This is a large assignment and you will be paid well, but due to how much I am spending I require it to be at a Masters of Education level. If it is poorly done, the funds will not go through.You must use the readings I provide for you. Which are attached, also underneath this document is a description of the school.No plagrism!!!Please use Harvard referencing!Create A Community Engagement Plan Word length: 2500-3000 words (not including end references)The task is to demonstrate an understanding of approaches to community engagement and to plan a community engagement strategy for _______School. I have provided you with an article that will give you a better picture of what the school looks like, make up some stuff if you need to!Process: To complete this assignment you will need to include the following:Identify and give a brief description of my School, (I have attatched a website and a document that will help you write this and the key stakeholders who would be key to the community engagement process, if you don’t know them just tell me where to write them in and I can do this). Provide an explanation for why change is needed and where the drive for change is coming from. Articulate a theory of change that is congruent with the change endeavor.Identify a model of community engagement that you will use for planning your engagement strategy. Articulate the principles that will guide your strategy. Consider how this community engagement process could contribute to a broader community development initiativeDevelop a community engagement strategy describing a range of processes to engage stakeholders in this change process.Identify and discuss the barriers and risks that may be experienced and how you might overcome these.Identify any social justice or political issues associated with this change initiative and how they could impact upon your plan?Assessment CriteriaClear explanation of the context, the community change issue, the community and key stakeholders, theoretical perspective that informs this change project and principles guiding community engagement (30 %)Critical analysis of the social justice and political issues (5%).Logically sequenced, coherent and sufficiently comprehensive plan for engagement (30%).Critical analysis of risks and barriers (10%)Demonstrated understanding of the relationship between community engagement and community development (5%)Integration of academic literature from a range of sources and appropriate academic writing and referencing (20%) PLEASE USE THE READINGS I PROVIDE FOR YOU!!!!SNAPSHOT ON SCHOOL
___________ School is a
relatively new school which opened in 2008 and has grown considerably, at
present it has over 1400 students. As the school has a large student population
the school is split into two sections. “The school has a Junior School catering
for students from Preschool to Year 4. The Secondary school includes students
from Year 5 to Year 6 (Middle School) and Year 9 and 10 (Senior School).”
(Holmes, 2015) The
school operates under a values system that is demonstrated in their Values and
Learning Statement and it is these values that aim to be upheld in all PLCs in
and around the school community. These values are Inclusion, Teamwork,
Endeavour, Respect, Resilience, Endeavour and Integrity. “The School is implementing the Australian
Curriculum and it has an aims to develop empowered learners who are taking a
greater responsibility in their learning pathway.” (Holmes, 2015)
The
school relies heavily on the parent community to raise extra funds to support
student learning and they are in charge of numerous fundraising initiatives
such as the school fair, canteen, the second hand uniform shop and other
fundraising avenues. _________School also has a parent committee that has a
large influence on policy development and the strategic direction of the
school.
According to the Principal
there are no official plans regarding how Learning Communities should operate.
However, the school has made decisions that are based on increasing
opportunities for collaboration, building and promoting teacher excellence and
utilising relevant student data to improve learning. The foundations of this
thinking comes from sources like John Hattie’s Visible Learning for Teachers –
Maximising Impact on Learning and the National School Improvement Tool from
ACER.
The Principal has also
stated that there has been a conscious decision to move away from doing
administrative discussions in all meetings to providing professional learning
and opportunities to collaborate, identifying and maximising the expertise
within the school, increasing the focus on collecting, analysing and using
data, and giving teams (or learning areas) time to develop/redevelop
consistency in curriculum planning, delivery and assessment. As an example, in
the whole school executive meetings they dedicate a considerable amount of our
meeting time to learning together about fierce conversations (based on Fierce
Conversations by Susan Scott) and applying this to conversations that challenge
their thinking about the school, how it is run, how it is organised (and why)
and application of their key beliefs. The purpose behind this is to develop
everyone’s skills at having fierce conversations along with clarifying our
collective thoughts/beliefs about the school and improving alignment of the
executive team. (Holmes, 2016)
Holmes is the principal:
reference:
1.
Holmes, Jason. (2016, April 17th). Harrison
School. personal communication with
Michael Chapman
cahill_2008_asia_pacific_viewpoint_2__1_.pdf
chambers_2006.pdf
mathie_and_cunningham_2003__2_.pdf
cameron_and_gibson_2005__2_.pdf
mannarini_and_fedi_2009___3_.pdf
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 49, No. 3, December 2008
ISSN 1360-7456, pp294–304
Power over, power to, power with: Shifting
perceptions of power for local economic development
in the Philippines
Amanda Cahill
Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific and Asia Studies, Australian National University, Canberra,
ACT 0200, Australia.
Email: amanda.cahill@anu.edu.au; a.cahill@ewb.org.au
Abstract: Power has long been recognised as crucial to the sustainability of community development interventions; however, the way in which space affects power relations within such interventions has remained relatively under-theorised in the development literature. Many practitioners
continue to regard power as located centrally and as embedded in particular institutions, networks,
knowledge and resources. According to this logic, processes of empowerment involve the redistribution of these resources to marginalised groups through their participation in development interventions such as microfinance and sustainable livelihood initiatives. The danger inherent in such
development approaches is that they can discourage the potential for participants to use their own
agency by overemphasising an existing lack of resources locally and inadvertently feeding a sense of
dependency on formal development interventions initiated by external agencies. This paper suggests
that a post-structural conceptualisation of power as dynamic, multiple and mediated at the local level
offers a more productive starting point for thinking about approaches to empowerment. Drawing on
data from an action research project designed to initiate community enterprises in a small rural
municipality in the Philippines, I suggest how a post-structural approach to power can be enacted by
building on the existing local resources and practices of everyday life.
Keywords:
economic development, empowerment, livelihood, South-East Asia
Introduction
Power remains central to the concerns community development seeks to address, whether
improving access to basic health and education services, generating sustainable livelihood
opportunities, addressing gender inequalities
or negotiating community management of
natural resources. Yet development scholars
and practitioners alike continue to overlook
the specific ways power is enacted in place,
focussing their attention instead on related yet
secondary processes such as participation, citizenship and good governance. I became interested in power and how its enactment peaked
after the 2004 presidential election in the
Philippines, when rumours abounded in the
nation’s capital about suspected coup d’état
plots. Having spent two weeks in Manila
during this tumultuous period, I returned to my
© 2008 The Author
Journal compilation © 2008 Victoria University of Wellington
field site in the distant province of Bohol in
the central Philippines and broached the
seemingly sensitive topic of a government
takeover with close friends working in local
government and non-government agencies.
Who did they think was behind the plots?
What would happen if they did succeed in
ousting the government? What role would the
military play after a coup attempt? To my surprise, my questions were nonchalantly dismissed. As one local councillor, aged in his
late 50s, responded:
That is only in Manila. Maybe these things
happen there, but they don’t mean so much
here, to us. Manila is only far away. We didn’t
even know about Marcos and martial law
before! Life was just the same here. Like
now . . . even (after political) devolution,
nothing changed really.
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2008.00378.x
Shifting perceptions of power
This statement challenged the way I thought
about power as emanating from the centre to
dominate local relations and stimulated my
interest in the way power is enacted in place.
Working on experimental action research
around local economic alternatives, I was particularly interested in the way space affects relations of power within development projects. It is
this interest that frames this paper, as I join with
scholars calling for a repoliticisation of development discourses (Moore and Putzel, 1999;
Escobar, 2001; Williams, 2004) and for detailed
ethnographic analyses of how power is enacted
locally (Cornwall, 2004; Kesby, 2005; Mosse,
2005).
In the first section of this paper, I provide
some background on the action research from
which the data for this paper emerges. I then
explore common conceptualisations of power
and how they relate to particular spatial imaginaries, drawing on John Allen’s Lost Geographies of Power (2003). I highlight how these
perspectives continue to influence development
practice, and then propose how a poststructural understanding of power as multiple,
relational and contextual offers alternative pathways to economic empowerment for marginal
groups. In the final section, I show how a poststructural approach to power was implemented
in a small rural municipality in the Philippines
in the Jagna Community Partnering Project.
Action research on alternative economic
development in the Philippines
The Jagna Community Partnering Project was
initiated by a research team from the Australian
National University (ANU) in 2003 to explore
alternative local economic development possibilities in the municipality of Jagna on the island
province of Bohol in the central Philippines.1
The research partners were the Jagna Municipal
Government and a local non-government
organisation (NGO) Unlad Kabayan-Bohol and
later its offshoot BoholDev. To facilitate collaboration between the implementing agencies,
one field researcher was employed from each
agency to work on a full-time basis. These were
Jocelyn Miralles-Apag from the NGO Boholdev,
Maureen Balaba from the Municipal Planning
and Development Council at the local government unit (LGU) and myself from the ANU. The
© 2008 The Author
Journal compilation © 2008 Victoria University of Wellington
three agencies shared equal responsibility for
decisions about the daily management and
overall methodology of the project.
The aim of the action research project was to
explore the possibility of stimulating local economic development through the establishment
of group enterprises that mobilised locally available resources, knowledge and economic practices. Three community enterprises were formed
and three and a half years after the inception of
the project, they continue to grow and generate
income for their members. One involves a
group of eight women who produce ginger tea.
Another consists of 13 small-scale farmers (both
men and women) producing a local coconut
confectionary called nata de coco. The third
enterprise is made up of six women dressmakers
who accept large orders for hire clothing, uniforms and costumes. A fourth group consisting
of 48 local men who work part-time at the port
was initiated to explore the feasibility of a trucking business; however, as I describe later, the
group decided not to pursue their idea after
market research deemed it not feasible.
The way in which each group was established
and sustained is not the focus of this paper.2
Suffice to say, however, that increased income
generation, which was the immediate goal of
participants, was achieved by the three enterprises. More interesting, from the perspective
of theories of power, were the ways that participants’ notions of their own power in place
shifted as a precursor to becoming more active
in the local cash economy. This paper takes up
this shift and focuses on how the project methodology created a space for exploring, challenging and mobilising existing power relations.
Allen’s theorisation of the spatiality of power
has proved particularly useful in analysing how
these shifts occurred.
Power and space
There are numerous summaries of the various
theories of power, each with its own disciplinary bias (see for example: Hindess, 1996;
Cheater, 1999; Gledhill, 2000; Tew, 2002;
Turner, 2005). Allen (2003) offers a geographical analysis of common theories of power in his
book Lost Geographies of Power. Allen’s synthesis is unique in that he critiques current theories
from a spatial perspective, arguing that space –
295
A. Cahill
whether in terms of proximity, reach or contextual factors – affects the way power is both
enacted and experienced. Allen’s work is
timely, as a number of development scholars
have recently called attention to space as an
important ingredient in understanding how
power operates in development interventions
(Cornwall, 2004; Williams, 2004; Kesby, 2005).
Cornwall (2004: 75) proposes that a spatial
understanding of power allows us to:
. . . think about the ways in which particular
sites come to be populated, appropriated or
designated by particular actors for particular
kinds of purposes; its metaphorical qualities
allow attention to be paid to issues of discursive closure, to the animation or domestication
of sites for engagement, to the absence of
opportunity as well as to the dynamism of
political agency in forging new possibilities for
voice. By illuminating the dynamics of power,
voice and agency, thinking spatially can help
towards building strategies for more genuinely
transformative social action.
Allen argues that until recently, attempts to
build the transformative strategies Cornwall
refers to have been hampered by our lack of
insight into the spatial dimension of power. In
particular, he points to the limiting assumptions
embedded in three common conceptualisations
of power, namely: power in things, power
through mobilisation and power as immanent.
Power in things
Inspired by the work of Weber, Allen’s conceptualisation of power in things locates power as
embedded in certain resources such as finance
or formal institutions. In this vision, the powerful are those who amass resources and capabilities, who ‘hold’ or ‘have’ power over others. It is
a view of power as domination. As a process,
empowerment entails the ‘disempowered’
gaining control over the resources and institutions of the ‘powerful’, which, spatially, tend to
be located centrally. This view promotes a finite
view of power and fosters a sense of empowerment as involving resistance against the powerful structures of the centre and the redistribution
of resources to the less powerful on the margins.
Allen argues that this view of power is too
restrictive. While he concedes a relationship
296
between resources and power, as resources can
be mobilised to strengthen individual or group
power, he suggests that this cannot always be
assumed. First, he argues that even those with
vast resources and capacities do not always exercise the power available to them. Power is not
found in the resources, but in the use of those
resources. As he states, ‘Power in this sense is no
more to be found ‘in’ the apparatus of rule than
sound is to be found ‘in’ the wood of musical
instruments’ (Allen, 2003: 5). Instead of power
being held by individuals or institutions, Allen
sees power as being based on the enduring
nature of socially constituted relationships.
Despite the limitations of the ‘power in
things’ perspective, it has informed development practice through the implicit assumption
that for people to become empowered to pursue
their own well-being, they require increased
access to resources such as money or positions
in institutions perceived to hold power (Hunt
and Kasynathan, 2002; Kilby, 2002; Mayoux,
2002). This assumption is implicit in development interventions as diverse as agrarian reform
programmes calling for the redistribution of
land from wealthy elites to tenant farmers, participatory development programmes encouraging the representation of marginal groups
on government committees and microfinance
projects calling for greater access to cash
resources by the poor.
Despite noble intentions, such initiatives are
fraught with difficulties and contradictions. For
example, microfinance programmes targeting
women have not always had an empowering
effect, particularly if male relatives commandeer the funds provided or if they increase
women’s workload (Goetz and Gupta, 1996;
Kabeer, 2001; Hunt and Kasynathan, 2002;
Kilby, 2002). While women nominally have
increased access to resources, this has not disrupted the existing relations of power within the
household (Goetz and Gupta, 1996; Goetz,
1997; Kabeer, 1998; Rosario, 2002). It is therefore important for scholars and practitioners to
distinguish between the potential mobilisation
of resources and the exercise of power, as even
when access to resources and institutions is
increased at the margins, people still may not
be able to exploit the opportunities presented
in an effective or empowering way (Hunt and
Kasynathan, 2002; Mayoux, 2002).
© 2008 The Author
Journal compilation © 2008 Victoria University of Wellington
Shifting perceptions of power
Another challenge to the idea that simply
improving access to resources will increase
people’s power arises from the work of Scott
(1985) and Kerkvliet (1991), who explore the
strategies used by those with seemingly limited
power to exert influence. Scott argues that even
peasant farmers exploited through traditional
patron–client relationships can enact power by
pretending not to understand, remaining silent,
stealing harvests and staging an argument –
strategies he refers to as ‘weapons of the weak’
(Scott, 1985). This example demonstrates that
everyone has access to diverse types and levels
of power and so it is unproductive to reify a
false dichotomy of the ‘empowered’ and ‘disempowered’. Even those who are considered
powerful do not have total power at all times. In
the often discouraging and frustrating world of
development, simply acknowledging this may
open up new spaces for hope and creative
engagement. Furthermore, it suggests that
power is not only located in particular resources
and institutions at the centre, but also available
in all contexts, thus placing new emphasis on
the importance of local forms of power.
Power through mobilisation
In Allen’s second conceptualisation of ‘power
through mobilisation’, power is analysed as an
effect produced through networks of social
interaction. This approach is evident in both
network theory and studies of collective action.
According to the network approach, exemplified by Mann (1993) and Castells (1996, 2000),
power is not a resource, but rather something
that is generated through the control and reproduction of different kinds of resources through
various networks of social interaction.
In critiquing the network approach, Allen
argues that it often fails to problematise the way
power is exercised across space and how this
results in its uneven distribution. As he states:
. . . in a comforting sort of way (power’s) extension or distribution over space is taken
for granted. There is a homely promise that
nothing much really happens between here
and there to cause us to worry about what
moves exactly or what, if anything, is distributed . . . power still seems to be regarded as
something which shifts across borders or is
© 2008 The Author
Journal compilation © 2008 Victoria University of Wellington
redistributed between sites of authority without
too much difficulty. (Allen, 2003: 8)
The importance of space in the extension and
distribution of power can be clearly seen in the
case of development interventions influenced
by neo-liberal economic discourses. Such thinking has generally failed to problematise the way
power moves across space, assuming that it
somehow naturally flows from one place to
another. This is exemplified by the World Bank’s
push for political decentralisation in developing
countries, which is based on the assumption
that devolving decision-making powers from
the centre to the periphery will improve the
capacity of local government units to govern
more effectively. This assumption has been
challenged by critics who describe the many
obstacles that can thwart a straightforward
transfer of power from the centre to the margins
(Bird and Rodriguez, 1999; Blair, 2000; Eaton,
2001).
Power through mobilisation also encompasses that of collective action. Drawing primarily on the work of Arendt (1958, 1961, 1970),
Allen sees this as a productive view of power
actualised through mass social interaction,
which draws attention to power’s transient and
shifting nature. While he applauds the more
positive nature of this view, he argues that it can
neglect power dynamics within and across
groups – dynamics that are again mediated by
both space and scale.
Within development studies, a conceptualisation of power as mobilisation is most obvious
in the renewed interest in social movements
that connect groups with diverse interests and
from different geographical backgrounds for a
common cause, as exemplified by the World
Social Forum and various anti-globalisation
movements. There are also traces of the idea of
power through mobilisation in the participatory
development approaches championed by
Chambers (1997, 2005), which assume that if
the marginalised are linked into the appropriate
networks of power, they can influence formal
decision-making processes. While both social
movement theory and participatory development approaches have contributed significantly
to theorising the way communities are organised for action, numerous authors have critiqued the naiveté of the assumptions about
297
A. Cahill
space implicit in these approaches (Oliphant,
1999; Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Cornwall,
2004; Williams, 2004; Kesby, 2005). They stress
the failure of participatory development projects in particular to acknowledge the complexity of power relations in place, and show that
even when the marginalised participate, these
dynamics can restrict voice and agency. Such
critiques remind us that power does not move
across space evenly because it is mediated by
the different types of social relations that are
embedded in place and across different scales.
Power is not some static capacity, but constantly
shifts across time and space.
Power as immanent
The final conceptualisation of power that Allen
discusses is a post-structural approach inspired
by the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1988) and
Foucault (1991, 2001) that envisions power as
everywhere, through the discourses and practices that structure daily life. In this view, power
is not inherent within powerful subjects, but
is dispersed throughout a complex web of
discourses, practices and relationships that
position some subjects as more powerful than
others. The effects of power are not stable, as the
discourses and practices maintaining power
relations require constant reproduction. This
reproduction is not only enacted by the powerful but also by dominated subjects acting out
socially defined roles and identities, a process
Foucault refers to as ‘governmentality’ (Foucault, 1991). Empowerment then, can no longer
be treated as a change in status at a particular
moment in time, but instead is a relative and
reversible process that is in need of constant
maintenance.
A post-structuralist approach also highlights
the multiple ways power is enacted, often
simultaneously and in contradictory ways. Not
only does power simply involve processes of
domination and resistance, but also seduction,
persuasion, manipulation, coercion, authority
and cooption (Allen, 2003). This post-structural
recognition of the multiple ways power is continually reproduced has enabled more sophisticated analyses of the political implications of
development practice, as exemplified by the
works of Crush (1995) and Escobar (1995,
2001), and more recently, Cooke and Kothari
298
(2001), Hickey and Mohan (2004), Kesby
(2005) and Mosse (2005).
While Allen acknowledges that poststructuralism has enhanced our understandings
of power as something that is constantly reproduced in multiple ways, he believes that this
view has been taken to an ext …
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
Recent Comments