Poverty and Privilege

I'm currently in the Philippines. Malate, a section of Manila near Manila Bay to be precise. The purpose of the trip is business--I'm here to design a research project with Ian Sutherland, a friend of mine who's lived and worked in Manila for many years. What's the nature of the research? There is an (in)famous landfill in Manila called the Smokey Mountains. It's a huge garbage dump where people called "scavengers" pick through the rubbish looking for recyclables or anything else of value that can be used or sold. Here is a video some folks took a few years ago that gives you a sense of some of the basic issues and living conditions. It ends with a pretty moving musical montage:

So...Ian has been involved with some philanthropic organizations who have, over the years, provided aid in the form of various services. Some of the programs are educational, some are feeding programs, others are religious in nature and still others try to address infrastructure of the community. But Ian shared with me that he gets the sense that while the aid programs generally make a short-term difference, they rarely (if ever) facilitate sustainable improvement in the lives of Smokey Mountain's residents. There are of course many reasons this could be--poorly designed programs, programs that are well-designed but that run out of funding, etc. But Ian felt that one thing missing might be a deep understanding of the community's culture--their beliefs, values, norms, dreams, expectations, economic realities, histories and so on. Since these are some of the things I study he reached out to me through a mutual friend and now we're in the Smokey Mountains, trying to design a research project that helps us understand some of these issues.

Here are a few of the things we are trying to consider and that are framing our thinking as we move forward:

1. We recognize that these are a people who deserve to be regarded with the utmost respect and that the purpose of the "project" is not to advance our own careers. It is rather to provide a baseline of research that may help aid workers and policymakers perform their jobs with the utmost care and efficiency. 

2. We recognize that we are not here to "save" anyone, we are here to learn from people who know much more than we ever will about their own lives and to try and represent those perspectives and voices to people whose work should be informed by them, lest they do work AT people (which has been ineffective) and not WITH people (which has rarely been tried).

3. We recognize that we are studying an open glocal system--we are at once looking at a small community in the Philippines while simultaneously learning about larger social, cultural, legal, economic and policy systems that perpetuate inequity throughout the city, the Philippines, Southeast Asia and the world. By intentionally looking at the site through this glocal lens we are hoping to identify a great many points of influence in the multiple systems within the community and the multiple systems that flow into and out of the community in various ways. That is, we hope that this approach yields concrete and useful recommendations and analysis that illuminates some issues and approaches heretofore not explored.

4. People of the Smokey Mountain community (it's actually Smokey Mountain II, as the dump was relocated several years ago) are not the poorest-of-the-poor in the Philippines. They actually, on average, earn a bit more than the poorest people of the Philippines which is part of the dump's attraction for many who move to Manila or are looking to earn a living.

5. As expected, the people we have met are wonderful, optimistic folks. They are, in many respects, typical Filipinos--with an optimistic attitude and warm hearts. They are also people who deserve to live with dignity and in the most healthy conditions possible. There is a lot of work to be done here. 

6. Visiting Smokey Mountain II is a trip into a difficult living and working environment. It's also only a mile or so from the US Embassy and Malate, a modest but prosperous part of Manila. A mile further up the road and you are near Malacañang Palace (presidential palace) and Makati, the wealthiest district of the country full of the latest luxury cars and every creature comfort imaginable. It's difficult to understand why there such inequity...but it's also difficult to understand back home...and it's also difficult to understand back home in Iowa, where there is also tremendous inequity...and it is difficult to reflect on and understand the ways that I am complicit in this inequity, contributing to it...and to what extent we are able to understand these issue in a way that makes a difference.

I could go on an on...and I plan to in future posts.