Philosophy and Child Poverty : Reflections on the Ethics and Politics of Poor Children and Their Families

This book offers a broad and diverse reflection of the ways in which child poverty could be conceptualised, and the ways in which it is intertwined with childhood as a specific social condition. Furthermore, the responsibilities towards children and the possible mechanisms required for dealing with this condition will be analysed and clarified. This is the first volume on philosophy and child poverty. Despite the increasing number of publications on poverty, the particular phenomenon of poverty during childhood has not received much philosophical attention. This is surprising, given the severity and depth of child poverty around the globe. This volume brings together various philosophical approaches and how they understand and tackle child poverty. This is an important addition to the philosophical literature, which is also of wider interest to scholars working in the social sciences and with an interest in child poverty. Contents 6 About the Contributors 8 Philosophy and the Poverty of Children and their Families 12 1 Introduction 13 2 Four Challenges: Conceptualising, Researching, Evaluating, and Responding to Child and Family Poverty 15 3 Volume’s Synopsis 18 Literature 24 Part I: Definitions and Measurements 27 Child Poverty, Impoverished Parenting, and Normative Childhood: Some Words of Caution 28 1 Introduction 28 1.1 Why Children? 31 1.2 Against Neontocracy 33 2 Responses to Child Poverty I: Child Removal 35 2.1 Punishing Black Families 35 2.2 First Nations Child Removal and Ongoing Cultural Genocide 37 2.3 Transnational Adoption and the Location of Neontocracy 38 3 Responses to Child Poverty II: Aid to Impoverished Parents, Communities, and Nations 41 4 What Is the Harm of Child Poverty? Visions of Good Childhood Under Global Capitalism 44 4.1 Child Poverty Between Social Construction and Social Hierarchies 46 5 Who Should Do What About Child Poverty? Good Parenting, Politics, and Responsibility 49 6 Where Do We Go from Here? 52 Literature 55 Children in Measurements of Poverty Within Populations: Two Problems with Current Indexes 59 1 Introduction 60 2 Excluding Children from the Unit of Analysis in Measurements of Poverty 61 3 Expanding Poverty-Measurement: Two Reasons for Taking Children into Account 65 4 Possible Routes for Involving Poor Children in Measurements of Poverty Within Populations 69 5 Concluding Remarks 73 Literature 74 Poverty, Social Expectations, and the Family 77 1 Introduction 78 2 The Experience of Poverty 81 3 Concepts of Poverty 85 4 A Framework for the Analysis of Poverty 88 5 Poverty and the Family 92 Literature 95 Beyond the Material Wounds of Child Poverty: The Conceptualization of Child Poverty as Moral Damage 98 1 Introduction 99 2 An Approach to Moral Damage 100 3 Child Poverty as an Instance of Moral Damage 101 4 Objectivizing the Wound: The Psychological Trace of Moral Damage in Child Poverty 104 5 Promoting Resilience as a Measure against Moral Damage 107 6 Conclusion 109 Literature 110 Part II: Children and Families Living in Poverty 112 Making Them Strong? Vulnerability and Resilience in Poor Children 113 1 Introduction 114 2 Vulnerability and Child Poverty 115 2.1 What Is Vulnerability? 115 2.2 Vulnerable Children 116 2.3 Children’s Vulnerability and Capabilities 119 3 Resilience, Capabilities, and Child Poverty 122 3.1 Child Poverty as a Capability Deprivation 122 3.2 What Is Resilience? 123 3.3 Resilience and Capabilities 124 3.4 Resilience as Coping with the Negative Effects of Child Poverty: Protective Factors and Capabilities 126 4 Resilience, Children’s Vulnerability and Justice: Some Tentative Conclusions 128 Literature 130 Humiliation and Child Poverty 132 1 Introduction 133 2 Recognition and the “Fertile Functionings” of Positive Self-Relations 134 3 The Injustice of Humiliation 138 4 Humiliation and Poverty During Childhood 143 5 Conclusions: A Society Without Humiliation 146 Literature 147 Education, Voice and Empowerment: Learning with and from Children in Poverty 150 1 Introduction 150 2 Children in Poverty: Voices from the Margins 151 3 Child Poverty: A Wicked Problem in Bangladesh 153 4 The Present Study 156 5 Children Speaking Up 156 5.1 Aspirations and Imagined Futures 157 5.2 Enabling Spaces of Belonging 159 5.3 Relationality and Peer Support 161 6 Concluding Remarks: Learning with and from Children in Poverty 162 Literature 164 The Nature of Nurture: Poverty, Father Absence and Gender Equality 167 1 Introduction 167 2 Having It All or Doing It All? A Tale of Two Transitions 169 3 Inequality Begins at Home: The Working Mother 173 4 The Privilege of Good Parenting 178 5 A mother’s Capabilities: Nurturing and Tragic Choices 183 6 Giving Mothers a Fair Chance 188 Literature 190 ‘I’ve Been Trying to Change My Life Heaps But I Always End Up Back Here’. The Complex Relationship Between Poverty, Parental Substance Dependency, and Self-Control 193 1 How Should We Judge Substance Dependent Parents? 193 2 A Philosophical Framework to Assess Loss of Self-Control 197 3 Poverty Makes Us Shift from a Global to a Local Perspective on Our Lives 198 4 Persistent Poverty Can Cause Resignation 200 5 Case Studies: The Resigned Addict 202 6 The Motivational Force of Becoming or Being a Parent 205 7 The Risk of Transmitting Resignation to the Next Generation 206 8 A Punitive Approach Versus Responsibility Without Blame 207 9 Conclusion 207 Literature 208 Disability and Child Poverty 212 1 Introduction 212 2 Defining Childhood, Disability, and Their Intersection 213 3 What Does It Feel Like to Be at the Intersection Between Poverty and Disability as a Child?: A Thick Description 218 4 Thinning Out a Thick Description 220 4.1 Custody 220 4.2 Child as Caregiver 221 4.3 Unemployment 221 4.4 Charity and Lack of Choice 222 4.5 Stigma 223 5 Vulnerability 225 5.1 Scope 225 5.2 Why Does Vulnerability Generate Political and Ethical Obligation? 226 5.3 Human Need; Combating Stigma 227 6 Conclusion 228 Literature 229 Precarious Childhood 232 1 Introduction 233 2 Recognizing Lives, Liveability, and Preciousness 234 3 Recognizing Children’s Lives and Liveability in Poverty 238 4 Recognizing Unrecognized Childhood: The Case of ASEAN Member States 240 5 Concluding Remarks 245 Literature 246 Children in Liminality: Case Studies from Ireland and Iran 248 1 Introduction 248 2 Social Injustice 250 3 Liminality 251 4 Introduction to Child Poverty in Ireland 253 4.1 Analysis of Liminality and Child Poverty in Ireland 254 4.2 Analysis of Social Injustice and Child Poverty in Ireland 256 4.3 The Future of Child Poverty in Ireland 258 5 Introduction to Child Poverty in Iran 258 5.1 Analysis of Liminality and Child Poverty in Iran 259 5.1.1 Registered Refugees 259 5.1.2 Unregistered Refugees 260 5.2 Analysis of Social Injustice and Child Poverty in Iran 261 5.3 The Future of Child Poverty in Iran 264 6 Comparison Between Ireland and Iran 265 7 Conclusion 266 Literature 267 Part III: Rights, Responsibilities, and Policies 271 A Duty-Based Approach to Children’s Right to Freedom from Extreme Poverty 272 1 Introduction 272 2 Justifying the Right of Children to Freedom from Extreme Poverty 274 3 Three Possible Objections 278 3.1 A Paradigm Shift: From Rights to Duties 278 3.2 Human and Socioeconomic Rights 280 3.3 Constructivism vs. Foundationalism 283 4 Conclusion 284 Literature 285 Towards an Ontological Approach to Care and Child Poverty 287 1 Introduction 287 2 Child Poverty as the Burden of Death’s Inevitability 288 3 (Human) Being as Care: Being-With in Solicitude 291 4 Bringing the Other Close in Care: Child Poverty and the Ontological de-severance 296 5 Conclusions 299 Literature 300 Civic Tenderness as a Response to Child Poverty in America 302 1 Introduction 302 2 American Children as Situationally Vulnerable 303 3 Civic Indifference and American Poverty 306 4 Civic Tenderness 309 4.1 Tenderization 312 5 Civic Tenderness as a Response to Child Poverty in America 314 5.1 Universal Savings Account for All Children 315 6 Conclusion 317 Literature 317 Parenting the Parents: The Ethics of Parent-Targeted Paternalism in the Context of Anti-poverty Policies 320 1 Parent-Targeted Paternalism 321 2 Is PTP Pro Tanto Wrong? 327 3 Degrees of Wrongness 328 3.1 The Horizontal Dimension 329 3.2 The Vertical Dimension 329 4 Competing Considerations and on Balance Permissibility 332 5 A Case 333 6 Conclusion 337 Literature 338 Is Poverty Eroding Parental Rights in Britain? The Case of Child Protection in the Early Twenty-First Century 340 1 Introduction 341 2 The Shifting Meaning of Harm: Towards Risk Prevention 342 3 Forced Adoption Policy and Financial Motives 346 4 Evidence of Poverty Bias in Child Removal in the UK 350 5 Does Forced Child Removal Violate Parental Rights? 354 6 Conclusion 357 Literature 358 Cases Cited 360 Front Matter ....Pages i-x Philosophy and the Poverty of Children and their Families (Nicolás Brando, Gottfried Schweiger)....Pages 1-15 Front Matter ....Pages 17-17 Child Poverty, Impoverished Parenting, and Normative Childhood: Some Words of Caution (Douglas William Hanes)....Pages 19-49 Children in Measurements of Poverty Within Populations: Two Problems with Current Indexes (Katarina Pitasse Fragoso)....Pages 51-68 Poverty, Social Expectations, and the Family (Jonathan Wolff)....Pages 69-89 Beyond the Material Wounds of Child Poverty: The Conceptualization of Child Poverty as Moral Damage (Mar Cabezas, Carlos Pitillas)....Pages 91-104 Front Matter ....Pages 105-105 Making Them Strong? Vulnerability and Resilience in Poor Children (Alexander Bagattini, Rebecca Gutwald)....Pages 107-125 Humiliation and Child Poverty (Gottfried Schweiger)....Pages 127-144 Education, Voice and Empowerment: Learning with and from Children in Poverty (Rosie N. Yasmin, Babak Dadvand)....Pages 145-161 The Nature of Nurture: Poverty, Father Absence and Gender Equality (Alison E. Denham)....Pages 163-188 ‘I’ve Been Trying to Change My Life Heaps But I Always End Up Back Here’. The Complex Relationship Between Poverty, Parental Substance Dependency, and Self-Control (Anke Snoek)....Pages 189-207 Disability and Child Poverty (Sarah Gorman)....Pages 209-228 Precarious Childhood (Jennifer Mei Sze Ang)....Pages 229-244 Children in Liminality: Case Studies from Ireland and Iran (Annie Cummins, Amin Sharifi Isaloo)....Pages 245-267 Front Matter ....Pages 269-269 A Duty-Based Approach to Children’s Right to Freedom from Extreme Poverty (Stamatina Liosi)....Pages 271-285 Towards an Ontological Approach to Care and Child Poverty (Georgios Karakasis)....Pages 287-301 Civic Tenderness as a Response to Child Poverty in America (Justin Leonard Clardy)....Pages 303-320 Parenting the Parents: The Ethics of Parent-Targeted Paternalism in the Context of Anti-poverty Policies (Douglas MacKay)....Pages 321-340 Is Poverty Eroding Parental Rights in Britain? The Case of Child Protection in the Early Twenty-First Century (Alicia-Dorothy Mornington, Alexandrine Guyard-Nedelec)....Pages 341-361