The sufferers in poverty

For the reading that we've been assigned to read, I want to talk about a specific point from chapter 5. In chapter 5 of the book Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl, the author revisits the stories of the survivors. Rita Dubova who have been living on a pension worked as a gatekeeper at the Chernobyl power plant. She was working at the power plant even when she knew that the incident was going to happen, knowing the risks. But the author says, "[w]hen I asked her why she went to work knowing the risks, she told me that she had been more concerned about losing her pension and social benefits had she not shown up for work."

I think this is something that we all have to consider. When we read and see many horrible accidents happening in the world, we tend to make a quick judgment, "why didn't they do this way? why couldn't they have done that way-?" From an outsider's point of view, we are quick to say that "it is bad to do something," "they should have done this way," "they should have known better." But I don't think those people who are actually at risks, whatever the risks are, behave the way do, not because they don't know how to prevent future risks or how to take care of themselves, but because there are just so many other cultural, social, political, and environmental factors that limit the range of their actions even when they know it's not right, or it's bad for them to do things they do. Rita knew what was going to come ahead of her, but she couldn't give up social benefits she had been getting from the government.

This led me to think about the concept of "poverty." Usually, we think of poverty mostly in terms of economic dimensions. We usually say that people are in a state of poverty when they don't have enough money to fulfill their most basic needs, such as food, clothing, and place to live. However, the concept of poverty means far more than that. Poverty is multidimensional. According to the research done by the World Bank, interviewing more than 60,000 people who are considered to have experienced poverty from 60 countries, "powerlessness" is at the core of poverty.

If you can't go to bathroom at your will,  if you live in a fear of having your house being bulldozered by the government, if you can't can't call the police when you have problem, and if nobody listens to your stories, you are in poverty. You have limited choices whatever you do, you are powerless. Aside from these, there are so many other definitions of poverty such as no trust, apathy, lack of cooperation, discrimination, no clinic, and lack of capital etc.

Somehow I thought Rita was in the state of poverty as well. She was in poverty in that she was not independent in making the decisions. She had to choose what she had to choose, not what she wanted to.

Petryna, Adriana. Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 2002. Print.