The Best Diagnosis Is the Autopsy, But It Comes Too Late

Abstract

Citizens, through social movements and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), have expressed a clear message to researchers on the contributions of science to the fight against poverty and exclusion. Many investigations have carried out diagnoses of poverty in specific areas, though at times, this work was regrettably too late. Citizens in fact clamor for solutions, not a diagnosis. Notably, the project Successful Socio-Educative Actions to Overcome Poverty, funded by the Spanish government, has not been another diagnosis on poverty in deprived territories of Spain but rather a communicative case study developed in one of the most deprived neighborhoods in this country, in which researchers, neighbors, and different social actors have contributed to analyzing actions that are successfully improving the living conditions in this community.