Poverty research is a realm where theory and praxis have to meet. In order to bring forth fruitful insights as well as effective actions that make a difference for people suffering from poverty and exclusion, poverty alleviation needs joint efforts. Turning academic expertise into impact requires not only individual commitment but also coalitions of knowledge, experience and visionary thinking. Thus, ASAP Austria provides opportunities for exchange and collaboration to poverty-focused academics, working inside and outside universities. The focus of ASAP Austria is on regional and local poverty alleviation.
ASAP Austria was first presented to the public in November 2012 in Vienna and was launched at a conference in November 2013 in Salzburg (for information, visit the Events page). Information about ASAP Austria’s projects – such as “Lernen macht Schule” or “Social Exclusion Reader” – is provided on the Projects page.
You can learn more about ASAP Austria by visiting its website.
To contact ASAP Austria, please write to asap@sbg.ac.at.
People
Clemens Sedmak, Director of the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research (CEPR), Board Leader
Eva Fleischer, Professor at the Management Center Innsbruck
Michael Meyer, Director of the Institute for Nonprofit-Management at the WU Vienna
Walter Pfeil, Professor at the Department for Labour and Employment Law, University of Salzburg
Elisabeth Kapferer, Senior Scientist at the CEPR, Coordinator of ASAP Austria
Gottfried Schweiger, Senior Scientist at the CEPR, Representative of ASAP Austria in the Chapter Committee of ASAP Global
If you are interested in our projects or want to become involved please feel free to contact us at asap@sbg.ac.at
Projects
Conference: Absolute Poverty in Europe, August 27 & 28, 2015 at the University of Salzburg
ASAP Austria and the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research invites abstracts for the upcoming conference “Absolute Poverty in Europe” at the University of Salzburg. The keynote speakers will be David Hulme (Manchester) and Robert Walker (Oxford).
Europe is often portrayed as a continent of “relative” poverty and social exclusion while extreme or “absolute” poverty is understood as a measure and reality of poor (“developing”) countries only. This conference aims to question this dichotomy, and we invite papers that contribute to an elaborated understanding of severe, extreme, or absolute poverty in Europe. Papers should address the specific situations and challenges of groups endangered by absolute poverty such as undocumented refugees, migrant beggars, homeless people, street children, or discuss harms related to severe poverty (malnutrition, physical and mental illness, stigma, isolation, etc.).
We encourage papers from scholars with backgrounds in the humanities or the social sciences, as well as from practitioners. Furthermore, we particularly welcome papers approaching the normative and political implications of absolute poverty in Europe and its alleviation. There also will be a special stream on the practice of poverty alleviation in Europe together with the European Office of Red Cross International.
Please send your proposal (250 words) as a word file to cepr@sbg.ac.at until February 28, 2015. We are also happy to receive proposals for thematic panels, consisting of three papers.
The conference fee is 150 Euros (75 Euros for students) and covers the conference folder, coffee breaks, two lunches, the reception, the conference dinner and a guided city tour.
Find more information on the conference homepage: www.uni-salzburg.at/zea/absolutepoverty
Publications: Philosophical Explorations into Poverty Alleviation
The aim of this volume is to explore the philosophical, in particular ethical, issues concerning the conceptualization, design and implementation of poverty alleviation measures from the local to the global level. Our goal is to bring together these topics with the ongoing debates on (social and global) justice as well as to ask what an ethical or normative philosophical perspective can add to the social scientific, economic and political approaches that dominate the main debates on poverty alleviation. Many normative questions arise in the business of and politics of poverty measures. A full description of the book can be found here.
This publication of ASAP Austria will be edited by Helmut P Gaisbauer, Gottfried Schweiger and Clemens Sedmak. It is loosley based on the conference “The Ethics of Poverty Alleviation”, which was held at the CEPR in 2014. Find more information on the conference here.
Publication: Social Exclusion Reader
Poverty and social exclusion in the context of rich countries are realms well researched academically and well documented by media, thus one could conclude that profound knowledge of poverty is sufficiently available. However, it seems that common discourse on poverty (in academia, politics, media, and the public) often lays focus on only few and obvious phenomena of poverty. Common discourse on poverty often lacks what can be described as ‘deep’ poverty knowledge, hence entailing the risk of public numbness to poverty due to recurring motives and arguments. With the Social Exclusion Reader, we have aimed to confront public poverty knowledge with new and less considered perspectives such as ‘poverty and noise’, ‘social exclusion and leisure’ or ‘poverty and disgust’. We invited experts on poverty, including people who have experienced poverty or social exclusion themselves, to contribute short and concise articles on commonly overlooked issues that matter.
The aim of the project was to disseminate deep poverty knowledge broadly (and particularly in the non-academic world), to raise awareness for the multifaceted precarious living conditions of poor people and hence to foster social cohesion.
Lernen macht Schule – Students and kids learn for life
“Students and kids learn for life” was started 2010 by the University of Economics and Business Vienna (WU Wien), Caritas Vienna and REWE Group in Vienna; it is a volunteering programme for students – young academics who will presumably take over leading positions in their future lives. In the context of ASAP Austria we want to establish this project in other places in Austria, starting with Salzburg in autumn 2014. The aim of the project is to promote integration by bringing together university students and children from socially deprived families and to provide learning experience for both, mentors and mentees. In many cases the children come from migrant families who do not live long in Austria and often have little knowledge of German as well as little social contacts. The students take care of ‘their’ children and support them, e.g. by giving learning aid or leisure activities. Mentors and mentees usually meet once a week over the course of one academic year (October–June). Detailed standards concerning selection, training and supervision for partaking students as well as activities during the course of the programme ensure the quality of the mentoring setting.
Past Events
Kickoff Event
As a kickoff event for ASAP Austria, on November 19, 2012 a press conference took place at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Wien) which was open not only to media representatives but also to interested colleagues. Thomas Pogge presented the idea behind ASAP, then Clemens Sedmak (CEPR) and Michaela Moser (Austrian Anti Poverty Network) discussed plans and activities for the Austrian Chapter of ASAP. This event was chaired by Michael Meyer (vice rector of WU Wien) and was organized by the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research in association with WU Wien and the NPO Competence Center of the WU Wien.
The press conference has received press coverage on the radio (Austrian Broadcasting “Ö1”) as well as in publications such as the weekly newspaper “Falter”.
Launch Conference
The activities of ASAP Austria were launched at a conference at the CEPR in Salzburg on November 5, 2013, entitled “Conditions of sound poverty alleviation” which was originally scheduled for June 3, 2013, but had to be adjourned due to floods in Austria and Germany. The event was chaired by Clemens Sedmak and Elisabeth Kapferer and featured presentations by Manuela Brandstetter, Stefan Selke, Olivia Rauscher and Martin Schenk.
Videos of the presentations can be found at: http://www.uni-salzburg.at/index.php?id=63287&MP=137-44822