Research Project · Bogotá, Colombia · 2025–2026
Unveiling Hidden Poverty
Develando la Pobreza Oculta
A participatory research project mapping hidden poverty in Colombian cities — where households live in precarity that official systems fail to recognize. What is neither seen nor understood will rarely be addressed by decision-makers.
1.75M
Households analyzed
44K
City blocks
5
Dimensions
12
Months
What is hidden poverty? / ¿Qué es la pobreza oculta?
Hidden poverty refers to conditions of deprivation among households formally classified as non-poor, produced and sustained through discursive, institutional, and relational invisibility. Those who experience it may appear financially stable or lead seemingly normal lives, yet often struggle to cover essential needs. Their difficulties tend to be associated with high levels of debt, lack of savings, or precarious employment that leaves no visible trace.
Unlike vulnerability — which describes prospective exposure to risk — hidden poverty describes a present multidimensional deprivation, above the poverty threshold, unrecognized by the system, and often by the person themselves. The invisibility of these households is not a failure of the system — it is, in large part, what the system produces.
“What is neither seen nor understood will rarely be addressed by decision-makers.”
How we research it / Cómo lo investigamos
Component 1 — The system from the outside
Institutional Mapping
Analyzing 1,746,248 households using Sisbén IV data to demonstrate how non-recognition of hidden poverty is a structural effect of the classification system — not a technical error. Spatial analysis at block, UPZ, and locality scale across 44,052 blocks in Bogotá.
Component 2 — The system from the inside
Lived Experience & Institutional Perceptions
Exploring how households in areas of high institutional invisibility perceive and navigate the social protection system — and how institutional actors read and classify the population the system does not recognize. Methods: collaborative mapping, narrative interviews, urban walks, disposable camera photography.
Funded by / Financiado por
Programa Álvaro Reyes para Jóvenes Investigadores
Centro de Estudios Manuel Ramírez (CEMR) · Maastricht University
Unveiling Hidden Poverty 