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Condensed version of the IDS Topic Pack "Using Participatory Approaches in Health", containing a selection of readings on participatory methods and methodologies, abstracts of related readings, and information on other resources.
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Between 2008 and 2010 the Carnegie UK Trust and the Joseph Rountree Foundation jointly funded a programme of work on power, participation and social change. Over two years the project worked with 20 different organisations to explore ways in which the analysis of power could support them to achieve the social change they were working towards. The work revealed that a good understanding of power is a missing link between how people envisage the change they want, and how they go about achieving that in practice. This handbook – which supports the programmes report “Power and Making Change Happen” – is about taking action. It is a practical guide drawing on the methods and tools used to build the capacity of others and achieve social change. It is designed for people within organisations, networks or community groups who want to explore power as part of the process of change in their communities. As such it provides background information on power and facilitation, and looks at how to explore power through workshops, one-to-one mentoring and self reflection.
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This paper explores how outcome measurement is understood in several SDC local governance programmes, reviewed in a HELVETAS Learning Project. This critical review assesses the extent to which power issues are recognised, understood and tracked within such programmes and suggests ways to enhance this. This includes being clear about what power and empowerment mean in a particular context, how the way power is implicitly understood in local government programmes can lead to a focus only the more formal and visible dimensions of power, and how the complexity of power means that a more clearly articulated and power-aware theory of change underpinning the intervention is needed.
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This user guide on participatory communication aims to answer the following questions: What do we mean when we say participatory communications? What are the practical implications of working with participatory communication strategies in development and social change processes? What practical experiences document that participatory communication adds value to a development project of programme?
Many communication practitioners and development workers face obstacles and challenges in their practical work. A participatory communication strategy offers a very specific perspective on how to articulate social processes, decision-making processes and any change process for that matter. Participatory approaches are nothing new. At a time when institutions, both governmental and nongovernmental, increasingly seek participatory approaches in their development initiative, this guide provides perspective, tools and experiences on how to implement participatory communications strategies.
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This article reports on a scoping study called Power in Community in which the author carried out Power Talks with community activists in the north of England. She gives a comprehensive analysis of the meaning of power ranging from dominating power, to the power to co-operate, to empowerment. She then concludes that these community activists were using non-dominating power: describing power as enabling others, sharing and listening with others. The article argues that the evidence of practice on non-dominating power should be used to shift the debate from empowerment to transforming power.
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Action research provides an alternative approach to bringing about changes in knowledge, policy and practice. But to be effective and inclusive, taking into account complex dynamics of power and participation, action research requires capable facilitators with particular skills – such as the ability to give attention to personal and collective processes of reflection and action. This article explores the challenges of learning to do this kind of action research that are faced by practitioners and activists working for social change in diverse contexts around the world. It reviews these challenges, offering insights and lessons from an innovative master’s degree programme called the MA in Participation, Power and Social Change, which uses action research and reflective practice as the basis of its approach to learning.