From the preface text:

"The photographic essays in this book were selected from approximately one thousand photographs submitted by twenty South African photographers to the Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa. This work was first shown at the Carnegie conference, which was held at the University of Cape Town in April 1984 and comprised over four hundred photographs. Also shown at the conference was the work of a number of artists and children from various community arts projects around the country, as well as several films and videos made specifically for the Inquiry. The collaboration, in the work of the Inquiry, between some of South Africa's most talented artists, photographers, and filmmakers with academics and labour and community leaders escaped the attention of most commentators. This is not surprising when one considers the overwhelming amount of material about poverty contained in the three hundred papers that were presented during the six day conference. It is important for us to examine briefly how and why the photographers, whose work is represented in this book, became involved in the Carnegie Inquiry and to understand the realities of contemporary South Africa that have led to their break with traditional notions of the journalist's "neutrality" and the South African artist's distance from the cut and thrust of politics."