Solidarity and Representation in Poverty Research and New Middle Class Activism

In this article we investigate the relationship between poverty, poverty research, solidarity with poverty, and claims for representing poverty. Our argument is based on two perspectives – one coming from new developments in Roma research and Roma politics, the other one from discussions around the new contemporary wave of middle class activism. In both of these fields, there is a recent struggle around the position of the “spokesman”, organized around the stakes of authentic representation of oppressed groups. In this struggle, next to institutionalized representatives of expertise, new actors have claimed space for themselves in the representation of marginality and poverty, reaching out for the alternative tools of new media, socially engaged art, or civic/NGO activism. The two fields of Roma politics/Roma research and middle class activism intersect in the practice of this struggle, as the research and representation of poverty is always an issue entangled with the stakes of middle class researchers/spokesmen. It is this intersection where this article focusing on contemporary transformations refers back to the work of István Kemény.