has reversed progress towards international development goals. It is one of the most profound development challenges faced in modern human history.”