Urban and Rural Poverty Dynamics in Angola
Centro de Estudos e Investigação Científica (CEIC)
Centro de Estudos e Investigacoes Cientifica (CEIC) is a policy think tank located at the Catholic University of Angola in Luanda. Since 2007 the CMI has had a broad cooperation programme with CEIC, presently comprising 16 different projects in economics, anthropology and political science as well as institutional capacity building.
This project will initially take a broad approach to the issues of rural and urban poverty and social stratification – with the argument that a closer definition of the main issues at hand must reflect people’s own (emic) perceptions of the dynamics of poverty and well-being. In Angola, we know little about how decades of war, massive urbanisation and the current political economy have affected places like Luanda’s musseques and rural areas in Malanje.
The central research questions under this sub-project will be:
- What are the main differences in peoples’ perceptions of different types and levels of poverty in urban and rural areas respectively?
- In what way do social relations of poverty (with people and institutions) differ between urban and rural areas?
- What are the main material manifestations of poverty in urban and rural areas respectively?
- What are the most important structural constraints affecting the lives of the poor in urban and rural areas?
- What are the main options for upward social mobility given the existing structural constraints in urban and rural areas?