Redefining Poverty as Relational Injustice

Sor Juana's analysis, implicit in her life and writings, treated poverty not as a natural or personal failing but as a consequence of unjust institutional arrangements. Redefining poverty as relational injustice shifts focus from what poor people lack to what systems withhold from them. This framework recognizes that poverty results from structured arrangements of power and access—who controls resources, whose knowledge is valued, whose voice is heard, whose labor is compensated, whose identity is recognized. Within this view, poor people are not the problem to be fixed; unjust relationships and institutions are. Sor Juana's experiences of intellectual and economic constraint stemmed not from personal inadequacy but from systems that denied women, Creoles, and the dependent systematic access to education, property, and authority. Reframing poverty as relational injustice enables recognition that addressing poverty requires not charity or individual uplift but structural change—redistribution of resources, recognition of knowledge and dignity, and transformation of the systems that create and maintain inequality. This conceptual shift validates the insight of those experiencing poverty that their circumstances reflect institutional injustice, not personal failing.