Submerged: Surfacing Deep Poverty during Permacrisis

Abstract

This article surfaces the ‘hidden injuries’ of deepening privation that are often occluded through prevailing modes of poverty analysis. We do so by drawing on qualitative longitudinal, ethnographic research to examine what bearing permacrisis has had on the everyday survival strategies, sociality and health of those on the lowest incomes in the UK. Focusing on the experiences retained and recovered through a more inclusive sampling, recruitment and retention strategy, we evidence distinctive features of deep poverty and demonstrate how those worst affected by the ‘slow violence’ of necropolitical governance and class restructuring are also those most likely to fall outwith the sociological gaze and research process. Attending to the empirical problem and theoretical potential of absence in poverty research, we reflect on the corpus of experience we tend to centre in sociological analysis and the corpus of experience that is often left behind in the process.