De facto dignity: perceptions and experiences of people in poverty in Punjab, India
Keywords: social policy
dignity
poverty and dignity
dignity in poverty
Indian social policy
entitlements
India
Punjab
poverty in India
poverty

Current literature suggests that poverty is an affront to a person’s dignity. Yet, there is limited research that explores the lived experiences of dignity (or its absence), for people in poverty. This research addresses this gap through a qualitative case study of people in poverty in a city in Punjab in India. Focus group discussions and interviews were conducted, in order to understand what the everyday existence of dignity looked like. The doctoral thesis shows that in people’s experiences, respect, recognition, worth, value and honour (attributional values) overlap in a manner that manifests dignity. The absence of dignity, however, makes itself visible through the loss of one’s humanness, i.e. the ability to live a life that is considered to be worth living, for a human being.
The thesis also argues that dignity in experience is a result of how people perceive themselves to be, how they perceive others’ perceptions of them and how others conveyed those perceptions (through verbal and non-verbal cues such as treatment accorded). This process of perception is a result of the three facets of who people are (identities), what people have (entitlements) and what people do (roles within settings).
Who people are encompasses the individual self as well as the collective and relational self, thus bringing within its purview individual, relational, collective and social identities. For people in poverty in this study, individual identity is relational, and at times, ceases to exist, with collective identities subsuming the individual identity. As far as social identities are concerned, poverty becomes a primary identity, nuanced by caste and gender identities. Dignity tends to vary, with respect to different identities, and takes on the nature of the identity that is primary, at a particular point of time. For instance, if identity is relational, dignity also becomes embedded in relationships.
What people have ties into the concept of entitlements, and highlights material resources, and the impact the actualisation of these resources can have for the dignity of people in poverty. Entitlements, in theory and practice, have been defined as legitimate claims against ‘someone’ (mostly the State, though public, civil and social entitlements can exist as well). However, this thesis furthers current theorisations of entitlements as though legitimate claims exist within people’s narratives of dignity, but they are not necessarily made in relation to a particular institution. Furthermore, processes of realisation of entitlements are as important as entitlements themselves, for dignity, therefore, establishing hitherto lesser-known entitlement implications for dignity.
What people do refers to the roles that people play, encompassing their responsibilities and duties, in various settings within the realms of family, community, society, market as well as the state. Within these realms, there is constant negotiation of dignity (making dignity dynamic), as people move between settings. Dignity is not only determined by what people do themselves, but also by what other people (through relationships) and institutions (interfacing) do.
The construction of human dignity in lived experience is complex, diverse and multifaceted. Dignity of an individual could become subordinate to either the dignity of another individual, or to a relationship and dignity could also moves between different identities (without necessarily existing with respect to each one of them).
Though the thesis affirms that the impact of poverty on dignity is by and large negative, it argues that the lives of people in poverty are not necessarily completely devoid of dignity. Thus, the thesis not only enriches the understanding of dignity, by concretising the concept through its linkages with attributional values, identity, entitlements and roles within settings, but also provides the experiences of dignity of people in poverty a place within poverty research.