ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at engagement with the notion of poverty and documents how work on the issue had the effect of building walls between the poor and professionals, who were tasked to deliver the gender and education policies and practices linked to the MDG and EFA frameworks. It considers some of the difficulties of establishing the bridges and connections of political membership to support democratic iteration and the establishment of a political sphere where discussions concerning addressing gender and connected inequalities could be animated by generosity and inclusion, rather than blame. The chapter draws out some of the meanings attributed to poverty in the discussions conducted in the different research sites, and provides examples on how poverty was linked with blame, stigmatisation and marginalisation. The chapter considers how some of the practices that were evident across a number of the terrains of a middle space had the potential either to reproduce of transform these relationships of blame and marginalisation.
