ABSTRACT
Recent discussion of the analysis of poverty and livelihoods (see Ellis, Chapter 3 in this volume) draws attention to the limitations of currently dominant approaches to development. Debates about definitions of poverty and its measurement do not much advance our understanding of the causes of poverty. Analysing livelihoods in terms of the assets and strategies of the poor opens up space for taking seriously the priorities, choices and initiatives demonstrated by poor people, but it risks underplaying the constraints thrown up by social relations and institutions that systematically benefit the powerful. It also risks making an assumption that such livelihoods are sustainable. This essay draws on recent attempts to bring power relations into analysis of poverty to discuss the lives of people in a remote rural area in South Africa. It examines causes of, and responses to, poverty and the consequences of those responses. People’s responses to poverty in this context appear to be becoming unsustainable and their livelihoods seem increasingly fragile. There is no necessary reason why responses to poverty should be sustainable.
