Decentring poverty, reworking government: social movements and states in the government of poverty

Abstract

The significance of social movements for pro-poor political and social change is widely acknowledged. Poverty reduction has assumed increasing significance within development debates, discourses and programmes ? how do social movement leaders and activists respond?|This paper explores this question through the mapping of social movement organisations in Peru|and South Africa. We conclude that for movement activists ?poverty? is rarely a central concern.|Instead, they represent their actions as challenging injustice, inequality and/or development models with which they disagree, and reject the simplifying and sectoral orientation of poverty|reduction interventions. In today?s engagement with the poverty-reducing state, their challenge is|to secure resources and influence without becoming themselves subject to, or even the subjects of the practices of government.