Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain's Underclass

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The other big theme is that of personal responsibility. The author believes that his life got a lot better when he stopped trying to externalise blame for all of his problems. In taking responsibility for his own diet, lifestyle and mental health, his own quality of life improved considerably. This is obviously a lot more complicated than it sounds, and much more difficult for those who grow up in poverty, but the point being that it didn't take a big political change. He throws down the gauntlet to the reader to take responsibility for the things we do have control of, especially those things which contribute to our health in our day to day lives. He reminds well intentioned people that they may become complicit in perpetuating problems by appearing to suggest that external factors are the key. Yes, better town planning and sensible regulation could make it easier for people to live healthy lives, but that only takes us so far. There is a warning to well intentioned 'middle-class' campaigners who might rely too heavily on academic or specialist language from their own particular area of interest that alienate the wider community, although there are a few passages of this book where the author could benefit from his own advice, because they read like he's trying to impress his sociology tutor.

When the full wrath of working-class anger is brought to bear on the domain of politics, sending ripples through our culture, it’s treated like a national disaster. Following these political earthquakes, a deluge of condescending, patronising and emotionally hysterical social-media posts, blogs and online campaigns are launched, ruminating about the extinction-level event – which is what is declared whenever this specialist class, on the left or right, get a vague sense that they are no longer calling the shots. That they have been defied. For these people, not getting their way feels like abuse.’ Part memoir, part barnstorming polemic, the blinks for Poverty Safari take you through the gritty realities of social deprivation in the UK. You’ll get a glimpse of life in underfunded council flats, personal stories of drug addiction, and insightful commentary on how to fix systemic poverty. By the end, you’ll understand why this gripping work won the Orwell Prize for political writing, one of the UK’s most prestigious awards.this book is (as McGarvey describes it himself) part “misery memoir” about his childhood growing up with an alcoholic mother in a poor area of Glasgow, sharing his own personal anecdotal experiences of what poverty means in late 20th century Scotland (he was 33 at the time of writing - in 2017). You are no use to any family, community, cause or movement unless you are first able to manage, maintain and operate the machinery of your own life. These are the means of production that one must first seize before meaningful change can occur. This doesn't mean resistance has to stop.” Guess which story got more press coverage. You already know the answer. The media was more interested in the wealthy family’s vacation woes.

EPs serve many disadvantaged communities, and there is a correlation between socio-economic disadvantage and the prevalence of additional needs. We have an ethical duty to understand more about the communities that we serve so that we can work with and support them more effectively. This book provides a means towards further developing that understanding. You are no use to any family, community, cause or movement unless you are first able to manage, maintain and operate the machinery of your own life. These are the means of production that one must first seize before meaningful change can occur. This doesn't mean resistance has to stop. Nor does it mean power, corruption and injustice shouldn't be challenge. It simply means that running parallel to all of that necessary action must be a willingness to subject one's own thinking and behaviour to a similar quality of scrutiny. That's not a cop out; that's radicalism in the 21st century.' The book is not an easy read. It is a personal memoir about deprivation, abuse, violence, addiction, family breakdown, neglect and social isolation. But it is also a positive book, a book of hope and no little courage. At the same time, it contains both challenges to and insight for the competing ways in which both the political left and right view and seek to respond to poverty. Adam Tomkins MSPEssentially 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.)

There is lots that I really enjoyed here, but the structure proved somewhat frustrating: it is only until the second half of the book, and really, the very last chapter that McGarvey seems to really spell out his most important point (and the most important lesson he’s learnt for his own life): that of taking personal responsibility. A combination memoir and sociological study that explores not only poverty itself, but the dysfunction it brings to all levels of society. Now let me say that I'm aware some may disagree that these two cases are connected. Some may even think it vulgar that I have chosen to contrast them in this way. But equivalences like this are precisely how many of us arrive at our opinions. What I've just done is what people generally do when they turn on the news; observing complicated matters from a distance, we rush to conclusions about the nature of society and our place within it. These conclusions become the basis of new beliefs whether they are true or false.

Poverty Safari

McGarvey also wants those who seek to understand poverty within the UK to actually listen to those who live within it. To listen not only to their frustrations, but to also listen to and empower the solutions that they advocate rather than continue with the well-intentioned (or self-serving) patronisation of these communities from the outside. 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.

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Poverty Safari challenges you to think about why you think what you think and what impact that might have on your perceptions of, and actions within, society. In an increasingly polarised nation, the capacity for self-reflection and introspection are those that will enable us to reach compromise. POVERTY IS ABOUT more than money. Hopefully, I’ve convinced you of that by now if you weren’t already. Poverty is more like a gravitational field, comprising social, economic, emotional, physiological, political and cultural forces. I have always hated sociology. Take an entire subculture and claim they are a homogeneous blob. I find it offensive and dull. If you genuinely want to teach me about the poor, show me examples. McGarvey does this, somewhat, but he seems uncomfortable doing so. Msybe he worries he's being exploitative. He's much happier telling you about how the liberal middle class do gooders think they can parachute in to poverty country and fix things their way. His criticism is valid, but again, theoretical, not tied to any concrete examples, and pretty dull.