In an age of ‘nudges’ and other behavioural interventions, it is perhaps not surprising that shaming people has crept from the margins of social welfare programs and development policy to widespread use. Shaming likely started as an unconscious but nevertheless pernicious side effect of programs to limit social assistance to the “deserving” poor (posting the names of recipients of social assistance on community noticeboards, income quarantining, work programs with no minimum wage, etc) and is visible as an unconscious way of ensuring loan repayment in group microfinance. Over time, however, shaming has become a deliberate, theorised approach through community-led total sanitation projects. In this presentation I argue that this shift occurred without adequate consideration of the negative effects of shame, particularly where it references who someone is as opposed to something they may have done. When people are shamed for things they have limited control over it leads to very harmful side effects including anxiety, depression, self-harm and worse. If we genuinely aim to end poverty there is, as Amartya Sen notes (1983: 161), an absolute requirement of “just not being ashamed.”

Venue: The Cairns Institute D3-063

Zoom details: https://jcu.zoom.us/j/81755889116?pwd=NGVXL2NvZkFLTzZpa21Pa0Q5MnJ4Zz09  P/word 301659