In Sarah Kerr's new book, which she launches at this event, she undertakes an experiment. Starting from the premise that continuing to centre poverty encourages researchers and policymakers alike to 'look down' she contributes to a strand of social policy and sociological literature that asks what happens if we 'look up'?
Putting wealth at the heart of a social critique and redescribing the relations we see around us - and the history of those relations - from this perspective, the book recasts the history between the state and richer and poorer people through the idea of wealtherty: the enablement of wealth hyper-concentration; the perpetuation of social and policy divisions; the marketisation of influence; the gatekeeping of knowledge-making and knowledge resources.
Sarah Kerr worked with archive material from workhouses in and around Nottingham, and with design guidance for the JobCentre Plus network of buildings; with the records from the early income tax debates of the 1790s and with minutes from the Wealthy External Forum hosted by HMRC since 2010 to hear from the representatives of the super-rich; with testimony from women in the Andover workhouse in 1845, and with testimony from women struggling to survive in a punitive welfare system in the 2010s at the Work & Pensions Committee Universal Credit Rollout and Childcare Inquiry of 2018; with poor law histories that chart the early evolution of 'men who know about poverty', and with Companies House and Charity Commission data to reveal the evolution of private and corporate interests within think tank networks as they produce new versions of old poverty narratives. Together, these sources help to shine light on some of the complex ways in which state dispositions towards those with and without wealth endure, and how they show up in the ways we make knowledge, in the communication between the state and richer and poorer people, in the ways we govern, and in the things we see and the spaces in which we see them.
Meet our speakers and chair
Sarah Kerr is a Research Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute. She completed her PhD at the UCL on the long legislative history of inequality between richer and poorer people. Her research interests include forms of justice-making, power, and the historical sociology of wealth.
Armine Ishkanian is the Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme at the International Inequalities Institute and Professor in the Department of Social Policy at LSE. Her research focuses on the relationship between civil society, democracy, development, and social transformation.
Rajiv Prabhakar is Senior Lecturer in Personal Finance at the Open University. He is author in 2021 of the book Financial Inclusion: Critique and Alternatives (Policy Press) and conducts research on barriers to wealth taxation. Between April 2021 and October 2022 he was a Parliamentary Academic Fellow at the House of Commons Library.
Mike Savage joined LSE in 2012 and retired from the Department of Sociology in 2024. He is now Professorial Research Fellow at LSE’s International Inequalities Institute, from where he retains active collaboration with the Department of Sociology. Mike was Head of Department between 2013 and 2016. Between 2015 and 2020, he was Director of LSE’s International Inequalities Institute.
Frank Soodeen leads Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s public engagement, advocacy, and campaigning work. Prior to his appointment, Frank held a series of campaigning, policy and influencing roles at JRF, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, The Nuffield Trust, The Royal College of Physicians, and Alcohol Concern. He holds degrees in philosophy, public policy and management.
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The International Inequalities Institute (@LSEInequalities) at LSE brings together experts from many of the School's departments and centres to lead cutting-edge research focused on understanding why inequalities are escalating in numerous arenas across the world, and to develop critical tools to address these challenges.
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