White, Shirley, ed. Participatory Video. Sage Publications: California, 2003.
Chapter 3: A Process that Transforms Self and Others
p 63-86
Shirley White's main point of this article is to point out that there are two seperate uses to participatory video: as a process and as a product. Each has their different uses, benefits, and consequences. As a process, participatory video sets the stage for communication and self-expressiong. "Thus, it has the potential to bring about person, social, political, and cultural change. That is what video power is all about" (P64). The video power that she talks about is achievable because people are able to self-express, gain identity, and have their voice acknowledged as valid (P65). She goes on to say that PV purely as a product is very different because it is a passive entity. Watching is optional, interpretation is personal, and control only exists for the video-makers, not the viewers (P66).
I will focus mostly on PV as a process in this summary. PV needs to be conducted a certain way for it to be successful, that is that PV needs to focus on "interaction, sharing, and cooperation with an outcome of individual and group growth" . It is about allowing people to express as well as offer another mode of interaction (P64-65). As a process, it has many uses: self-definition, education and training, community building, message-making, mediator, and many other things. This is made possible through PVs ability to transform individuals and eventually communities (P76). The facilitator must possess certain skills and encourage PV to grow in certain ways for the community to be transformed, however. They include things such as "encouraging interpersonal encounter, promoting dialog, reconciling differences, reaching consensus, dealing with prejudice, conflict management, and fostering cooperation" (P77). This is yet another acknowledgment that PV alone is not enough to bring about change, but rather a myriad of variables need to be aligned correctly for it to occur. One of these is the attitude of the facilitator.
Each one of these topics is explained in more detail, giving examples and advice on how to exemplify these characteristics as the PV facilitator's work. The other thing that the facilitator should be aware of Maslow's concept of "self-actualization" and Kelley's concept of "fully-functioning." Maslow believed that the human continues to reach for higher levels throughout life due to their desire for "knowledge, undestanding, meaning in life, beauty, peace, and self-fulfillment." White says that this humanistic approach pushes participation in the process of development, and that PV can help address issues of self-fulfillment. "When a person is fully functioning, he/she must look at the self and feel that they are capable of peforming the task at hand... [and] facilitating persons can further assist in the process of building, helping people realize their potential for change and improvements" (P82).
White says that self is an important concept to acknowledge as a facilitator as they must deal with disparities between how the self perceives self and how others perceive that person. She explains how self is shaped by our relations with others, creating a constanly evolving and changing self-concept. Thus, interpersonal interaction has impact on self-concept (P84).
She goes onto develop ideas of self-esteem and self-respect which are two things that "require a basic process whereby individuals can examine, assess and modify their existing concepts, attitudes and behaviors." PV is one such way of "questioning the assumptions one makes about their own actions or beliefs that often forces a person to modify their self-concept in order to maintain self-esteem" (P85-86). Basically that a person's ability to change lays in critical reflection in a process of "understanding a decision, thinking about what they are doing, obersving the reaction to what they are doing, and checking out the relationship between action and observation" (P86). Again, PV is able to bring this process to the forefront fo conscious change.
Reflections:
I enjoyed the portion of this text about psychology. The claims of PV are often thrown out there without absolute proof or even pointing towards possible reasons for why "PV causes change" or how "PV can induce empowerment." Her argument feels fleshed out. Instead of simply relying on case examples, she is able to pull from theoretical evidence to prove that PV is able to propogate impact from individual to the group.
I am also a fan of how she acknowledges that there are certain pre-conditions that make PV successful. Her outline for the facilitator is fairly detailed and could be useful in part of a handbook for hosting PV. They are reminiscent of therapy or mediator characterstics, and her techniques push the boundaries between using the camera for action versus psychological aid. The process is self-reflective, but also a very conscious manner. In a way, her process feels like the participants are being treated as children or as clients.
I think White is correct when she outlines the way in which facilitation must occur. I like that she has turned the process into less of a touch-feely-we-can-change-the-world and more into science. She outlines certain characteristics needed for PV to work as a process. However, I am also wary of her clearly-defined steps as it implies that PV intervention can always been the answer or have the potential to always be successful on some level. Based off of summer experiences, I would still question whether intervention always has more positive impacts than negative.
Further reading of the text is needed for further conclusions.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Cities for Citizens: Friedman, ed.
Friedman, John and Mike Douglas, eds. Cities for Citizens. John Wiley and Sons, Ltd: Sussex, England, 1998.
-Chapter 2: "Planning and Civil Society in the Twenty-first Century: An Introduction" (Friedman)
-Portions from "Empowering Civil Society: Habernas, Foucault and the Question of Conflict." (Bent Flybjerg)
-Chapter 12: "Civil/Uncivil Society: Confusing Form with Content" (Janet Abu-Lughod)
Summary:
Friedman's introduction includes a definition of civil society as well as a broad overview of the chapters that follow. His arguments mostly focus on the idea of the individual and organization's power, rights, and responsibilities as the 'citizen.' He argues that the elite have no connection or allegiance while the "disempowered great majority of the world's population value local traditions and inhabit specific places, but thier voices have been rendered silent." "Civil society is that part of social life which lies beyond the immediate reach of the state, and which, we would argue, must exist for a democratic state to flower." (P2) The citizen is part of a political struggle to maintain or strengthen their rights to demand that the state work for the people, especially those without power (P3)
The planner's jobs, Friedman argues, is to avoid the ruckus of politics in order to "discover and give voice to the broad interests of people in a long-term future perspective." (P19) Organizations, like the NGO, were developed to address the social needs that the city was not able to, but "their collective efforts inevitably fall far short of the probelms with whose symptoms they engage." As they proliferate, however, the NGO beginst to step on one another's toes and are forced to fight amongst their increasing numbers for non-increasing funding sources.
Maybe good for a beginning or ending quote: "The market economy doesn't solve urban problems; it creates them. Its patheticaly narrow vision for the future comes down to one syllable, 'more.' More is better than less. Growth is mandatory. Consumption is a civil obligation. But in fact, the materialism of the consumer society has very little to do with the good life, which is rather about the quality of human relationships" (P20).
Friedman also talks briefly about how poverty is defined, again offering no solutions. He says that concept of the household as a consumer leads to poverty being thought of as a problem of low-income. In turn, this leads anti-poverty movements to frame their raise this income as a way of increasing their spending power. Friedman argues that poverty is also a result of low access to necessary resources for household production which he calls the "bases of social power and include a secure lifespace, surplus time over and above time required for the reproduction of life, social networks, knoweldge and skills..., social organizations, good health, instruments and tools of domestic production, and ... financial resources" (P24).
His concern for poverty doesn't remove his belief that civil societies are in the business for themselves. The most incredible thing that I found within the reading was the unexpected remark that "within the constraints of structural imperatives, it is in its attention to small that the quality of our lives are found." He gives a few examples such as communities forcing cities to care for how the streets look or marking commemorative sites (P28).
Finally, Freidman steps back to look at some characteristics of successful planners within civil societies. He says that "reciprocity and trust counts for a good deal more than one's salary... [and] although shared experiences serves as an important foundation for trust, it is only the first and not neccessarily the most important basis. Trust develops in the course of working together..." Planners must withhold from judgment in order to understand points of view with which they are unfamiliar. Social transformation, however, is possible through the "enlargement of space for the workings of the moral economy based on relations of trust, reciprocity, and dialogue, ... and second, to make its multiple voices heard and respected through active participation in decisions that affect its conditions of life and wellbeing..." (P32-33). For delf-development to occur, someone needs to remove the obstacles to inclusion, opportunity, and "a form of social justice that acknowledges the different priorities and needs of different groups" (P34).
Abu-Lughod challenges Friedman's advocacy for supporting civil society as good planning practice. She first questions Friedman's usage of the term - "almost as a synonym for decentralization and local empowerment exercised through associational (and oftentimes voluntary) organizations," and points out that even these organizations are not neutral and can even be evil (P232). Her argument is that civil society needs to operate within certain confines of enough, too much, and too little (P236) as well as to point out that civil societies will have little change unless they change the current dominant political systems. She quotes Friedman, "reintegrating ... an existing political community in which [the people] exercise their rights, cannot be done in any meaningful sense unless the systems-in-dominance - authoritarianism, peripheral capitalism, and patriarchy - are themselves changed in fundamental ways." She then goes on to say that the planners job is not to listen and give the people what they want but to create and change the ways in which the people can GET what they want (P237).
To wrap up this intense round of quotes and reading, let's end on Flybjerg's idea that "'validity' is established via the mode of communication rather than through rational arguments concerning the matter at hand" (P194).
Reflections:
Although this book was meant for planners, it was good to get a broad overview of "civil society" and its present place in society. Friedman is a bit of an idealist with his notion that civil society is the opposition to unjust political structures and wealth but has been proven right many times in the cases when social movements (anti-slavery or feminists) has been a successful organization by the people, for the people. Although it advocates autonomy as the answer, again there are no concrete examples given of how "autonomy" may be achieved. Friedman presents a contradiction in the first part of his chapter that involves the idea that civil society is bound for failure while planning has the chance for change while the problem truly lies in the fabric of the concept of development. Overall, his general ideas are useful for supporting PV's place in social change as a way of creating those spaces necessary for representing many voices.
I found it interesting to read the respond of Abu-Lughod to Friedman's essay because it offered points that I hadn't considered. Finally, while Flybjerg's essay was mostly unhelpful, portions of it resonated so I quoted it.
-Chapter 2: "Planning and Civil Society in the Twenty-first Century: An Introduction" (Friedman)
-Portions from "Empowering Civil Society: Habernas, Foucault and the Question of Conflict." (Bent Flybjerg)
-Chapter 12: "Civil/Uncivil Society: Confusing Form with Content" (Janet Abu-Lughod)
Summary:
Friedman's introduction includes a definition of civil society as well as a broad overview of the chapters that follow. His arguments mostly focus on the idea of the individual and organization's power, rights, and responsibilities as the 'citizen.' He argues that the elite have no connection or allegiance while the "disempowered great majority of the world's population value local traditions and inhabit specific places, but thier voices have been rendered silent." "Civil society is that part of social life which lies beyond the immediate reach of the state, and which, we would argue, must exist for a democratic state to flower." (P2) The citizen is part of a political struggle to maintain or strengthen their rights to demand that the state work for the people, especially those without power (P3)
The planner's jobs, Friedman argues, is to avoid the ruckus of politics in order to "discover and give voice to the broad interests of people in a long-term future perspective." (P19) Organizations, like the NGO, were developed to address the social needs that the city was not able to, but "their collective efforts inevitably fall far short of the probelms with whose symptoms they engage." As they proliferate, however, the NGO beginst to step on one another's toes and are forced to fight amongst their increasing numbers for non-increasing funding sources.
Maybe good for a beginning or ending quote: "The market economy doesn't solve urban problems; it creates them. Its patheticaly narrow vision for the future comes down to one syllable, 'more.' More is better than less. Growth is mandatory. Consumption is a civil obligation. But in fact, the materialism of the consumer society has very little to do with the good life, which is rather about the quality of human relationships" (P20).
Friedman also talks briefly about how poverty is defined, again offering no solutions. He says that concept of the household as a consumer leads to poverty being thought of as a problem of low-income. In turn, this leads anti-poverty movements to frame their raise this income as a way of increasing their spending power. Friedman argues that poverty is also a result of low access to necessary resources for household production which he calls the "bases of social power and include a secure lifespace, surplus time over and above time required for the reproduction of life, social networks, knoweldge and skills..., social organizations, good health, instruments and tools of domestic production, and ... financial resources" (P24).
His concern for poverty doesn't remove his belief that civil societies are in the business for themselves. The most incredible thing that I found within the reading was the unexpected remark that "within the constraints of structural imperatives, it is in its attention to small that the quality of our lives are found." He gives a few examples such as communities forcing cities to care for how the streets look or marking commemorative sites (P28).
Finally, Freidman steps back to look at some characteristics of successful planners within civil societies. He says that "reciprocity and trust counts for a good deal more than one's salary... [and] although shared experiences serves as an important foundation for trust, it is only the first and not neccessarily the most important basis. Trust develops in the course of working together..." Planners must withhold from judgment in order to understand points of view with which they are unfamiliar. Social transformation, however, is possible through the "enlargement of space for the workings of the moral economy based on relations of trust, reciprocity, and dialogue, ... and second, to make its multiple voices heard and respected through active participation in decisions that affect its conditions of life and wellbeing..." (P32-33). For delf-development to occur, someone needs to remove the obstacles to inclusion, opportunity, and "a form of social justice that acknowledges the different priorities and needs of different groups" (P34).
Abu-Lughod challenges Friedman's advocacy for supporting civil society as good planning practice. She first questions Friedman's usage of the term - "almost as a synonym for decentralization and local empowerment exercised through associational (and oftentimes voluntary) organizations," and points out that even these organizations are not neutral and can even be evil (P232). Her argument is that civil society needs to operate within certain confines of enough, too much, and too little (P236) as well as to point out that civil societies will have little change unless they change the current dominant political systems. She quotes Friedman, "reintegrating ... an existing political community in which [the people] exercise their rights, cannot be done in any meaningful sense unless the systems-in-dominance - authoritarianism, peripheral capitalism, and patriarchy - are themselves changed in fundamental ways." She then goes on to say that the planners job is not to listen and give the people what they want but to create and change the ways in which the people can GET what they want (P237).
To wrap up this intense round of quotes and reading, let's end on Flybjerg's idea that "'validity' is established via the mode of communication rather than through rational arguments concerning the matter at hand" (P194).
Reflections:
Although this book was meant for planners, it was good to get a broad overview of "civil society" and its present place in society. Friedman is a bit of an idealist with his notion that civil society is the opposition to unjust political structures and wealth but has been proven right many times in the cases when social movements (anti-slavery or feminists) has been a successful organization by the people, for the people. Although it advocates autonomy as the answer, again there are no concrete examples given of how "autonomy" may be achieved. Friedman presents a contradiction in the first part of his chapter that involves the idea that civil society is bound for failure while planning has the chance for change while the problem truly lies in the fabric of the concept of development. Overall, his general ideas are useful for supporting PV's place in social change as a way of creating those spaces necessary for representing many voices.
I found it interesting to read the respond of Abu-Lughod to Friedman's essay because it offered points that I hadn't considered. Finally, while Flybjerg's essay was mostly unhelpful, portions of it resonated so I quoted it.
Autonomous Development: Carmen
Carmen, Raff. Autonomous Development. Zed Books Publishing: New Jersey, 1996.
Part 1: Maldevelopment
Chapter 3 "Demystifying Participation: of Beneficiaries and Benefactors"
Development, Carmen argues, is terminology that will never translate. He begins the chapter by asking the question of how the ideas of "development" can be communicated when the word itself does not exist in the language of the people we want to develop. Instead, it is simply a cover up for "acculturation" which is exemplified in the US' imperialistic spread and transfer in many of its seemingly humanitarian efforts. Aculturation is when "a culture of foreign origin profoundly influences or takes over an indigenous culture." He asks that the reader redefines development in other terms than the current mindframe of qualitative (bettering) and quantitative (goods, services, and skills). (P41-42).
Unlike many of the other literature that has been reviewed, Carmen traces participation back to the 60's with the WB's community development and green revolution and then into the 70's with the "Basic Needs Approach." These deceivingly top-down approaches of "participation" encourage development through "import substitution, technology transfer, and agricultural extension" which all, he concludes, will continue to fail as solutions. "To control a people's culture is to control their tools of self-defintion and relation to others." (P43)
Participatory development is not possible without the donor agency and thus paradoxical. Carmen points out that this methodology simply allows the third party (NGO, planner or otherwise) to avoid true development of the peasantry class by intervening and offering solutions while posing projects as 'participatory.' By leaving out the government, the organization can work directly with the people but also fails to address power structures from which poverty springs. Peasantry, which is the "obstacle to the march of modernity," could now be utilized and 'developed' in ways like technology transfer or skills aquisition while avoiding confrontation of true development like political activism and large structural projects (P45)
The technique of "Community Developmen"t was created not as a humanitarian effort but rather sprung from post-colonial relationships between the mother country and its territory and thus "suits the maintenance of colonial rule." It keeps the colony peaceful, transfers the economic burden from national to local governments, and helps in creating a stability during development. In a 1976 study that was conducted by The Cornell Development Research Group, four types of participation arose (1) Implementation (2) Benefits (3) Evaluation (4) Decision-Making. The implementation part of participation was the most common (P47).
Carmen also thinks that Rapid Rural Assessment is just terminology to cover up what is the "most cost-effective ways for outsiders to learn about rural conditions - ways that lead cloesr to optimal trade-off between the cost of collection and learning, the relevance, time and actual beneficial use of the information and understanding that is gained (P50).
Reflections:
The language is very formal, yet educated. This literature is incredibly theoretical. However, I totally disagree with what he is saying. What I dislike the most is the way that he tries to be so appealing. His definition of autonomous hinges on chance, pre-existing conditions being a certain way, and people having small amounts of power to increase their own power... somehow ... in places where the people who have power keep getting more power at everly increasing rates. The literature that he does draw on is well-pieced together and carefully selected. And although this chapter is formally backed with many documented sources, the feeling is much more like an opinion article that rants and raves without drawing from personal experience. However, his "about the author" section includes things such as 15 years as a preacher in Zambia as well as several other years in Burkina Fasa working at a manager of a UNDP research station. I expect and hope claims later will be supported with this.
Carmen's view point on participation, in my interpretation, is that participation is a result of TOTAL control, achieved at economic and social levels, by the institution in the brainwash to get culture to transfer.
If the implementation kind of participation is the most commonly found in development, then I would tend to assume that "implementation" is a euphemism for labor. This way projects employ local labor while the decisions are still made by the institutions. Drawing on my experiences from Peru, I would say that I don't necessarily know that finding labor within the community is such a bad thing. Looking at houses being built by NGOs where the labor force was the homeowner, more cost-efficient labor could have been hired from outside. So is it really about money? Or power? What do those four groups of "participation" really consist of.. ? I would like to find this research done by the Cornell students.
I doubt though that all of Carmen's criticisms in this chapter are well-deserved by many people in the field who may be accomplishing "autonomy," but mistakenly call it participation. Mix-ups in jargon may be the root of the issue at hand. Arguably, changes in linguistics of a subject are a true reflection of changes in the subject itself. His title of the chapter, "demystifying participation" is misleading as it merely provides a viewpoint on the subject.
Part 1: Maldevelopment
Chapter 3 "Demystifying Participation: of Beneficiaries and Benefactors"
Development, Carmen argues, is terminology that will never translate. He begins the chapter by asking the question of how the ideas of "development" can be communicated when the word itself does not exist in the language of the people we want to develop. Instead, it is simply a cover up for "acculturation" which is exemplified in the US' imperialistic spread and transfer in many of its seemingly humanitarian efforts. Aculturation is when "a culture of foreign origin profoundly influences or takes over an indigenous culture." He asks that the reader redefines development in other terms than the current mindframe of qualitative (bettering) and quantitative (goods, services, and skills). (P41-42).
Unlike many of the other literature that has been reviewed, Carmen traces participation back to the 60's with the WB's community development and green revolution and then into the 70's with the "Basic Needs Approach." These deceivingly top-down approaches of "participation" encourage development through "import substitution, technology transfer, and agricultural extension" which all, he concludes, will continue to fail as solutions. "To control a people's culture is to control their tools of self-defintion and relation to others." (P43)
Participatory development is not possible without the donor agency and thus paradoxical. Carmen points out that this methodology simply allows the third party (NGO, planner or otherwise) to avoid true development of the peasantry class by intervening and offering solutions while posing projects as 'participatory.' By leaving out the government, the organization can work directly with the people but also fails to address power structures from which poverty springs. Peasantry, which is the "obstacle to the march of modernity," could now be utilized and 'developed' in ways like technology transfer or skills aquisition while avoiding confrontation of true development like political activism and large structural projects (P45)
The technique of "Community Developmen"t was created not as a humanitarian effort but rather sprung from post-colonial relationships between the mother country and its territory and thus "suits the maintenance of colonial rule." It keeps the colony peaceful, transfers the economic burden from national to local governments, and helps in creating a stability during development. In a 1976 study that was conducted by The Cornell Development Research Group, four types of participation arose (1) Implementation (2) Benefits (3) Evaluation (4) Decision-Making. The implementation part of participation was the most common (P47).
Carmen also thinks that Rapid Rural Assessment is just terminology to cover up what is the "most cost-effective ways for outsiders to learn about rural conditions - ways that lead cloesr to optimal trade-off between the cost of collection and learning, the relevance, time and actual beneficial use of the information and understanding that is gained (P50).
Reflections:
The language is very formal, yet educated. This literature is incredibly theoretical. However, I totally disagree with what he is saying. What I dislike the most is the way that he tries to be so appealing. His definition of autonomous hinges on chance, pre-existing conditions being a certain way, and people having small amounts of power to increase their own power... somehow ... in places where the people who have power keep getting more power at everly increasing rates. The literature that he does draw on is well-pieced together and carefully selected. And although this chapter is formally backed with many documented sources, the feeling is much more like an opinion article that rants and raves without drawing from personal experience. However, his "about the author" section includes things such as 15 years as a preacher in Zambia as well as several other years in Burkina Fasa working at a manager of a UNDP research station. I expect and hope claims later will be supported with this.
Carmen's view point on participation, in my interpretation, is that participation is a result of TOTAL control, achieved at economic and social levels, by the institution in the brainwash to get culture to transfer.
If the implementation kind of participation is the most commonly found in development, then I would tend to assume that "implementation" is a euphemism for labor. This way projects employ local labor while the decisions are still made by the institutions. Drawing on my experiences from Peru, I would say that I don't necessarily know that finding labor within the community is such a bad thing. Looking at houses being built by NGOs where the labor force was the homeowner, more cost-efficient labor could have been hired from outside. So is it really about money? Or power? What do those four groups of "participation" really consist of.. ? I would like to find this research done by the Cornell students.
I doubt though that all of Carmen's criticisms in this chapter are well-deserved by many people in the field who may be accomplishing "autonomy," but mistakenly call it participation. Mix-ups in jargon may be the root of the issue at hand. Arguably, changes in linguistics of a subject are a true reflection of changes in the subject itself. His title of the chapter, "demystifying participation" is misleading as it merely provides a viewpoint on the subject.
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