three sections have shown that geographical and social patterns of poverty are constructed by processes which are simultaneously social and geographical. 12.7. Political action of the poor and its geography In the previous three sections we have dwelt on the powerful social-geographical causes of poverty, But these have been contested, We have seen that national and local politics can affect poverty in important ways — through constructing terntorial regimes, or through carrying through strategies such as neoliberalism. These politics are created through conflicts and compromises between all social groups (see Chapter 2, sections 2.5 and 2.7). However, the political activity of the poor themselves is also important — the poor are far from being passive victims, As poverty is multi-faceted, the focuses for campaigns against poverty have been very varied, as have the sections of the poor conducting these struggles. Trade unions, especially those which have most of their members in low-paid jobs, have fought for improvement of poor jobs, or, in recent decades, have attempted to resist their worsening. Sometimes these battles have been conducted by workers in a particular workplace, particularly when faced with deterioration of conditions or redundancy. Particularly exploited groups of workers such as homeworkers have organized at local and national levels to attempt to secure basic employment rights. Organizations of groups strongly dependent on state benefits, particularly pensioners and social security claimants, have campaigned for benefits to be raised above the poverty level. Pensioners in general have had stronger and more stable organizations than claimants, But the latter have conducted some powerful campaigns: in France in 1998-9, for example, occupations of social security offices across the country won concessions from the government. increases in the tax burden of the poor can elicit militant ad hoe organization. When the British government in 1990-I introduced a poll tax which shifted local taxation sharply from the rich to the peor, millions of poor people refused to pay it and there were militant demonstrations. This resistance resulted in major reform of the tax (and contributed to the departure of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister). People with disabilities have campaigned against their commonly experienced poverty on meny fronts: for better access to paid employment, for better support from public services, and for changes to the built environment. Much organization against poverty has been concerned with reproduction at the neighbourhood scale (compare with section 12.5). Residents’ groups in poor areas have campaigned for improvements in public and private services or against their deterioration Fasenfest, 1993). Communities have a'so organized to provide services for themselves: child care clubs, credit unions, and community businesses, such as repair enterprises, are examples. While these start from self-help, they usually also make demands for state financial support, and sometimes, as with credit unions, put political pressure on service providers in the public or private sector (Fuller and Jonas, 2000) Many poor communities have campaigned against pollution of their environments. Poor 218 8 x z 8 < 3 ¢ <specifically, access to transport and means of communication. This is another reason why much organization is at the neighbourhood level. While this takes strength from the immediacy of the issues and from bonds of friendship and trust, it is weakened by its particularity: struggles around a particular issue can be repeated around the county at different times with little or no co-operation or synergy between the campaigns. However, in many fields of anti-poverty campaigning there are networks of local groups. These may start by giving advice to local campaigns, but can develop into nationally co- ordinated campaigns, as with the claimants’ organizations in France or the association of outer city estates in Britain, On the other hand, campaigns over issues which are the remit of national government, such as benefits, taxation and employment law, can develop from the first at the national level. Finally, in recent years some transnational campaigns of the poor have emerged, such as the Marches for Jobs in the EU. These are to a large extent a response to the similarities between countries in the worsening of poverty by neoliberalism, as well as the implementation of neoliberal measures by the EU itself. Scales of organization against poverty, then, are as varied and as interlinked as the scales of its creation, 12.8 Conclu: Human geography and other social sciences have much to contribute to the fight against nm poverty. Social geography can contribute particularly by showing the complex scales and spaces within which poverty is created, and the way in which policies against poverty may be weakened or strengthened by such geographies. We hope that many readers of this book will use their understanding of geography both to help develop state policies against poverty and to support the organizations and struggles of the poor themselves Summary + Poverty has traditionally been conceived in either absolute or relative terms, Recent approaches often take a hybrid approach, and picture poverty as having many dimensions beyond low monetary income. These definitions of poverty are contentious and are used politically + Explanations of poverty are diverse. They differ in the aspects of society and the spatial scale focused on. They include individualist, community and structural explanations. We have argued that the latter is the strongest approach. + Poor-quallty jobs play a central role in creating poverty and its geography. These jobs are generated by fundamental features of capitalist economies and class relations + Poverty is spatially concentrated in particular residential areas. Social life and public and private services in these areas deepen poverty, and exacerbate the marginalization of poor people in the labour market + Inaddition to class, other forms of social oppression and their operation in space play central roles in creating poverty, particularly racism, gender, age and disability. 275Introducing Social Geographies Economic, social, cultural and political processes at all spatial scales, from the individual and the home to the nation and the world, play roles in creating poverty. Processes within places where poverty is concentrated play a role in deepening it But poverty is not generated by geography in itself, but by processes which are simultaneously geographical and social + Varied groups of the poor organize against diverse aspects of poverty, These organizations use place-specific social networks, but also organize across large scale spaces. Further reading The following two publications give overviews of geographies of poverty: + Leyshon, A. (1995) Missing words: whatever happened to the geography of poverty? Environment and Planning A 27, 1021-8. + Philo, C. (2000) Poverty, In Johnston, RJ. et al, Dictionary of Human Geography, 4th edn, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 627-9, For examples of different approaches to poverty definition and explanation, and its manifestation in different environments, see: + Philo, C. (1998) Offthe Map: The Social Geography of Poverty in the UK. London: Child Poverty Action Group. + Merifield, A. and Swyngedouw, E. (1996) (eds) The Urbanization of Injustce. London Lawrence & Wishart. + Kodras, | E. (1997) The cl anging map of American poverty in an era of economic restructuring and politcal reaignment. Economic Geography 73, 67-95. + Pacione, M. (ed) (1997) Brtain’s Cites. London: Routledge. 276