Poverty and inequality: a preliminary postscript

Abstract

In this retrospective and prospective chapter we offer brief and tentative conclusions to a volume charged with the almost impossible task of capturing the diversity, complexity and multidimensionality of poverty and inequality impacting the state of our nation in 2018. The complexity of poverty and inequality in South Africa and the expressive ways in which the multiple factors behind it come together, across a range of structural, psychosocial and human(e) dimensions of the South African social experience, suggests that we need to persevere with developing further nuanced interpretations. Building on current explanations and working towards a specific South African accounting of what poverty and inequality are, the explanations offered in this volume have attempted to clarify firstly, the multiple facets of poverty and inequality and secondly, how, in their reach into the everyday experience of South Africans, they work. Although an overriding impetus for this collection was to describe, evaluate and assess the state of poverty and inequality in relation to South Africa, the focus was also on identifying avenues and opportunities for further research and questions.