| Date 18-Jul-2013 to 18-Jul-2013 |
Location PRIA, New Delhi |
Format Institutional |
Eric Kasper, a research scholar from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, has been associated with PRIA as an intern from August 2012. Based in the Raipur field office for the past year, he has worked closely with the urban team to study existing social systems in urban slums and how they complement and supplement each other. Eric presented his learnings at a seminar in PRIA head office on 18 July 2013.
Over the past two years, PRIA (in alliance with Chetana Child and Women Welfare Society, Raipur and Shikhar Yuva Manch, Bilaspur) has been intervening in 7 slums of Raipur city and 9 slums of Bilaspur to strengthen civil society voices on urban poverty. Through meetings, focused group discussions and community participation, slum dwellers have been organized into Slum Improvement Committees (SICs) at the slum level. Capacities of SICs have been built through training and orientation about different central as well as state government schemes available for the urban poor. SIC members have been motivated to develop rapport and good relations with each other to enable them to share their knowledge and settle problems on their own initiative. Several joint meetings have been held to share information and raise awareness of common problems, and to find collective solutions. The stage came when members of the SICs demanded an interface with other stakeholders in the city planning process so as to share their issues and problems.
As part of his doctoral research, during the course of the formation of the SICs, Eric Kaspar studied existing social networks in these slums using a systems action research perspective, which views society as a system of inter-connected human and institutional relations. In this perspective, social change means system change. Systemic action research emphasises the relationships between people and issues. Systemic action research tries to change the system through understanding the complex nature of cause and effect in a social system while working to try to change it.
Eric has surveyed the social networks in 7 slums of Raipur. He has collected data from interviews with individual members of the SIC by asking:
•Whom did you have a meaningful conversation with inside the slum in the last few weeks and last month?
•Whom did you have a meaningful conversation with outside the slum in the last few weeks and last month?
The data was analysed through a social network analysis software which maps relationship structures. Preliminary findings suggest strong networks exist within the slum, but each is relatively unconnected to the other; the slums on the whole are relatively isolated from the rest of the city and are hardly connected with the other slums; they are connected to the larger urban system through patrons/politicians. Analysis shows that connections within the slum have increased after SIC formation. The network/system analysis framework is valuable because participatory qualitative and quantitative data has been generated and it has shown change can happen.
Using participatory research methodology, the findings from the interviews were made accessible to the community through discussions on “What does this mean to you?”. Individual discussions with Jan Jagran Samiti members on their connections with individuals, institutions and events attended within and outside the slum were also held. Multi-stakeholder dialogues/city level consultations were also conducted.
These discussions helped slum communities:
•Understand how systems work in the real world
•Understand their place in their own social networks
•Understand that connections result in structural/relational power
• To see the power of such connections, that progress has been made after the formation of the SIC, that there are opportunities to act to take advantage of existing relationships.
Impact of SIC formation:
•Communities have greater awareness of problems
•Communities have begun to think collectively (“our problems are your problems too”)
•Collective action
•They have experienced push back from the system (SICs could not be formed in 3 slums). Since empowerment is about people claiming agency in their lives, some push back means that this is happening
•There are some instances of behaviour change; individuals now feel they belong to society
•Cohesiveness has increased
•At least some individuals who have centrality now want to specifically reach out to those who are less connected and connect them directly with patrons/politicians. These individuals have expressed that they do not need to play the bridge role anymore.
Apart from SICs, PRIA has also built relationships with other NGOS and with policy makers to engineer change.
Tentative conclusions:
• SICs are well positioned but still precarious
• Relations are of utmost importance
•Pitfalls remain: internal tensions, external pressures
•The power landscape needs to be continuously monitored
•Organising practice matters
•Jan Jagran Samitis can be built to go round the politician/patron relationship and establish direct interaction with governance institutions.