Poverty research, Emancipatory Social Science and critical thought

Abstract

The article addresses the need to hold a critical stance towards official and reductionist measurements of poverty, arguing for the development of multidimensional, integrated, critical and morally founded methodologies. It places critical research on
poverty as a cornerstone of a broader Critical Research, adopting Erik Olin Wright’s (EOW) methodological basis for the construction of an Emancipatory Social Science (ESS), and proposes its collective development incorporating contributions from the Frankfurt and Budapest Schools Analytical Marxism, and especially Marx’s paradigm of production and theory of transformation. Some considerations on the relationship between measurement and emancipation follow, trying to show that human transformation and self-realization may be enhanced
by developing critical thought, that includes among its axis, addressing seriously the measurement of poverty and inequality, which will help creating solutions that may bring us closer to human flourishing.