Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain's Underclass

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I also found this book difficult to read because I kept getting angry while reading it. Not Darren's fault, just emotions being triggered. If I can learn a lesson from his story, it will be to examine why I got so angry. As for the anecdote he provides of the different class-based motivations for the emotional upset of children in a playgroup - well, all I can say is that if this really happened, McGarvey has no business working with vulnerable people and children. If he has no awareness that children with "Bearsden accents" can feel emotionally upset, and that only working-class children have feelings that are worthy of attention, then I actually despair! McGarvey wants his privileged audience to see and hear the anger and frustration of poor communities who feel socially, economically, and politically disenfranchised. McGarvey doesn’t pull his punches, arguing cogently that factors such as unemployment, poorly paid jobs, poor quality housing have created the conditions for the prevalence of social maladies such as drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and mental health difficulties. These conditions have contributed to the frustrated disillusionment found amongst many working-class communities. It makes for challenging reading. Prejudicial and structural barriers But this book is also an impassioned polemic about the structural economic and political injustices endemic within British society that render swathes of the population powerless and voiceless. Part of the power and impact of this polemical account stems in part from the inclusion of autobiographical material by McGarvey, who grew up in poverty, experienced neglect, emotional and physical abuse, and wrestled with his own alcohol and drug use.

McGarvey is able to connect with his students because his own life has been shaped by the dual forces of poverty and violence. He grew up in Pollok, a poor, working-class neighborhood on the southside of Glasgow. In the early nineties, when McGarvey was a child, this area often ranked as one of the most economically deprived places in Europe. My wife shared the Kindle edition of Poverty Safari with me, maybe a year ago. I managed to completely ignore it until I needed to do some research last month and since then have been working my way slowly through.Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? The welfare system is strongly criticised because McGarvey regards it as a punitive system for the poor and vulnerable devised by people with no real comprehension of what it is to be poor. The shadow of austerity also looms large within McGarvey’s safari tour. He lauds those instances where real grassroots community action occurs within disadvantaged areas, but laments that these efforts are simultaneously hindered because they do not fit with the preconceived ideas and preferences of the powerbrokers, those individuals and organisations that provide funding and a public voice for such local community projects.

If The Road to Wigan Pier had been written by a Wigan miner and not an Etonian rebel, this is what might have been achieved. McGarvey’s book takes you to the heart of what is wrong with the society free market capitalism has created.” Paul Mason. Of course this is learned behaviour, passed down through the generations, and clearly this is a level of distrust that successive governments and prime ministers have well earned. He talks about the insidious role of the poverty industry, a murky business of bureaucracy and not speaking up against the status quo, “Where success is when there remain just enough social problems to sustain and perpetuate everyone’s career. Success is not eradicating poverty but parachuting in and leaving a ‘legacy’.” Poverty Safari does not provide easy answers. But it does offer a brave, profound critique of the nature of political debate today and mounts an at times inspiring defence of personal autonomy. ‘In the absence of real leadership’, he writes, ‘it’s time we demanded more of ourselves. Not because it’s easy or fair but because we have no other choice. We must now evolve beyond our dependence on political figures to map out reality on our behalf.’ Essentially asking the left to internalize the core of neoliberal ideology "there's no such thing as a society". (This is the line at which I stopped reading the book.) This book is maybe 5% safari, and 95% theory and explaining of things. Not what I signed up for. Somewhere in the middle of the book, MacGarvey himself makes a joke that he sold the book as a "misery memoir" -- making fun of himself for talking so much theory and not so much personal anecdotes. Ha ha -- where's my misery memoir, dude?!?

Poverty Safari

McGarvey concludes that despite the social injustices and difficulties that have shaped his own life experience, the only way he has been able to affect change in his own life is to take some personal responsibility for his future and not lay all the blame at the feet of society for having failed him. No one ever seems to be writing a dissertation on the link between emotional stress and chronic illness or an op-ed about how they managed to give up smoking. As if somehow, these day-to-day problems are less consequential to the poor than the musings of Karl Marx. As if we can postpone action on the things that are demoralising, incapacitating and killing us until after the hypothetical revolution. Beneath all the theoretical discussion, these problems of mind, body and spirit and what we do to manage them are the unglamorous, cyclical dilemmas that many people are really struggling with. In what ways does Poverty Safari provide starting points for political discussion that could lead to change? Are the topics discussed represented properly in politics and the media?

For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. My experience as a trainee suggests that social justice discourse has gained prominence within my own university training course and local EP services. Prompted by my experience within this local context, I found myself considering McGarvey’s perspective of how identity politics fits within the broader discourse of social justice. I expect that some readers may disagree strongly with McGarvey’s analysis of intersectionality and its place within the broader discourse of social justice. Nevertheless, it remains likely that his perspective will be shared by some who live amongst the socio-economically disadvantaged communities that the EP profession serves. This perspective maintains that the white working class are not being heard and are being drowned out by competing voices that are also advocating for their own legitimate social justice needs. Poverty Safari explores a lot of the author’s personal experiences: of his dysfunctional family, his alcoholic mother and violence experienced while growing up. In what ways is this book more than a memoir?

If The Road To Wigan Pier had been written by a Wigan miner and not an Etonian rebel, this is what might have been achieved. McGarvey's book takes you to the heart of what is wrong with the society free market capitalism has created . Paul Mason At first glance, Poverty Safari may seem an unusual choice of book for an educational psychologist (EP) to read. It’s not obviously about psychology; it initially appears far more relevant to disciplines such as sociology, economics, politics, or geography.