Dignity through Discourse Poverty and the Culture of Deliberation in Indian Village Democracies

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Employing a view of culture as a communicative phenomenon involving discursive engagement, which is deeply influenced by social and economic inequalities, the authors argue that the struggle to break free of poverty is as much a cultural process as it is political and economic. In this paper, they analyze important examples of discursive spaces—public meetings in Indian village democracies (gram sabhas), where villagers make important decisions about budgetary allocations for village development and the selection of beneficiaries for anti-poverty programs. They examine 290 transcripts of gram sabhas from South India to demonstrate how they create a culture of civic/political engagement among poor people, and how definitions of poverty and beneficiary-This paper—a product of the Poverty Team, Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in the department to understand local government and citizen-based engagement in developing countries. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at selection criteria are understood and interrogated within them. Through this examination, they highlight the process by which gram sabhas facilitate the acquisition of crucial cultural capabilities such as discursive skills and civic agency by poor and disadvantaged groups. They illustrate how the poor and socially marginalized deploy these discursive skills in a resource-scarce and socially stratified environment in making material and non-material demands in their search for dignity. The intersection of poverty, culture, and deliberative democracy is a topic of broad relevance because it sheds light on cultural processes that can be influenced by public action in a manner that helps improve the voice and agency of the poor. * The names of the authors are listed in alphabetical order. They are equally, and solely, responsible for the paper, and their views do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the World Bank, its member countries, and …