The 'Relativism' of Poverty: Conceptualizing Poverty in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and Developing Countries

The development discourse on poverty has tended to focus too narrowly on measurement while qualitative research methods are more effective in deepening understanding and creating context-specific strategies of reduction. The purpose of this paper is to compare conceptualizations of poverty of the poor in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) with those of the poor in developing countries. Local understandings of poverty in the DTES are examined through life histories, and the World Bank's 2002 report, "Voices of the Poor: From Many Lands" is used to explore understandings of poverty of poor people in the developing world. The comparison of these conceptualizations reveals a need to devise approaches to poverty reduction that are influenced by both the outside expertise of development actors and the poor themselves.