MA course on Participation, Power and Social Change: ‘It changes People’s Lives’

Rosalind Eyben

‘What’s special about MAP?’ I asked, bursting into Patta’s office, ‘I promised Rosie, I would blog about it today.’ 

‘It changes people’s lives’, came my colleague’s prompt answer, as she smiled at me before returning to her email I had so impetuously interrupted her from sending.

MAP – aka the MA in Participation, Power and Social Change that Rosie (McGee) currently convenes. The first week of the course, we ask the ‘Mappers’ to each draw a river of life, marking the key stepping stones that have brought them here to IDS. As the semester flows on, they find themselves taking a critical look at their professional practice.

‘I’m sure it comes as little surprise to you’ emailed a Mapper I supervised a few years ago, ‘that this course has the effect of making students seriously evaluate how they work. For me, this has included some reflection on where I’m working, and what I’m working on.’ 

The course is designed to enhance reflective practice: using critical and creative methods to develop self-awareness of our own power, identities and worldviews and how these shape our perceptions and actions.

‘MAP stirs you up’ a student said to me. ‘It has been one of the most exciting things about learning at IDS.’

Some time ago. a Mapper – a social marketing consultant – asked past students what they most liked about the course, summing up their answers as:  

• The mix, or balance of theory and practice – we get a solid grounding in theory and the opportunity to put our learning into practice
• Our experience and thinking matters to this MA
• We get a lot out of IDS, in terms of personalised support from staff and access to resources
• We get a lot out of each other – we feel part of a team, a community of support and practice

When asked who they would recommend MAP to, MAP is considered ‘ideal’ for everyone from natural scientists to business professionals to people with a development background; for people with a couple of years’ experience to people with 10 years experience.

Perhaps more telling is the range of ways they have grappled with participation, power and social change in their professional practice that lead them to this MA. MAP students work all over the world. And not just in the ‘South’. We have also had community development practitioners, social workers, even a politician, working for social change in their own organisations and communities in North America or Europe.  

I hadn’t stayed to ask Patta whose lives she was referring to. She may have been thinking of the lives of the people Mappers meet during their 4-month period of action research and work-based learning in an organisation of their choice in the third term. – and also all those they work with after graduating, including when, as is often the case, their career follows a new pathway. After graduating, Mappers work to further development within particular communities; to support groups and causes often marginalized by those in power; to build agency and capacity among communities; to support participation in national and local policy processes; in civil society organisations, local and international NGOs, faith based organizations, media and communications, international development organizations and consulting firms.

Perhaps Patta was thinking also of another change? She is one of several IDS researchers and teachers, including Rosie and me, involved one way or the other with the course since its inception in 2004. My involvement with MAP has been something I have most enjoyed about working at IDS. I have been challenged in my assumptions, impelled to clarify my thinking, stimulated to reflect critically on my own practice and to experiment with new ways of learning (and teaching). MAP has certainly changed my life. Perhaps it might change yours?

Rosalind Eyben is a Research Fellow in the Participation, Power and Social Change research team at IDS and her Twitter account is: @rosalindeyben

Previous blog posts by Rosalind Eyben:

• Getting Care onto the Development Agenda: How is IDS doing?
• Six aspects of reflexivity
• Arguing about a revolution
• The power of results and evidence artefacts

Read a previous blog post by a MAP student:

• Storytelling in Development Practice

A bold and practical proposal for the post-2015 framework

Joanna Wheeler

This post previously appeared on 22 March 2013 on the Participate blog. Subscribe to their blog for regular updates on the Participate initiative.

At the opening of the Advancing the Post‐2015 Sustainable Development Agenda conference in Bonn last month, Horst Kolher noted wryly in his opening remarks that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon asked the High Level Panel (HLP) to be ‘bold and practical’ in its recommendations for the post-2015 framework.

So far, it would appear that many of the proposals circulating are neither. Many are extremely technical, and seem disconnected from the realities of people living with extreme exclusion and marginalisation.

As the High Level Panel prepares the report of recommendations for the post-2015 framework, due to be finished at the end of May, it is an important moment to critically reflect on what these bold recommendations might look like.  One of the civil society declarations from Bonn aimed directly at the High Level Panel called for structural transformation that addresses ‘the failure of the current development model, which is rooted in unsustainable production and consumption patterns and exacerbates inequality as well as gender, race and class inequities.’ This is certainly bold in comparison to the current MDG framework, which leaves inequalities largely untouched.

Whilst the panel appears to be listening to civil society’s recommendations – for instance the recent Bali High Level Panel Communiqué released after the HLP meeting at the end of March, refers directly to the civil society declaration in Bonn, around the need for a new framework to ‘manage the world’s production and consumption patterns in more sustainable and equitable ways’ -  there is still too little being said about how to achieve the massive changes that would be required for sustainable development and social justice to be achieved on a global scale.  Skepticism and wariness characterize the views of many in relation to what is likely to be a protracted inter-governmental negotiation process. These have not had a good track record lately.

Here’s a bold and practical suggestion for the High Level Panel (and all those involved in trying to influence the post-2015 framework): citizen participation.  Not just citizen participation as in asking people living in greatest poverty to tell people in the UN what they want, but citizen participation as in creating opportunities for people to have a real say in the decisions that affect their lives. Not just citizens as in people holding passports for a particular national government, but people everywhere with the right to have rights, irrespective of their official status, gender, sexuality, disability, age, race, or religion.  Citizen participation is a bold approach for the post-2015 framework, because it turns much of received wisdom about ‘aid’ and international frameworks on its head:  it is not just about a small global elite ‘hearing the voices of the poor,’ but about creating sustainable and long-term mechanisms for citizens to be involved in decision-making at all levels (from local to global).  What is missing from all the talk about how to make the new global framework tackle the big problems facing all of us, is a focus on who needs to lead that transformation: citizens, themselves. Early findings from the Participate initiative show that top down policies and interventions frequently fail to respond to the everyday realities of those living in poverty, and increase their sense of powerlessness.

If it is done well, citizen participation would shake the very foundations of the current global power structure, getting to the root causes of poverty rather than just the symptoms.

Citizen participation is also practical in that there is already a long-track record of a range of approaches and mechanisms to citizen participation, and a large body of research that points to some clear ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ if you want meaningful citizen participation.  Consider where democracy is really flourishing at the moment:  while the US and many countries in Europe face financial crisis and political apathy, Brazil, India, South Africa, the Philippines, and others have been at the forefront of innovations in citizen participation.  There is a lot of evidence about how citizen participation can deliver better outcomes, in terms of citizens more capable of claiming their rights, states that are more accountable and responsive and societies that are more cohesive and inclusive.

According to the Participate initiative, the global framework could do at least two things to encourage meaningful citizen participation: strengthen the capacities of citizens to claim their rights (and of institutions to respond); and build in citizen-led processes of regulation and monitoring to really hold governments and agencies to account for their commitments in the post-2015 framework. (See Chapter 5 of ‘What Matters Most’ report).

This is not to suggest that citizen participation is a silver bullet.  It comes with its own potential problems and draw-backs, not least of which is the risk that it is used to keep people busy participating about relatively inconsequential questions, while the real power is exercised elsewhere.  It must be adapted to the particular circumstances and power dynamics in which it is used.  No global framework can really achieve a context-specific approach to addressing entrenched problems.  But a global framework can enable more opportunities for citizen participation that others can take up at local, national and regional levels.

The most compelling reason for taking citizen participation seriously in the post-2015 framework is not the view of a researcher at IDS (or anywhere else), but rather that it is a demand being made by people living in extreme poverty and marginalisation in over 100 countries. The Participate initiative has found that many of those living in the greatest exclusion and marginalisation believe that their meaningful participation can make development more inclusive and sustainable. People want to have a say in the actual decisions that get made about them.  If the international community were to listen, it would be truly bold.

Read other recent blog posts from Participate:

• What matters most? Participate Initiative presents research to post 2015 High Level Panel
• ‘Share an idea so that you and I can change tomorrow’
• Post-2015 civil society consultations: our shared perspectives
• Participatory visual processes in Nairobi’s margins

Find out more about the Politics of Evidence

Susanne Schirmer

Yesterday a conference on ‘The Politics of Evidence’ got underway. It is convened by the Big Push Forward Initiative and hosted here at IDS, welcoming about 110 participants for two days.

For all those who haven’t been able to make it to the conference, the final plenary session will be live streamed at 15.45GMT this afternoon (Wednesday 24^th April). This final session aims to bring together and synthesize the conference debates in generating ideas for collaborative efforts in tackling the drivers as well as the consequences of the current politics of evidence with respect to supporting transformative development.

You can find out more about the conference proceedings on the Big Push Forward website where Brendan Whitty has been blogging with reflections on the first day of the conference and Rosalind Eyben has outlined the conference aims and provided two papers prepared in advance of the conference.

Alternatively, follow the conference on Twitter (#evpolitics).

Sue Schirmer works as Communications Coordinator for the Participation, Power and Social Change team at IDS.

Debating the ‘politics of evidence’

Chris Speed

With just a few days left until the “Politics of Evidence” Conference tomorrow , we are all very excited for the coming conversations and experience-sharing with various programme participants from around the world! As a platform to systematically scrutinise roles of “evidence” and the results agenda in transformational development, we are looking forward to the plenary presentations and group discussions surrounding these contentious and important issues. During the conference, we will be sharing participant experiences and information via video, photos and narratives on various social media platforms to share and engage with others in the global development community. Even though the conference is now closed for participant registration, the final plenary session will be live streamed at 15.45 GMT on Wednesday, 24 April.

This conference comes at a time when international development practitioners and policy makers continue to debate and challenge existing modes of social change initiatives and evidence-based practices. Some of the key points participants will be debating involve:

• the meaning of “the politics of evidence” and why it is important
• transformative intentions and impacts of various approaches on evidence of and for change
• what factors and relationships are involved in driving less useful practices and protocols
• people’s acceptance or rejection of these existing practices and protocols and the ensuing alternatives for transformational development

Some of the conference goals include for the participants to collectively generate:

• conceptual clarity about “the politics of evidence” and space for debates and practices around development results
• mapping of consequences on all levels regarding current foci on evidence and results
• strategies and new ideas to deal with results-oriented measurement
• ideas for collaborative efforts to address and challenge the “politics of evidence”

There have been numerous interesting debates and online discussions around the “politics of evidence”. A recent blog post from Rosalind Eyben and Chris Roche spelled out well the arguments going into a conference such as this. Some key points include acknowledging and challenging our “philosophical plumbing”, understanding the politics of our “knowledge generation” as development practitioners and the value of reflexivity in challenging existing practices. I really enjoyed this particular quote from Eyben and Roche:

Those of us working as practitioners, bureaucrats and scholar activists in international development cannot escape the contradiction that we are strategizing for social transformation from a position in a global institution – international development – that can and does sustain inequitable power relations, as much as it succeeds in changing them.

 As an MA student at IDS who will be rapporteuring and assisting with social media at the conference, I am personally excited for the conversations that will be taking place next week. In particular, the exchange’s potential for shaping future development policy and practice. We look forward to you joining us on Twitter (#evpolitics) and with our live stream at 15.45 GMT on 24 April!

Chris Speed is an M.A. student in the Participation, Power and Social Change programme at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisLSpeed

Storytelling in Development Practice

Hamsini Ravi

‘Reflective Practice and Social Change’ is one of the modules on offer to MA students here at IDS , convened by the Participation team. The course offers a stimulating weekly space to try out and reflect on practices that can potentially make us better development practitioners. In the session on storytelling and narratives, we reflected on the number of ways stories can be used in development practice.

We unanimously agreed that stories are a powerful, yet underrated medium. Humans are socialised through the myriad of stories, bonds are created, history is relived and lessons are learnt through stories. The non-profit sector is a treasure chest of humbling and powerful stories of men and women, seeking and braving change. Stories have the magical power to liven up a 500-page annual report that no one wants to read; they can foster a shared organisational spirit in a room full of people working in different contexts and capacities; as well as lend depth and meaning to an evaluation study.

In the context of a development organisation, stories and storytelling can be used in:

• Research
• Monitoring & Evaluation (M & E)
• Communications/ Advocacy
• Organisational learning.

Research

Storytelling works wonderfully well in research studies and investigations, and can be an effective prompt, when asking people about personal moments in their lives. It also enables the storyteller, as well as the listener, to be reflexive  about the topic in consideration. For a researcher, it can help unpack their positionality in the research process and allow them to confront and work on their biases upfront. As a research tool, stories are accessible, account for cultural diversity and require no reading or writing skills. As useful as this may seem, there are some ethical considerations, viz, ownership, use of data, confidentiality, placing the story in its respective cultural context. These can be navigated by acquiring informed consent, and constantly reflection on use and interpretation of other’s stories by the researcher.

Monitoring and Evaluation

As a tool used in M & E, storytelling can challenge our linear thought processes, giving space for non-linear relationships in interventions. They enable a more holistic understanding of people’s lives, dismissing the categories that funding and donor agencies tend to box beneficiaries into. The politics of using storytelling in monitoring and evaluation of development projects is that the evaluator may not always hear the things he/ she wants to hear. It is therefore necessary to constantly negotiate expectations of community reviews with the donor.

Advocacy and Communications

In advocacy and communications, stories can make up the oft-missing emotional link. It can also inform funders of realities on the ground and be used in promoting inter-cultural communication and understanding. While, a proportion of non-profits do use stories in their marketing and advocacy collaterals, it is apparent that this is often plagued with issues of manipulation, representation and dissemination. Stories could be tweaked and exaggerated to suit the needs of the organisation, and these issues can be overcome by strengthening consent processes and quality checks.

Organisational learning

Organisational change and learning can involve a healthy dose of stories and storytelling. From organising sharing sessions to using stories in induction programmes to integrating divisions within an organisation, there are a multitude of possibilities. For instance, each division of the organisation could narrate the intricacies of their project through a story to the marketing division to foster better understand.

While tapping into the collective processes of sharing and telling, storytelling can make the development sector as a whole more reflective in its approach and policies. It can bridge geographical and hierarchical divides and highlight the more humane elements of our work and personalities. Can we take this as a personal challenge to incorporate more stories in our work as development professionals?

Hamsini Ravi is an MA Development Studies student at IDS.

The MA Participation, Power and Social Change (MAP) at IDS is a unique 12-month course providing experienced development workers and social activists with the opportunity to critically reflect on their practice and develop their knowledge and skills through a work-based action research project.

What Matters Most? Participate Initiative presents research to post 2015 High Level Panel

Catherine Setchell

This post previously appeared on 24 March 2013 on the Participate blog. Subscribe to their blog for regular updates on the Participate initiative.

The High Level Panel (HLP) of Eminent Persons appointed by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon met for the fourth time at the end of March in Bali, Indonesia to debate the future global development agenda after 2015, when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire.

The Participate initiative, co-convened by IDS and Beyond2015 was there to present the findings of its synthesis research report, ‘What Matters Most? Evidence from 84 participatory studies with those living with extreme poverty and marginalisation’

Participate presented the early findings of their research synthesis at the second HLP meeting in February in Monrovia, Liberia to panel members and their advisors. Since this meeting, Participate has completed the analysis of 84 participatory research studies, and aims to inform the post-2015 policy discussions with evidence from people living in extreme poverty. The findings will be shared with the High Level Panel, civil society organisations and policymakers as part of a ‘town hall’ session on Citizens’ Voices for the Post-2015 Agenda at the Bali meeting.

The key messages that emerged from the research include the following:

• In 83 per cent of the studies, social inequalities were identified as persistent and perpetuating exclusion at all levels of development.
• A recurring message appeared in 63 per cent of studies that the very poorest are unable to access the infrastructure, services, support and opportunities that others who are less poor can.
• 73 per cent of the studies identified the need for meaningful participation of marginalised people in development which will lead to local ownership and the sustainability of development approaches.
• 44 per cent of the studies highlighted that poor governance reinforces poverty for the poorest and most marginalised.

Based on the findings from the research, Participate will be highlighting to the HLP in Bali that the success of the future post-2015 framework rests on its ability to respond to:

• Highly dynamic contexts                     

The landscape of poverty is increasingly characterised by crisis, shocks, conflict, uncertainty and volatility. Policies and approaches need to be more adaptive to continuously changing environments and circumstances.

• Social norms that discriminate

Systems and institutions that support people’s claims to rights can be undermined by intolerance and prejudice. Challenging unfair power structures that entrench inequalities is critical for positive change in people’s live.

• Complex relationships between different problems.

Answering one part of a problem does not produce sustainable outcomes for the poorest unless all interrelated issues are simultaneously addressed. Policies need to be underpinned by a deep systemic understanding of people’s everyday lives. Agile learning and processes for generating feedback are required at local, national and global levels.

The research shows that people living in greatest poverty and those most marginalised want a different kind of development, where interventions and public policies enact principles that are inclusive and sustainable.

Participate’s key recommendations, based on the findings of the research are:

• The post-2015 framework should aim for the eradication of extreme poverty and reduction in inequalities.
• The post-2015 framework should strengthen the individual and collective capacities of people living in greatest poverty and marginalisation
• Participation should be prioritised throughout the post-2015 framework.

Read other recent blog posts from Participate:

• ‘Share an idea so that you and I can change tomorrow’
• Post-2015 civil society consultations: our shared perspectives
• Participatory visual processes in Nairobi’s margins
• Time to Listen