FALSEPOVERTY
"False Poverty: The Cultural, Political and Historical Implications of Literary Accounts of 'Social Passing'"
| Coordinatore | UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Organization address
address: GOWER STREET contact info |
| Nazionalità Coordinatore | United Kingdom [UK] |
| Totale costo | 209˙033 € |
| EC contributo | 209˙033 € |
| Programma | FP7-PEOPLE
Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) |
| Code Call | FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF |
| Funding Scheme | MC-IEF |
| Anno di inizio | 2012 |
| Periodo (anno-mese-giorno) | 2012-10-01 - 2014-09-30 |
Partecipanti
| # | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Organization address
address: GOWER STREET contact info |
UK (LONDON) | coordinator | 209˙033.40 |
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Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)
'This project aims to examine the genre of 'social passing' in British writing from the late 1800s onwards. These are accounts written by those faking poverty to report upon the poor. The most important literary examination is in Cunningham’s 1988 British Writers of the Thirties, limited to one decade and but one strand of a larger critical analysis; the most important historical-anthropological work is Freeman and Nelson’s introduction to Vicarious Vagabonds, focusing above all on texts 1860-1910. This project, however, proposes an approach both more diachronic and more specific, focusing not only on literary and cultural implications of passing, but also on the reality behind accounts, moving from a purely text-based literary approach towards an interdisciplinary historical study. This project’s ultimate aim is an analysis of the cultural, political and historical implications of these accounts, focusing on their cultural impact on the twentieth-century literary scene, political implications, impact on political debate of the time, and influence on the general public’s perception of poverty, as well as on their historical implications, including the role played as historical sources, and the credibility of data and events reported. The project aims to use a mixture of textual criticism and archival and on-site research. It will focus on historical and political contexts of the writing of primary texts, and on issues related to the condition of the poor discussed (reports, statistics, documents related to voluntary relief activities, the treatment of the subject in newspapers, specialized journals, illustrations and cartoons). In a period of financial crisis and governmental interest in the welfare of the poor, understanding how the poor have been represented over the last century is invaluable; it is also worth examining the mechanisms whereby those self-describing as non-proletariat have related to the working class and tried to change or hide that relationship.'
Introduzione (Teaser)
Examining accounts of false poverty in literature provides an analysis of the cultural, political and historical implications on the perceptions of poverty over the past century.
Descrizione progetto (Article)
A genre in British writing from the 1800s onwards is known as social passing. It consists of writers faking poverty to report on the poor. The EU-funded FALSEPOVERTY project focused on the reality of passing, as opposed to only the literary and cultural aspects. The movement is thus a shift away from a text-based literary one to an interdisciplinary historical one.
Primary and secondary sources were identified and collected. Initial outcomes recognised incognito social exploration as a genre that led to a string of further investigations. This included looking into the life of gypsies and the romantic construction of their lifestyle by social investigators.
More research and analysis took place in the course of the project than originally planned and included work in the United States. Furthermore, papers were presented at international conferences and a book has been drafted.
The work will provide a historical account on the poor that can be used by policymakers as a means of comparison that is more true to real life.