Le discours de la pauvreté de la Banque Mondiale

Abstract

Corten André - The discourse about poverty of the World Bank. The 1990 the World Development Report of the World Bank is entirely dedicated to poverty. The lexical frequency of the terms « poor » and « poverty » in the report is very high. Yet, although the discursive mechanism appears to control modal values in the fight against poverty, it operates by constructing a new semiotic object condemned to disappear. Thus, the mission promoted by the World Bank, can only succeed. Firstly, in the unfolding of the narrative the poor are made to desappear. Then, through an association of the terms « poor » and « poverty » with other terms, or with modalizations which cancel one another, the « distressing » and « scandalous » situation in which « more than one billion people live » becomes meaningless. Finally, the operation of obliteration entails the shift of the pair « poor »/« rich » towards the pairs « poor » / « non-poor », and « very poor » / « poor ».