Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain's Underclass

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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.) 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. I can't say he didn't warn me. But, in my defense, I was reading the book electronically. Jumping around isn't exactly easy, in that format. And I just don't read that way.

Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey | Goodreads Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey | Goodreads

However, we (trainee) EPs are encouraged to approach the needs of children, families, and schools from a holistic perspective. The popularity of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model is a testimony to this holistic psychological way of working. It is within this bioecological paradigm that the importance and relevance of McGarvey’s book for EPs becomes apparent. A read that really had me questioning how I think about modern day class in Britain, as well as my own politics (which I wasn't expecting going into it). Particularly unexpected (and powerful as a result) were McGarvey's arguments in favour of personal accountability: A blistering analysis of the issues facing the voiceless and the social mechanisms that hobble progress, all wrapped up in an unput-downable memoir. Denise Mina 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?!? The title is supposed to be a cruel barb. The rich drive through poor places on poverty safari. But I thought McGarvey was going to take us out of the car and show us things. He doesn't.McGarvey initially regards intersectionality as a means to broaden the pursuit of social justice for a wider range of marginalised and discriminated groups, but then becomes critical, contending that many public expressions of intersectionality have become “illiberal, censorious and counterproductive” (p.155). He then goes on to claim that rather than providing an emancipatory ally of class politics, intersectionality has become engaged in a form of class discrimination, having become ‘gentrified’ by universities and middle-class activists. McGarvey believes that the ‘gentrification’ of intersectionality has excluded many from the socio-economically disadvantaged communities of the UK at the expense of other marginalised groups because they do not fit a preconceived and ‘approved’ model of disadvantage. In these blinks, you’ll gain an informed analysis as to why so many in Britain feel left behind. Drawing on his own experiences growing up poor in Glasgow, Darren McGarvey presents an up-close account of the difficult and precarious lives lived within Britain's most impoverished communities.

Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey | Waterstones Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey | Waterstones

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.

Part memoir, part polemic, this is a savage, wise and witty tour-de-force. An unflinching account of the realities of systemic poverty, Poverty Safari lays down challenges to both the left and right. It is hard to think of a more timely, powerful or necessary book. J.K. Rowling McGarvey contends that intersectionality activists have oversimplified any debate over what constitutes privilege and oppression and who is affected by it. From the point of McGarvey’s class-based argument, this oversimplification has resulted in the term ‘working class’ becoming a “synonym for ‘white male’” (p.159). As far as McGarvey is concerned, the result is that intersectionality denies the inclusion of the disadvantaged white working-class voice within the present social justice discourse.