Cultures of Aspiration and Poverty? Aspirational Inequalities in Northeast and Southern Thailand

Camfield, Laura; Masae, A.; McGregor, JoAnn; Promphaking, Buapun

doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0189-3

Cited by 14 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Globalisation may have opened young people's eyes to new possibilities, but the opportunities they can access are not the same as they see available in other parts of the world (Durham 2000;Grant 2006;Jeffrey and MacDowell 2004;Di Nunzio 2012). In Thailand, Camfield et al (2013) highlight how these processes have generated new forms of consumption and led to an expansion in aspirations beyond those which can be fulfilled. This has a detrimental impact on well-being and is particularly acute for young people (Camfield et al 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like the concept of autonomy, aspirations are individually-experienced and culturally-embedded (Rao and Walton 2004;Appadurai 2004;Ray 2006;Bernard et al 2008;Ibrahim 2011;Camfield et al 2013). They are formed through interactions and relationships and located in a larger map of local beliefs and ideas around work, life, marriage, family and respectability, amongst others (Appadurai 2004).…”

Section: Building Dreams: Young People Hopes and The Capacity To Aspirementioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding Youth: Towards a Psychology of Youth Poverty and Development in Sub-Saharan African Cities

Banks

2015

SSRN Journal

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Youth is commonly conceptualised as a period of transition in which young people strive to meet the social markers of adulthood, such as getting work, starting families and being recognised as full and productive citizens. Here we extend our analysis of youth to capture the developmental needs of young people in this process of 'becoming'. In doing so we explore the literature on developmental psychology and youth well-being that has been well explored in the Global North, but less so in the Global South. From this, we highlight that development studies must look more broadly at the developmental processes occurring through youth of building foundations, building blocks, building support structures and building dreams. Young people's current and future outcomes cannot be understood fully without understanding these processes, which are critical behavioural drivers. We then move on to explore the literature on urban youth in Sub-Saharan Africa to assess whether or not these four critical developmental processes are accessible to young people in Sub-Saharan Africa's towns and cities. The literature recognises the difficulties urban youth in Sub-Saharan Africa face in navigating these pathways and the subsequent 'transitional limbo' they themselves in. Urban areas characterised by weak job creation, informality and tough competition offer few social and economic opportunities to young people. We draw upon our earlier review of literature from developmental psychology to explore the implications of this on young people's development. At such a formative stage in the life cycle it leads to crises in personal identity formation and prevents the development of important internal developmental assets (like self-confidence and self-belief) that young people need to thrive and flourish. Urban poverty and processes of urban social change have also eroded the social support systems necessary to nurture these vital assets. Together these dampen and constrain young people's ability to envision, strive for and plan to meet opportunities today and into the future.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Building Dreams: Young People Hopes and The Capacity To Aspirementioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Youth: Towards a Psychology of Youth Poverty and Development in Sub-Saharan African Cities

Banks

2015

SSRN Journal

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“…In the research literature there is a longstanding interest in the link between education and aspirations, with some work highlighting 'aspiration gaps' in relation to education (e.g. Del Franco 2010 on adolescent girls in Bangladesh), employment (Kritzinger 2002), and social norms, well-being and poverty (Camfield et al 2012;Copestake and Camfield 2010). However, based on work from the UK, St Clair and Benjamin (2011) warn against a deficit approach to aspirations that 'can lead to people being blamed for being poor and at the bottom of the social hierarchy on the grounds that this simply reflects their own aspirational deficits' (St Clair and Benjamin (2011: 503).…”

Section: Three Mobilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young people, agriculture, and employment in rural Africa

Sumberg¹,

Anyidoho²,

Chasukwa³

et al. 2014

WIDER Working Paper

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This paper examines the current interest in addressing the problem of young people's unemployment in Africa through agriculture. Using notions of transitions and mobilities we set out a transformative work and opportunity space framework that privileges difference and diversity among work opportunities, rural areas and young people. We argue that policy and programmes that seek to engage young people with agriculture must be more realistic, rooted in more context-specific economic and social analysis, and appreciative of the variety of ways that rural men and women use agriculture to serve their needs and interests.

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“…In the last two decades, there has been a growing body of literature in development studies, and development economics in particular, investigating the role of aspirations and their achievement in the context of inequality and poverty (Bernard, Dercon, and Seyoum 2011;Bernard and Taffesse 2014;Camfield et al 2013;Dalton, Ghosal, and Mani 2016;Genicot and Ray 2009;Ibrahim 2011;Ray 2006;Copestake and Camfield 2010). The underlying argument of this literature is that people living in conditions of poverty, inequality and exclusion may not be able to aspire to and/or achieve their aspirations to generate upward social mobility (Flechtner 2017;Camfield et al 2013;Copestake and Camfield 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The underlying argument of this literature is that people living in conditions of poverty, inequality and exclusion may not be able to aspire to and/or achieve their aspirations to generate upward social mobility (Flechtner 2017;Camfield et al 2013;Copestake and Camfield 2010). Much of this literature highlights the role of internal constraints 1 in limiting people's ability to take advantage of opportunities and suggests these act as a behavioral poverty trap in perpetuating people's social conditions (Dalton, Ghosal, and Mani 2016;Appadurai 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘We are labeled as gang members, even though we are not’: belonging, aspirations and social mobility in Cartagena

Marzi

2018

Development Studies Research

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This paper explores how belonging and aspirations interact to shape marginalized young Colombians' strategies for upward social mobility. Recent literature has argued that in the context of inequality and poverty, social mobility is constrained by people's inability to aspire to and/or achieve their aspirations. The majority of this literature is from the economics field and looks at the way poverty acts as a brake on social mobility. This paper provides an additional interdisciplinary analysis of the role of 'belonging' (to places and social class) in influencing aspirations of young Colombians. Findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork with young people from two marginalized neighborhoods in Cartagena. It is argued that aspirations are closely linked to belonging and the extent to which young people feel integral to or distanced from their localities. Using a Bourdieusian perspective, the paper examines how belonging is developed and how it influences behavior, orientations and future prospects. This approach generates insights into young people's apparent low aspirations beyond the explanation of internal behavioral poverty traps. In so doing, it provides a more comprehensive understanding of how societal structures limit aspiration development and achievement.ARTICLE HISTORY

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Cultures of Aspiration and Poverty? Aspirational Inequalities in Northeast and Southern Thailand

Cited by 14 publications

References 39 publications

Understanding Youth: Towards a Psychology of Youth Poverty and Development in Sub-Saharan African Cities

Understanding Youth: Towards a Psychology of Youth Poverty and Development in Sub-Saharan African Cities

Young people, agriculture, and employment in rural Africa

‘We are labeled as gang members, even though we are not’: belonging, aspirations and social mobility in Cartagena

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