South Africa 2018: the state of the discussion on poverty and inequality

The purpose of this introduction is to map and address some of the conceptual issues that have arisen in the development of this recovery agenda in South Africa, and to provide an analytic framework for holding the multiple elements of the context which this agenda seeks to address in perspective. We recognise there are several generative tools to help us rethink this agenda. While the exposition of the framework unfolds theoretically, its objective is to assist in the debate and in the development of policy for dealing with poverty and inequality in ways that deliberately engage with the complexity of their production and reproduction.