Friere and the problem of power in helping people

Friere (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Action Reflection: The activist is useless without reflection – there is no conscious direction. Reflection without action is also useless, it gets nothing done. - This concept is very similar to the metaphor of a car. It can’t get to its destination if it is not moving, or if it is moving in the wrong direction. It needs direction and action to achieve a goal.

The power of definition: One of the exercises is to get people to express their situation and see it for what it is, from their own perspective, not the perspective they have been fed for so long. This argument has a lot of similarity to Said and the concept of the Oriental. It was a category that was defined from the outside, and covered diversity and fit into the worldview of colonialism/oppression. The same thing happened with the “Nobel Savage.” These categories are based on a rejection of empathy, equality, and efforts at understanding. It is the construction of an other. The other is defined by the core, uppers, insiders, and is what matters. The periphery, lowers, outsiders, the other, are defined as what is on the other side of the boundary that creates the category of insider. In the case of colonialism, it was European / non-European. I personally never learned of a country that named itself non-European. This is a given identity. Rejecting this given identity for a self-defined identity is a process that rejects the status that is given, and empowers people to be equal, because each has a unique history, both are people, and each story is of equal value. African history is not a chapter in the book of European history. They are all sections in Human history.

The oppressed have to shake off oppression for the sake of the oppressors as well as themselves. Oppressing kills the humanity in people. It is a bondage that the oppressor can rarely shake off themselves. What does it mean to us in Canada to be the oppressor? It isn’t a common identity characteristic I take for myself, being in the development studies program and devoting my life to the poor. But there is something there. I enjoy my university degree and the prestige, and the moral superiority of the concern for the poor, and the standard of living I am able to maintain (because of little hands) because of my education. I have two lives. I go to work and spend that life working for the betterment of those suffering in poverty, then I go home to my Ikea condo. And I’ll be damned if I don’t feel cheated when an engineer makes more money than me with less education and experience.

Well, I did choose to work for the cause of poverty. I am not willing not to work on the cause of poverty. Within that qualification, I would like to get ahead as much as the next person. I would also like to do this ethically, not fighting against myself and with my consumption habits. But the wonders of global capitalism make it possible for me to not know the conditions in which my consumer goods were made.

I am losing track of where I was going. Solidarity with the poor v. being the oppressor. Is it possible to do both at the same time?

I think so, I do it at work and at home. I am an oppressor vis a vis the genetic lottery that gave me good health care, almost free education, cheap consumer goods. But I am also in solidarity with the poor because that is my existential identity.

When I evaluate my life I ask: What have you done for the poor today? I don’t ask how much money I made. Or if I have the approval of my superiors.

Here is another interesting thought I have been mulling over. I am part of something larger than myself (fighting poverty, injustice and death). The poor have one responsibility, take care of themselves, so I (social agencies) don’t have to, and so they can contribute instead of cost they system money. Within the social safety net is a built in hatred for the poor, mind you, it is also a love, because without the poor, my life would be meaningless (Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling).

But, I don’t focus on caring for myself (the advice so often given out to homeless people). I focus on this larger thing that I am a part of and I find my identity in. If I just had to take care of myself, what’s the point? Why get out of bed in the morning?

I think a good way of summarizing this idea is the Nihilistic gospel of the Social Safety Net.

Once again, I think this gets back to Friere’s point on the power of definition (identity construction). If the poor are given the chance to define themselves (instead of being classified as homeless, or poor), and each individual finds their story, and the explanation of why they are homeless, what they are struggling and succeeding with, then perhaps appropriate solutions can be found. They will have a clear picture of what large social forces they are a part of. Instead of accepting the identity of loser, down and outer, addict, homeless, and all the power relations that are associated with those titles. Maybe these people can find their identity in their story, their history, and be equal human beings with the rest of “normal” society.

So what is a more appropriate gospel for the Social Safety Net? One that focuses on story telling, and recognizes the individuality of people (v. the faceless herding of the current shelter system). This may be the Housing First principle manifest in the Thames reach organization. The organization sends taxis out to go find “rough” sleepers – people sleeping outside, and offers them an apartment, then they are offered what ever resources they need, counselling, job training, etc.

But this project of identity creation is also grounded in an existentialist understanding of people’s responsibility; not blaming social forces, but recognizing their role in the same time.

Karl Polanyi argues that the problem with capitalism is that no one is ultimately responsible. Unemployment (homelessness) is the fault of the “invisible hand.” Perhaps the movement of existentialism is in reaction to the invisible hand. Which are the rules that everyone agrees to play by, but seemingly, no one established. My Marxist friend describes this situation as the problem of liberalism – you can see the problem, but are powerless to change anything.

This gets back to my dualistic life as a good liberal. I work against oppression and to improve the plight of the poor during the day. Then at night I consume and live the life of a “normal” (in the sense of the power of definition) middle class citizen (v. non-citizen, ie. homeless person). The steps in the value added chain separate me from assuming responsibility. What is the existential cost of this distance, of disempowerment? I can not change my situation, so I can not make decisions, so, I can not create who I am.

Kierkegaard talks about the anxiety of possibility – the possibilities of who I can be, then the anxiety of being that person, asking what if.

Am I able to create my identity and make decisions to the extent that I do not depend on the material comforts of western life? Does my soft bed and the indoors keep me from being who I am?

But, I suppose choosing the comforts of life over solidarity with the poor is an identity choice and I become that choice.

Can a choice be made without Sarte’s Anguish, Forlornness, and Despair? Maybe that was an existential choice. I have put those elements into the choice to serve the poor with my life. But is the situation of comfort getting in the way of the implementation of that choice? Or is the implementation the choice?

This is the split between who I am and how I live. It is hypocrisy.

On the other hand, I see my role one of empowerment. Gaining a position of authority and being an insider, upper who can disempower myself, and pass that power onto the communities I will work with; creating capacity and resiliency to deal with future problems.

I suppose mine is a slippery slope, ensuring that the identity of who I am is defined by what I do for the poor, not the comforts I have, and the selfish personal choices I am bound to face. Because the more I choose comfort the more I will find my identity in comfort instead of solidarity with the poor.

Right, the Anguish, Forlornness and Despair are qualifications for making an authentic choice. So the more I go through, the more authentic I will be.

There is a similar Christian idea, God has a plan for your life, and if you follow this plan you will be happy, if you don’t you won’t be happy.

Both of these correspond to my situation because solidarity with the poor is an authentic choice for me. But, comfort is something that I slide into unconsciously. I do not go through AFD, and therefore, it is not an authentic life.

Here is my fundamental question, what is the point of getting up in the morning if you aren’t working toward the betterment of other people? I guess a lot of people have their families.

Is responsibility for other people the only reason for living?

And, what are the power relations in this situation? I am dependent on those people needing me, and I am more powerful than those I am responsible for. They do not have responsibility for themselves because I have it. I am in control of the people I am responsible for. And this is my reason for getting up in the morning.

I sound like a sadistic prison guard.

Is social services a sadistic prison?

Oh, the complexity of altruistic existential exploitation.

The ironic part is that maybe I need to be part of something larger (fighting poverty) because I haven’t faced my own mortality, finitude. Am I comfortable with my finitude; can I find a point within myself for getting out of bed in the morning?

Without poor people I would be nothing, I would have no identity. This doesn’t scare me though, it is the goal of my life. Because then I can dissipate into infinitude. This is a nonsensical way of saying that I would be alright with not having an identity if there were no poor people. I could live for myself. – I say this because when I do enjoy material possessions, the guilt is that everyone can’t enjoy them. I am separated from the rest of humanity by my access. I don’t want to be separated by winning. I want to be completely ordinary, have my life not stand out in any way. What I mean is that I would love to live in a world where there was no haves and have nots. And if I do live in a world with haves and have nots, then I want to be in the latter group. My hypocrisy is that I am in the former group.

PAR and Pragmatism

My Recent Questions:

Q: How do I do development?

A: Ask people what they need/ figure it out with them, then do it/get it. Sophistication is added in the method/worldview of Participatory Action Research.

Q: How do I do Participatory Action Research?

A: Research is a subjective exercise (no matter what ideas of objectivity conventional social sciences delude themselves with). The outsider brings an outside perspective (free from local political correctness, etc.) and offers knowledge of research methods and facilitation to the insiders. The insiders have local knowledge and complex understandings of their own situation/context. The two, insiders and outsider, can define a research agenda and carry it out together.

Q: I need a stronger foundation in pragmatism/post modern (feminist) critique of objective, positivist science.

A: Gadamer (1975) Truth and Method – From Phenomenology to pragmatism

Diggins (1994) The promise of Pragmatism, and

Rorty (1979) Philosophy and the mirror of nature

Transit Pricing

The following post is my analysis of the user fee for transit

I am arguing for a greater spread between the cost of using a monthly pass and single fares.


so like myth busters:

Warning Accounting content!

Facts:
a month transit pass is in Calgary, Alberta is $75.00
one fare is $2.25

So if you take 33 trips (75/2.25) in a month you break even.

if you take transit to work or school 2 trips a day * 5 days = 10 trips a week * 4 weeks = 40 trips

it would cost $90 to pay for individual fares, and you could save $15 dollar per month by buying a month transit pass.

Accounting Principles:
Marginal cost: this is a cost that increases with the quantity (materials, one fare)
fixed cost: this is a cost that remains the same and does not depend on quantity (also called sunk cost) an example is capital investments (the factory, the transit pass)

People will use transit more often if they have a monthly pass because there is no cost increase associated with taking one more trip if a person has a monthly pass.
note: this is great for the transit system because most "extra trips" are made during low demand times, utilizing unused capacity that has to be around anyway (a sunk/fixed cost). The benefit of this is that one less car is on the road.

But, people won't take that extra trip if they are using buss passes because it will increase the cost (marginal cost) of transit, so they will drive or get a ride, maybe driving beside the buss looking at their extra seat.

Now multiply that by the number of people that use single fares instead of a monthly pass and then think about the extra road maintenance and traffic. It just is not an efficient way of transporting people.

That is why I am arguing for a greater spread between the cost of using a monthly pass and single fares.

trying to articulate what I want to do when I grow up

I am interested in communities and how communities define their needs and how to equally value the opinions and perspectives of those that are lowers in the community. Also, how to create valuable opportunities and policies that will increase access to those communities so they are able to sustainably reach their needs; avoiding situations of dependency and the uppers of a community stockpiling resources to the detriment of the lowers. I want to implement sustainable livelihoods program:

Financial – income, access to credit

Social – support networks, political participation

Human – skills, labour, health

Physical – shelter, basic consumer needs, tools

Natural – land, water, livestock

Personal – self-esteem, spirituality

Everyone has all of these needs to have a sustainable livelihood (maybe an area of personal research? – is this true?). A community is made up of interacting individuals and to make reach development the power relations (interpersonal, political, judicial, corruption etc.) must be addressed to ensure (ensure what?)

Are the resources out there, they just have to be used better? and using par I am able to listen to where those needs are and using the help of the community, direct the flow of resources accordingly? Is the problem corruption, lack of resources, mismanagement? Why are these people not getting their resources?

Fort McKay got them because they had oil that needed to be extracted for Western society. My role with the Lubicon is to increase the legitimacy, urgency and power of their claims. In that situation I can see how having a resource management background could increase legitimacy.

But maybe in a different context a development background would be better. Especially if the problem is social – ie. I am a development professional and I say that it is because of high level government corruption that these people are not getting X very well defined resources (using sustainable livelihoods or another Participatory Action Research model).

What is the focus? Needs assessment using Participatory Action Research methods, and this will create a research project for me, and meet the needs of the community. ie. if the resources aren’t available because of high level corruption, then I can study the impact of corruption on local communities. Maybe even find other communities that have the same problems and have a rather large study of the impacts of the Swiss bank account of one official.

Shining a bright light on a dark place.

Liberation Theology

This is the third post I have started. The first one turned into a rant about my job, Kafka, and being a cog in a complex system I serve. The second one just got too big. So this one I am just going to write one quote that sums it up.

“Where oppression and the liberation of man seem to make God irrelevant – a God filtered by our longtime indifference to these problems – there must blossom faith and hope in Him who comes to root out injustice and to offer, in an unforeseen way, total liberation.”

Solidarity with the poor means asking new questions and finding new answers (theology). This experience of solidarity results from an encounter with God and with the reality of poverty.

The result is an understanding of God's preference for the poor, and intrinsic opposition to injustice and death.

Poverty means death because of hunger and sickness and often state repression. To extend the kingdom of God is to be in solidarity with the poor.

Liberation Theology; PAR and empowerment

I recently read Gustavo Gutierrez's "We Drink from Our Own Wells". It is an introductory book to liberation theology.

The crux of this theology really rests on highly developed concepts of life and death.

Think of all the things that make you feel alive, and lead to life.
Then think of all the things that make you feel/lead to death.

Christ came to set us free and offer us life. Things that draw us into self-destruction and institutions that do not promote life are sinful and against the kingdom of God.

I feel alive in conversation with a friend, when I wake up and go outside on a misty morning and enjoy the quite before the day. Moments that slow me down and make me appreciate life and feel a sense of awe.

I feel dead after watching TV for multiple hours and wasting time; "escaping". After stressing about the work I have to do, and trying to figure out ways to get ahead in life. In spending hours of my time desiring a product. I look back on these experiences with a sense of weariness.

Right now my job is making me feel dead. My job is for a downtown shelter, but I am not given an opportunity to get to know people. I start work when they are relaxing and going to bed and end work when they wake up. My job is to enforce the rules. Make sure everyone is in on time, they do their chores, they get up on time, etc.

Yesterday I was reading a short description of The Trial by Kafka. The story is about a man who is informed that he is being arrested. He is never actually arrested, and people keep coming up to him and telling him that his case is going badly. No one actually knows anything about the case or about how he can influence it at all. They just know that this is what they had to tell him. (They got an email telling them that this was their job for the day). He eventually ends up at a church under the pretext of showing a client around and there the chapalain tells him that he lost his case and when he leaves he will be executed. During this conversation he tells him the story of a man from a village that came up to the castle of law but the gate keeper wouldn't let him through. So this man disempowers himself and waits for permission. He waits so long that he eventually dies. As he is dying he sees the door close and asks the guard why and the guard replies that this door was only for him to enter and now that he is dying it can be closed. The guard also says that it is probably good that he never tried to get past the guard because there are further guards that even this guard is scared of.

I feel like I am a guard whose job it is to make people obey the system that has been established, no matter how arcane it is for the individual circumstance. As a guard people are allowed to go above my head and challenge my boss, but it is also my job (so I can save face and seem productive) to prevent them, unless it is something very serious. When it comes down to it, my job is to disempower people and empower the complex system. The idea is that once the people get through the system they will be off the street. It works for a few, but I just feel like it is making it way harder than it has to be.

This is where Participatory Action Research (PAR) comes in. Liberation theology is a root of PAR. The idea is that people know their own reality and are able to come up with causes of why they are struggling with the problems they are much better than proffessionals. The idea is to put the first last and the last first. It values service instead of leadership, collaboration instead of top-down answers. Empowering people to use systems instead of empowering systems by subordinating people to rules (systems, institutions).

I want to learn how to bring people life, not the feeling of disempowerment and insignificance that massive complex systems are prone to bring.

A rant on Development Studies; community formation and the internet

One of the leaders of the development studies club (www.ucalgary.ca/~dsc) sent out an email about indifference and how people should get involved in issues. The personal and ranting tone his email adopted inspired me to respond: (note: dest = development studies)

Hey Mike,

I appreciated your email.

It's about indifference and laziness. We (in dest) all get that the issues are important, and have indicated so with our professional lives. Which I guess is huge. But I think that Dest isn't a career it is a paradigm. EWB is a great example. These are people with a different education, but do development.

I guess the point is that from a dest student's perspective, getting involved in grassroots issues is - at the most superficial level - career development. And at the deepest level, finding an identity.

I am in my 5th year and what I am finding as I am faced with venturing out into the world and leaving the cacoon of university is exactly what you are talking about. I am finding it necessary to get involved in issues because I need to figure out my identity and what I want to fight for. I am doing this by volunteering with different campaigns, and doing the things you identified as being so important.

So...what came to mind for me when I read your letter is that it would be great to have a website that can allow discussion between dest students and the uofc crowd (ie.linked to the dest club) focused on issues. One thing that I think is tough to overcome in our program is the generational gap between years. Maybe a central forum for discussion would help overcome this. (or at least be part of the package of the dest community)

side note: I think a discussion forum/blog/website is a good idea because dest students have a lot of issues to work out.

I guess the internet could be a way of exposing the underside of the dest club and make it easier to be involved. Not everyone knows/feels comfortable coming out to events and maybe if there was a way to make it easier to take the first step more people would get involved. (it is a theory - but ??).

Dest community is what I expected and was looking for, but didn't find until my fourth year.

An office/lounge would be awsome where people could go and discuss issues and connect with people that are in the same program.

I guess I am talking about points of entry into the club now. Currently, entry points into the dest community are: classes, dest events/planning and attending. I guess it would be great if there were more.

What you gues have done is great. It is already a much different dest student community than in my 1st year.

Anyway,

Maybe if there was a link from the dest website to a blog on dest issues and as it grew from a general topic it could split off into specifics, and kind of have a natural life of its own, reflecting the thinking of the community.

I guess we all struggle with the same question: What the hell do I do? Where do I fit in it all? Those can be pretty paralyzing questions if they are held on to alone, but they can be empowering if they are asked in the context of a community and answers can be found - however temporary - leading to action instead of the dest depression.

I think I have said this before, but I think getting involved is better for ending up with an issue/job than a dest degree.

Thanks for listening to my rant.