UnMasking Power Relations: From Interview Research to Dialogue for Social Change

1. UnMasking Power Relations:From Interview Research to Dialogue for Social Change Blake Poland Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto Francisco Cavalcante Jr. Faculty of Education, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil CQ Seminar Series, March 26, 2010 Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research, University of Toronto

2. conversations with a purpose- the intention space of dialogue - from research tool to mutual transformative (co)learning & community empowerment, social change

3. Outline • empowerment & social equity require understanding power relations (the causes of the causes) • the material & cultural bases of inequity • authentic dialogue as empowerment work • putting ‘culture work’ @ centre of health promotion • dialogical communities as consciousness evolving

4. Health Promotion: key tenets • working at multiple (interconnected) levels: individual, organizational, community, structural • person-environment relationship • empowerment • starting where the people are • recognizing & strengthening capacity • attentiveness to power relations

5. Health Promotion: key challenges • behaviour change <-> societal change • structural analysis + psychology of personal transformation / collective action • dialectical relationship between agency & structure • deepening the social analysis

6. Deepening the Social Analysis • examining & legitimizing personal experience • seeing connections with others (inter-subjective) • locating collective experience in broader context • examining relations of power (how some interests routinely prevail over others) Examples: • feminist theory & practice • anti-racist & anti-oppression, post-colonial frameworks • political economy of health • Freirian critical pedagogy

7. Inequities in Health: Some Start(l)ing Assumptions • structures & practices that generate & sustain inequities in health are relatively robust & resistant to change • power exercised through • control of material resources • control of human resources • control of ideas (hegemony, culture) (Grabb, 1997) • inequities are naturalized through dominant cultural discourses of relative merit (ability, effort, ‘taste’), ‘human nature’, inevitability, etc • widespread propagation and acceptance of these ideas contribute to “keeping people in their place”

8. seeking a deeper social analysis about the cultural and material bases of power and inequity

9. Why Culture? “we cannot interpret social behaviour without acknowledging that it follows codes it does not invent” (Alexander, 1990, p.26) • changing (lay or professional) practice means changing (organizational & societal) culture (McCormack et al, 1999)

10. “Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language”(Williams, 1981, p.87) Notwithstanding extensive analysis & debate, commentators generally agree that: • Cultures involve shared beliefs/values at a variety of scales (family, organization, community, region, nation) • Cultures give meaning to ways of life and act as a lens through which we look at the world that both affects and represents our behaviour, and • Cultures produce (and are reproduced through) material and symbolic forms (literature, law, media, etc) (Crang 1998)

11. Culture is Contested • cultural studies / new cultural geography view culture “as the site of negotiation, conflict, innovation, and resistance within the social relations of societies dominated by power and fractured by divisions of gender, class and ‘race’”(Green 1997, p.125) • varies across space and time (e.g. ‘culture of place’ - Poland et al, 2005)

12. Social analysis -> social change, via dialogue the purposeful use of dialogue as a catalyst for individual and social change through a deepening of the social analysis about the links between personal experience (of marginalization) and the cultural and material bases of power and inequity

13. Why Dialogue? • dialogue as human way of being/engaging in the world (Bakhtin) • a key site of cultural reproduction/transformation • the power of small groups (being, belonging, becoming; affirmation, learning, catalysts for change) • reflexivity arising from dialogue with the ‘Other’

14. Reflective Practice • mastery of a changing environment requires constant learning through engagement and dialogue • from techniques to framing & reflexivity

15. Dialogue: key questions • what is ‘authentic’ dialogue? • what principles & considerations should inform the application of dialogical methods as a tool for reflexive practice development? • how can dialogue be brought more fully into health promotion? • (how) can dialogue support progressive social change? • what are the merits & dangers of instrumentalizing dialogue?

16. What authentic dialogue is NOT • a process for extracting information • debate or discussion for the purpose of persuading • a political tool for diffusing tension & delaying action • a generic method with controllable results (reducible solely to its techniques)

17. Dialogical Traditions Around the World • Jurgen Habermas’ ‘ideal speech communities’ • Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy • George & Louise Spindlers’ cultural therapy • Francisco Cavalcante Jr.’s (con)text method & circles of (multiple) literacies • Michael Lerner: circles of compassion • Mikhail Bakhtin: heteroglossia & the addressivity of speech • Martin Buber: I-Thou (dialogic source of knowing) vs. I-It (dialectic) derivations/abstractions thereof • David Bohm: the implicate order in a participatory universe • World Café movement (e.g. Concordia’s University of the Streets) • Carl Rogers: person-centred encounter groups • chaos, panarchy, complexity, dialogue & social innovation (Gunderson & Holling; Scharmer; Senge; Westley; et al)

18. Dialogue: key elements • telling stories that touch others; being touched • genuine curiosity (but caution re voyeuristic cannibalism of the ‘Other’) • attentive to power relations & how they’re handled • attentive listening, with an open mind & heart • suspending judgment

19. Suspending Judgment • Act of non-violence - not silencing • Necessary to listen - open to being touched, changed • Draws out what is good in the person - e-value-ation: finding value

21. 3 Layers of Trans-form-action (LER) • Intra-subjective - leitura - reading the wor(l)d, awakening, liberation • Inter-subjective - escrita - writing the wor(l)d, sharing, compassion • Trans-subjective - recriacao - acting in the world, change (Francisco Cavalcante Jr.)

22. Cavalcante’s Circles of Literacies: key features • Valuing human differences • heterogeneous group composition • Realization of multiple human potentialities • people are talented, skillful, varied • people need space and time to reveal themselves • Liberating & growth-enhancing practice • ‘rescuing the self through reading & writing’ • rediscover thirst & capacity for change (Francisco Cavalcante Jr., 1999/2000)

23. Beyond techniques… To some, asking “what is dialogue?” invites/implies academic definition & specification of techniques… …but, examining the actual practices of dialogue we see that the intention, purpose and conditions of application are also key… …and that the latter include not only the broader context of application (e.g., leadership/organizational receptivity) but also what participants bring in terms of expectations and quality of presence…

24. Dialogue: some emergent principles of engagement* To the full extent we are able… • We operate from a fundamental respect in the inherent dignity and worth of every human being (including ourselves) • We are animated by a genuine interest in the other, and in learning from each other. • We find value in each other exactly as we are in mind, body, emotion and spirit. We find value in the diverse perspectives, experiences, and ways of knowing, that we bring individually and collectively to this dialogue. • We are motivated by love and anchored in humility (there are few right answers, and none of us have all of them!)

25. Dialogue: some emergent principles (2) • We are open to being moved, even transformed, by the process. And yet, we let go of attachments to having to have the outcome of dialogue look the way we imagine it 'should'. In other words, we are motivated by personal and collective desire for understanding and transformation, and yet we are also mindful that too many (or too rigid) expectations can lead to disappointment and to an inability to see the unique gifts that every situation contains (and that every person brings). 6. We are responsible for our own learning and also for the learning of others by the quality of preparedness, attention, humility, acceptance, listening, and participation we bring to the dialogue. We claim the courage to speak as well as the courage to listen fully to each other (listen to the ideas, but also to the emotional content, to the multiple subtexts, and to attend to the full person) * we wish to acknowledge contribution of students in CHL7001 Dialogical Methods & Reflexive Practice Development: Suzannah Bennet, KateKennedy, Catherine Maule, Uitsile Ndovlu, Josephine Wong

26. Authentic dialogue across difference: some propositions • Avoids/goes beyond voyeuristic engagement with the ‘Other’ as a kind of intellectual tourism (respects natural curiosity while problematizing tendency to cannibalistic consumption of the exotic) • The onus for educating the privileged about oppression is not borne exclusively by the oppressed; oppressors take initiative to educate themselves • Is politically motivated (has emancipatory purpose beyond celebration of difference/multiplicity of voices) • Moves beyond ‘group therapy’: sharing experiences & examining social location are not ends in themselves but starting points for critical deconstruction of cultural and material structures/mechanisms of oppression, and possibilities for progressive social change / (re)reading & (re)writing the world

27. Limit-situations to be mindful of • Dominant modus operandi of managerialism and ‘best practice’ frameworks favours instrumentalization of dialogue as a set of techniques to be deployed to ‘manage’ public participation in institutional projects • The natural tendency of privilege is to be blind to itself; oppression (as a term & a reality) is only controversial to the privileged • Language & culture often conspire to obfuscate how power & privilege operate; the privileged often take exception to the language of oppression & prefer to discuss poverty, social inclusion, SES, or the self-harming behaviours of the poor (crime, smoking, etc) rather than the structures & practices of oppression perpetuated daily by themselves, their peers, and the institutions in which they have placed their faith (the market, the police, social welfare agencies, the educational system…) • Postmodern politics of difference (an almost narcissistic preoccupation with voice and the inability to claim any authority or libertory project) may sometimes undermine those who would act to challenge oppressive structures & practices

28. Transformative Dialogic Communities • Tapping collective wisdom to address complex challenges & ‘epochal change’ (O’Hara & Woods, 2005) • Under supportive conditions for transformative dialogue (sustained contact, skilled non-directive facilitation, open-heartedness, deep listening, respect, relational empathy, warmth, non-judgment, diversity, humility, willingness to let go, present-moment focus, respectful impertinance), an emergent self-organizing & transcendent group wisdom is discernable • Dialogue is more than a sharing of inner worlds. It builds new meaning as well as revealing the wisdom present and emergent in the group. • Deep, authentic group dialogue is frequently transformative in unexpected ways. “It is a way of feeling, living, experiencing and being together in ways that provide a context for consciousness advancement” (O’Hara & Woods, p.129)

29. Implications for Qualitative Researchers • What quality of being do we bring to our work? • What if we adopted a more radically dialogical stance in qualitative research? • What if, as a field, qualitative research in the health sciences attended deeply to reality & wisdom of the ‘Other’? • What if we approached research as a rich opportunity for co-learning and deepening the social analysis about structures and practices of marginalization & emancipation, and as a celebration of humanity and of life? • What if we opened to and listened for the wisdom that is coproduced under conditions of transformative dialogue, in the relational space between participants and reducible to none of them?

30. Let’s Discuss! blake.poland@utoronto.ca fscavalcantejunior@gmail.com 978-7542 www.blakepoland.ca