By Frank Meintjies
Where is poverty located? What are its shapes and forms? What strategies do households use to cope?
By Frank Meintjies
Where is poverty located? What are its shapes and forms? What strategies do households use to cope?
It’s a blistering hot afternoon when we arrive at the Barracks. This regimentally built cluster of council houses was erected as a transit camp in Wentworth in 1972.
Mainstream political parties do not speak to the needs and struggles of young people. However the much bigger elephant in the room is the depoliticisation of the South African youth since 1994.
As academics, journalists, social commentators and activists we have a sense that we know the poor. We are outraged by poverty and inequality and advocate for equity and a life of dignity for all. We look for ways to bring the voices of the poor into the public debate and ask questions around how we can get democracy to work for the poor. But few of us have even an inkling of the full spectrum of what it means to be poor.