Download full text
(external source)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://doi.org/10.17645/si.7737
Exports for your reference manager
Policy Silences and Poverty in Ireland: An Argument for Inclusive Approaches
[journal article]
Abstract Policy documents shape and inform policy but they are not neutral objects. Policy documents can also silence through the exclusion and omission of discrete knowledges transmitted through testimony and lived experience. Even where steps are taken to ensure inclusion, policies can be underpinned by a ... view more
Policy documents shape and inform policy but they are not neutral objects. Policy documents can also silence through the exclusion and omission of discrete knowledges transmitted through testimony and lived experience. Even where steps are taken to ensure inclusion, policies can be underpinned by a policy making process that also potentially omits and silences through a narrow conception of how to include the voices of those directly affected by policy in the policy making process. This article will address the phenomenon of "policy silences" in the following ways: Firstly, by taking inspiration from Bacchi's (2009) policy analysis framework - which asks of policy documents "what is the problem represented to be?" (the WPR approach) - and focusing on question no. 4 of the WPR framework - which asks, in part, "where are the silences?" - the Irish policy document Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020‐2025 will be briefly reviewed. Following this, the approach taken in a creative, arts‐based, participatory research project which included, mapping, photography and walking interviews as a means of exploring the lived experiences and hidden geographies of poverty will be presented as a way of demonstrating inclusive research practice and as a means of tacitly problematizing and further critiquing an anaemic understanding of inclusion which potentially creates "policy silences." Finally, an argument for forms of inclusion that go beyond current practices to include, in creative ways, the voices of those directly affected by policy in the policy making process will be put forth.... view less
Keywords
Ireland; inclusion; poverty; political decision; decision making process
Classification
Organizational Sociology
Social Problems
Free Keywords
policy; policy silences; social inclusion
Document language
English
Publication Year
2024
Journal
Social Inclusion, 12 (2024)
Issue topic
Accomplices to Social Exclusion? Analyzing Institutional Processes of Silencing
ISSN
2183-2803
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed