Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Only the 'Truly Needy' Need Apply: Intersections between Policy and Poverty in the Case of Peru

布朗大学博士生克里斯汀·斯克拉布特将在凯·B·沃伦博士的指导下，从政策的设计者和实施者以及穷人的角度，对反贫困政策的发展、实施和效果进行研究。这项研究很重要，因为为了制定更有效的项目来缓解贫困，有必要了解官僚组织制定的政策如何与穷人的信仰和生计战略相联系。这项研究考察了政策在不同背景下传播时会发生什么，并考虑了微观实践如何与宏观过程相联系。这项研究将在秘鲁的两个地点进行，一个是城市棚户区，居民有很长的贫困历史，另一个是2007年刚刚因2007年毁灭性地震而陷入贫困的城市。秘鲁是一个很好的研究地点，因为秘鲁政府有意识地构建了正规化和集中化的双管齐下的政策，既正式地赋予贫困公民权利，也只将其中一些人定义为“真正”值得援助的人。这种政策在许多国家都有，因此其结果将推广到其他情况。研究者将运用参与观察、半结构访谈和话语分析等民族志方法，考察这两个城市极端贫困地区反贫困政策与潜在受益者生计策略之间的互动关系。通过这种比较，这项研究将回答以下问题：(1)如何在不同的社会部门和官僚机构中定义“真正需要帮助的人”，以及衡量贫困的行为如何有助于这一定义？(2)正规化和聚焦(包括和排除)如何相互作用，以塑造对贫困的理解方式以及如何实施减贫计划？(3)在民主分权和全球化的时代，“真正需要帮助的人”的称谓如何因城市地区原有的种族和阶级理解以及其他类似国家的实体的存在而变得复杂？国家和国际各级的政策制定者以及从事发展和减贫工作的人员将对研究结果感兴趣。研究基金还支持社会科学家的教育。

Brown University doctoral student, Kristin Skrabut, with the guidance of Dr. Kay B. Warren, will undertake research on the development, implementation, and effects of antipoverty policies, from the perspectives of both those who design and implement the policies, and those who are poor. The research is important because to create more effective programs to alleviate povery it is necessary to understand how the policies created by bureaucratic organizations connect with the beliefs and livelihood strategies of the impoverished. This study examines what happens to policies as they are disseminated across contexts and considers how micro-practices are linked to macro-processes. The research will be carried out in two sites in Peru, an urban shantytown whose residents have a long history of poverty, and a city only recently impoverished by the devastating 2007 earthquake in 2007. Peru is a good site for the research because the Peruvian government has consciously constructed a two-pronged policy of formalization and focalization, which both formally gives rights to poor citizens and also defines only some as "truly" deserving of assistance." This kind of policy is found in many nations and so the results will be generalizable to other contexts. Using ethnographic techniques of participant observation, semi-structured interviewing, and discourse analysis, the researcher will investigate the interface of antipoverty policies and the livelihood strategies of potential beneficiaries in these two urban extreme poverty zones. Through this comparison, this study will answer the following questions: (1) What considerations govern how the "truly needy" are defined across different social sectors and bureaucratic agencies, and how do acts of measuring poverty contribute to this definition? (2) How do formalization and focalization (inclusion and exclusion) interact to shape the way that poverty is understood and how poverty reduction programs are implemented? (3) In the age of democratic decentralization and globalization, how are designations of the "truly needy" complicated by pre-existing understandings of race and class in urban areas and the presence of other state-like entities? Research findings will be of interest to policy makers at national and international levels and personnel working in development and poverty alleviation. The resarch funding also supports the education of a social scientist.