“Redefining Poverty”: Dr. Lakshman Yapa will speak
Date & Time: March 24, 2016 | 06:15 PM – 07:30 PM
Location: 012 Lewis Katz Building
Yapa Lakshman, professor in the Penn State Geography Department at the College of Earth and Mineral Science, will present on policy challenges in Policy as part of the Penn State School of International Affairs’ spring colloquium: Current Policy Challenges.
Lakshman’s current research project, Rethinking Urban Poverty in the United States, is an academic program that combines teaching, research, and service learning in West Philadelphia. He moves away from conventional economic and welfare approaches of poverty by defining it as a substantive question related to access—to transport, housing, nutrition, health-care, and so on. Lakshman’s research combines theories of economic development, postmodern discourse theory, and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Despite the massive efforts at economic development, statistical evidence shows a troubling persistence of poverty and increasing inequality of income (both within and between nations). Reminiscent of a Kuhnian "crisis in the paradigm", development economists (and their principal Marxist critics) are not able to offer us a satisfactory explanation of the failure of development.
Professor and U.S. Ambassador (Ret.) Dennis Jett, organizes the semester long event to bring thought leaders on topics ranging from food security to terrorism. The program features 14 speakers. Colloquium topics vary depending upon the current issues of the day. The course surveys some major transnational social problems confronting the world, suggested by the Copenhagen Consensus, such as: climate change; communicable diseases; conflict and arms proliferation; access to education; financial instability; governance and corruption; malnutrition and hunger; migration; sanitation and access to clean water; and subsidies and trade barriers. The course involves team teaching and guest lecturers. The course lectures are open to the public and made available via webcast.