Research Topic
The topic of systemic poverty first came to me as a social science research topic.
Research? Which field?
First I assessed this topic as a question of economics. But I soon figured out that economics is only looking at the big picture and from a very rational and dry perspective, and it lacks the empathy and “the human touch” which is needed for understanding the true forces at play in creating and perpetuating systems of poverty. Economics models human beings as rational players where everyone has access to all the information, and this is an overly simplistic model for understanding poverty.
Then I turned my attention to sociology. Sociology looked more promising for studying povery but I soon found out that it does not look at things at the individual human level, only at the statistical level, and so, sociology also proved an inadequalte tool for what I need. I still think that sociology is a useful tool for me, just not good enough (does not fit well) for the things I want to understand – circumstances of people – and the methods I applied with success – talking to people – in my journey so far.
Then I turned my attention to cultural anthropology. This was a promising field too, I even considered doing a masters degree in cultural anthropology to get more in depth in my work around poverty. Hovewer, I hit some walls here too. I found that according to cultural anthropologists, poverty is “just too broad” to be a topic of research.