Conceptualizing Poverty

As a result of the recent crisis in Indonesia, the question of how to conceptualize poverty is on the forefront of the nation's social and political agenda. Through an in-depth look inside the Indonesian household, this paper explores the continual tension in the poverty literature between the "reductionists" who confine poverty to a limited set of variables, and the "generalists" who believe that poverty is a broader, more complex phenomena. Through the analysis of an ethnographic case study based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, this paper examines how local residents conceptualize poverty. Residents identified multiple facets of poverty, including: food insecurity, inadequate income and employment, single income households, inequality, inability to keep pace with modernization, and social exclusion. In addition, residents described poverty as "a lack of everything" — serba kekurangan. This conceptualization provides insight into the interaction among the various facets of poverty that in turn make poverty a dynamic and intractable process. The finding is congruent with the "generalist" view of poverty and is significant for policymakers as they formulate alleviation strategies.