Disabling Austerity

The Poverty Truth Movement is a grassroots social movement guided by the principle that those with lived experience of poverty should be afforded a voice in social and political decision making. The movement is the outcome of various ‘Poverty Truth Commissions’, set up across Britain with the express purpose of ‘facilitating meaningful conversations and deep relationships’ between ‘those who have expertise through their own lived experience of poverty’ and those ‘experienced in social, economic and political provision’ (MBPTC, 2023). This research is based on a three-year ethnographic study of one such Commission - the Morecambe Bay Poverty Truth Commission (MBPTC) - from its launch to its conclusion. Situated in an area of North-West England with some of the highest rates of poverty and health inequalities in Britain, the research will draw on the rich, first-hand, lived experiences of members of MBPTC, foregrounding the very particular methods of participatory action developed by actors in this movement. The thesis will focus specifically on the disabling effects austerity is having in Britain. While much contemporary scholarship attends to austerity’s role in reproducing disability, this research will examine its role in actively producing disability. That is, austerity as a dis-abling process. In so doing, I investigate the ongoing relationship between poverty and health under austerity regimes, while exploring the role grassroots and community-led action plays in responding to - and resisting - the disabling effects of austerity in Britain today.