Performativity Theory

• Introduction      
• Appreciative Inquiry in a nutshell
• Community work
• Asset-based approaches A-B-As           
  • Theories that explain applied assets-based approaches A-B-As    
• Experience        
  • Shared experience    
•   References          

Read this literature review and answer the critical questions in Section 5.

Introduction

In this text we will present concepts and theory crucial for this COER. We will start by looking at Appreciative Inquiry, a method useful for community development. In this short introductory review, we will walk you through the first steps towards understanding appreciative inquiry and to apply it to assets based approach and experience. We will also introduce how we have used picture and word tools to assist you in the process of inquiry.

Appreciative inquiry (AI) is a development method which is well suited to community development. It shares its roots (social constructionism and systemic thinking) with solution-focused approaches. Common to both is a focus of vision, aiming towards the future and towards successful situations and outcomes (Hirvihuhta & Litovaara 2003).

Then we will provide a brief introduction to community work, asset-based approaches and theories that explain asset-based approaches A-BAs. Finally, there will be a short introduction to the concept of experience and shared experience.

Appreciative Inquiry in a nutshell

We encourage you to familiarise yourself with the process of AI and to think how you could connect the elements of assets based approach and experience to AI process in community development. Would you find words and pictures to be useful tools to help young people to recognise their assets? 

       

Appreciative Inquiry is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organisations, and the relevant world around them. It is important to realise what involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms and most effective.  Central is the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to anticipate, apprehend, and increase positive potential. It involves the mobilisation of inquiry through the crafting of the “unconditional positive question”. In AI the arduous task of intervention gives way to the speed of imagination and innovation; instead of negation, criticism, and spiraling diagnosis, there is discovery, dream, and design. AI intends to create a constructive union between people and the massive entirety of what people talk about as past and present capacities: achievements, assets, unexplored potentials, innovations, strengths, elevated thoughts, opportunities, benchmarks, high point moments, lived values, traditions, strategic competencies, stories, expressions of wisdom, insights into the deeper corporate spirit or soul-- and visions of valued and possible futures. Taking all of these together as a gestalt, AI deliberately, in everything it does, seeks to work from accounts of this “positive change core”—and it assumes that every living system has many untapped and rich and inspiring accounts of the positive. Link the energy of this core directly to any change agenda and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized (Cooperrider & Whitney 2005).

There are four sequent stages in AI: Discovery—which means mobilising a whole system inquiry into the positive change core; Dream—creating a clear results-oriented vision in relation to discovered potential and in relation to questions of higher purpose, i.e., “What is the world calling us to become?” Design—creating possibility propositions of the ideal community, a community design which people feel is capable of magnifying or eclipsing the positive core and realising the articulated new dream; and Destiny—strengthening the affirmative capability of the whole system enabling it to build hope and momentum around a deep purpose and creating processes for learning, adjustment, and improvisation like a jazz group over time.

Community work

Healy (2012) defines community work as a set of different approaches that focus on understanding individuals as part of a community and on building the capacity to address social, political or economic challenges. Further on she quotes Twelvetrees (2008) who sees community work as “the process of assisting people to improve their own communities by undertaking autonomous collective action.” Usually, the context of community work is defined through a threefold categorisation (or combination of these categories) (1) a geographical/area-based aspect; (2) communities of association (common interest); and (3) identity-based communities where unitedness is established based on shared identity (Healy 2012).

In addition to this type of categorisation, it is worthwhile looking at the typologies in community work. Again, procedures are likely to be combinations of these rather than clear lined, black-and-white methods. Five commonly acknowledged types according to Healy are:

1) community service (interaction between service users and service systems),

2) community development (facilitating the participation of citizens in identifying shared change goals and working collaboratively toward meeting these goals),

3) community planning (the technical process of problem-solving regarding substantive social problems),

4) community organising (the activist approach to community building and advocacy)

5) community education (building and recognising the knowledge of a community by engaging members as peer learners and teachers)

Some researchers also distinguish community work by using conflict-based models or consensus models. In conflict-based models the preliminary assumption is that there is a conflict between the privileged and the marginalised. The starting point of the analysis is then the division of power (Healy 2012). Assets based Approaches (A-B-As) fall within the consensus-based approach. The key principle in A-B-As is that for change to be sustainable the activities must be “relationship-driven” (Kretzmann & MacKnight 1993 in Healy 2012). A.B-As underline the importance of cross-sectoral relationships, such as the relations between neighbourhood associations, businesses and schools (Mathie & Cunningham 2003 in Healy 2012).

Assets-based approaches

John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann (1993) introduced the assets-based approach (A-B-A) as an alternative to a needs-based approach in the US in the urban context. It was seen that the well-intentioned efforts at analysing problems approached the community in a negative way which often did not contribute to community development in the desired way (Mathie & Cunningham 2003). Kretzmann and Mackenzie (1993) considered a needs-based approach to be problematic for two reasons. First, leaders find that the best way to attract institutional resources is to play up the severity of problems. Second, a problem is that people in the community start to believe what the leaders are saying and begin to see themselves as incapable of taking care of themselves and their community. A consequence is that people think that “true help can only arrive from the outside” and helping ties in the neighbourhood is further diminished (Mahtie & Cunningham 2003).

As understood from the literature on A-B-As, not all social work in the communities qualifies as assets based. In addition to the overall description, Mathie and Cunningham (2003) state four elements that are helpful in grasping the essence of A-B-As.

1) Shared meaning can be found through appreciative inquiry. It is advisable to utilise appreciative inquiry as a method, particularly in the initial phase of mobilising communities. The method focuses on past peak experiences and successes.

2) Learning from the literature on social capital, when relationships are treated as assets ABAs becomes a practical application of the concept of social capital.

3) How is power distributed? Linking civil society, citisenship and participatory approaches to development, power needs to be relocated in communities in such a way that is it not only held by external agencies.

4) The theory of community economic development.

Theories explaining applied assets-based approaches 

Lerner et al. (2006) approach the importance of recognising the assets of the youth through language and discourse; the way we speak of them and the challenges they face. They quote Benson (2003) when they say that vocabulary “stresses the dangers and risks, pathology and its symptoms.” The deficit model should be transformed to a view of positive youth development as an absence of negativity. Lerner et al. (2006) ask what kind of a message we give to the youth if we discuss “problems” that are to be “managed” or “fixed”. To establish a healthy adult–youth relationship we should offer young people opportunities to learn and use their skills by being involved in participating actively in community life and by increasing the wellbeing of themselves, their families and society.

Why is the positive approach worthwhile? Lerner et al. (2006) write about developmental systems theory and the relative plasticity of human development. This means that there is always at least some potential for systematic change in behaviour as a consequence of mutually influential relationships between the developing person and their biology, family, community, psychological characteristics, ecology and historical niche. In terms of positive youth development, researchers give a frame of the “five Cs” to represent the key features of positive youth development which are: competence, character, confidence, connection and compassion.

Plasticity legitimises the positive view. It also directs both science and applications of science to involve public policies and the programmes of community-based organisations in order to find optimal matches between individuals and their social worlds. The term positive youth development (PYD) is built on the idea of plasticity in development. Research in comparative psychology and evolutionary psychology has documented this opportunity for systematic change. Also research in life-span psychology, bioecological development psychology and life course sociology point to the conclusion that individual and group change by altering bidirectional relations between individuals and their ecologies capitalises this plasticity (Lerner et al. 2006, 2005).

Lerner et al. (2006) quote Benson, who believes that there are both internal and external attributes that comprise the development assets: 20 internal ones and 20 external ones. Benson and his colleagues have come to the conclusion in their studies that the more of these developmental assets are possessed, the more likely it is to achieve positive and healthy development.

Developmental Assets and Client Support

According to Scales and Leffert (2004) when working with young people, problem prevention and prohibiting unwanted behaviour alone is not an effective tactic. They have introduced 40 developmental assets. These are divided into eight categories and split into two groups: internal and external assets (Scales  & Leffert 2004). Internal assets are divided into four categories: commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies, and positive identity (Scales & Leffert  2004).

Commitment to learning is crucial for any kind of success in life. If a child does not have curiosity for learning new things, he or she does not typically excel in their studies. New skills and knowledge are also needed in working life. Commitment to learning also includes the child’s motivation to perform well and achieve his or her own or external goals. Children or young people who are committed to learning do their homework more responsibly and engage in other activities that satisfy their curiosity. Reading voluntarily during one’s spare time also indicates a commitment to learning (Scales & Leffert, 2004).

Positive values guide young people towards the right and meaningful choices. A young person with positive values will want to do well and treat other people as they deserve to be treated. In return, young people with positive values will be treated better, and other people will have a more positive opinion of them, compared to young people who do not share the common values. Not all common or popular values are considered as positive values. There are some integral, important, widely shared basic values that have an effect on one’s personality, behaviour, and view on life. According to the 'Developmental Assets Approach' there are six of these values: equality and social justice: promoting equality and disapproving the injustice; caring: helping others and considering it important; integrity: acting according to one’s beliefs, values and convictions, as well as defending them; responsibility: accepting the growing responsibilities in life and taking responsibility; honesty: being truthful even when it can work against one’s own benefit; and restraint: avoiding the excess use of drugs and alcohol, or having unprotected sex (Scales & Leffert 2004).

Social competences include interpersonal skills such as empathy and sensitivity. Interpersonal skills help young people to form and maintain positive relationships, as well as learn from bad relationships and mistakes. The ability to plan forward and make choices and decisions also form a part of social competences. Additionally, social competence includes intercultural competence, the ability to resist peer pressure, and the ability to resolve conflicts without violence. A person who lacks these competencies is less likely to become fully independent. Interpersonal skills or social competences belong to a normal, independent adult life (Scales & Leffert 2004).

Positive identity means that a person has a positive perception of him or herself. We all have flaws, but a positive overall view of oneself is important in order to become a successful adult with a balanced emotional life and healthy relationships. Positive identity includes one’s sense of self-worth and purpose, a sense of subjectivity, and a positive view of the future. A young person with positive identity trusts in his or her abilities and is not afraid of making decisions or being rejected. Having a negative identity instead often leads to underachieving because of fear of failure and to seeking acceptance often in unhealthy ways. Without the sense of subjectivity, being the one who takes control of one’s life, a young person can find it hard to show initiative or feel powerless. The external assets are also divided into four categories: support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, and constructive use of time (Scales & Leffert, 2004).

Support assets mean acceptance, love and affection the child or young person receives from other people. Children can receive love and support not only from his or her closest family members but also from the adults in his or her extended family and many other social environments. The support assets also include parents’ positive way of communicating with the child, the child’s willingness to seek help from his or her parents and the parents’ involvement in the child’s schooling (Scales & Leffert 2004).

Empowerment means the feeling of being safe in one's own close living environment. Also, empowerment as an asset means the appreciation, roles and values that the environment gives for the youth (Scales & Leffert, 2004).

Boundaries and expectations. The young person’s caretakers should set him or her clear boundaries and be aware of where he or she spends their time. The school also needs to set rules and regulations and make sure that the students are following them. The adults and close friends in a young person’s life should act as positive examples through their own behaviour and expect the young person to do well. Boundaries and expectations reinforce support and empowerment (Scales & Leffert, 2004).

Constructive use of time refers to the selection of after school activities provided in a young person’s community. Constructive activities support growth and learning, as well as the development of other developmental assets. The activities can be creative, sport-related, or anything in between. The parents' impact on the amount of time a young person spends at home and how he or she spends his or her time (Scales & Leffert, 2004).

Mannes et al. (2005) argue that there is a positive correlation between the number of assets a young person possesses and his or her capability to value diversity, maintain good health and avoid danger. Effective programmes should instil in youth attributes of competence, such as resilience, self-efficacy or social cognitive, behavioural and moral competence; attributes of confidence, such as self-determination, and clear and positive identity; attributes of social connection, such as bonding; and attributes of character, such as spirituality and belief in the future (Catalano 1999 in Lerner et al. 2006).

Lerner et al. (2006) further quote Catalano et al. (1999) to explain the components of effective youth development programmes that are effective in promoting the “five Cs”. Effective programmes have elements of “Big Three” design. These components are (1) opportunities for youth participation in and leadership of activities that (2) emphasise the development of life skills within the context of (3) a sustained and caring adult-youth relationship. In addition to these, there are other important elements such as setting clear goals; acknowledging the diversity of youth and their families, community and culture; safe and easily accessible spaces; the integration of assets to the community in question; cooperation between different organisations providing services; and engagement in evaluation.

As all interventions in an A-B-A have their limitations, Rose (2006) reminds us that these limitations particularly concern children in care. Developmental assets should not be overestimated and in care settings, there is a larger risk of this. Of course, we all possess the capacity for change, but context and challenges should be realistically estimated.

Experience

Now we will look at experience, sAs experience is an essential part is constructing knowledge and learning.   How then can experience be defined? Defining experience is not easy. Experience is linked to emotions, awareness, observations and intuition. But experience can also be defined as things that come from the individual's capacity to be aware and react. It is a inner experience of one self, that can not be fully understood by someone else. Experience can also be described as simply as “it is what happens to us”. (Rissanen 2015.)

So we now know experience is about being and happening. There are  repeated and there are once in a lifetime experiences. Some experiences are life changing. Concepts like direct experience, first hand experience, personal experience and lived experience, are used to mean knowledge following from something that has happened to us.  First hand experience may be intentional or unintentional, an event or circumstance, or connected to who we are, like identity. (Beresford 2003.)

Interpreting experiences are an essential part of the process of constructing knowledge. An interpretation might be both conscious and unconscious, it might take a long time or be instantaneous, and it may change over time. It is also of importance to understand, not all having the same experience will interpret it the same way. “The greater the distance between direct experience and its interpreter, then the more likely resulting knowledge is to be inaccurate, unreliable and distorted.” (Beresford 2003.) For instance time, internalised oppressions or pressure to reject experiences can distance us from them and have and thus impact on the interpretation process. (Beresford 2003.)

The relationship between knowledge and experience includes a power perspective. How we define knowledge and how it is pursuited is linked to how it is perceived in society. It is also about what we want to know about and whose knowledge is valued. (Rissanen 2015; Beresford 2003.)

Feminist epistemology and critical theory has challenged the way knowledge is produced and valued. The critique includes accusations against positivist knowledge production for not detecting experiences of women. Later the sexuality, race and functionality has been added as categories from which experiences are not heard or not perceived as sources of knowledge. According to the feminist critique the ways on knowing (through experience) in oppressed groups has not been valued as significant or real knowledge. (Rissanen 2015.) Furthermore, the feminist critique emphasises experience as a source of knowledge about societal phenomenons like discrimination, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism.

The value of experience has increased in later years as experts by experience have argued for the use of experience as a source of knowledge also in Europe and Finland. Experts by experience are now increasingly heard when in evaluation and development of services in the social- and health care field. (Rissanen & Puumalainen 2016.) Also in the substance abuse prevention field the youths experiences are gaining attention and taking a center stage.

What is then the the difference between experts or experience mentioned above, and all of us with our own personal experiences? Everyone could be called an expert of their own life. But experts by experience used in the social and health care are individuals who for instance have own experiences of physical or mental illness, experience of using services or as  close person to a individual with these experiences. Furthermore when describing expertise by experience, central is the  refinement of the experience, distance from the experience and capacity and willingness to use the experience to the benefit of improving services. (Rissanen & Puumalainen 2016.)

Shared experience

Sharing experiences is beneficial for both clients and professionals. Sharing experiences can also have an impact on society. Experiences shared can challenge prejudice, decrease fear against phenomenon, conditions or groups of people and take away stigma (Beresford, 2013).

For professionals, it is important to hear authentic experiences. Taking part in authentic experiences help professionals gain new perspectives on their work, improve the standard of the work and help in directing it to a client-centered approach (Rissanen & Puumalainen, 2016), Noteworthy is that experts by experience challenge the power relations in social and health care encounters. Suddenly the professional is not the only one who has important insights and knowledge about the work done or the client's needs, life situation, solutions etc. Sharing experiences also enable the development of knowledge which synthesises different understandings and perspectives on common and varied experience (Beresford, 2003).

Sharing experiences also bring people together. In an article in Atlanta (The Importance of Sharing Experiences, 2016) the results from a study on the impact of sharing experiences are described. The study suggests that unusual experiences have a social cost in that they alienate us from our peers. One reason for this could be that joy from an unusual experience fades quickly, but the negative perception of not fitting in because we did not share an experience with our peers lingers. According to the article, the findings are supported by another recent Psychological Science study that found that experiences shared with others, even strangers, were rated as more intense, than those experienced alone.

References

Beresford, P. (2003) It`s Our Lives: A short Theory of Knowledge, Distance and Experience. London: OSP for Citizen Press in association with Shaping Our Lives. https://shapingourlives.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ItsOurLives.pdf

Cooperrider, D. & Whitney, D. (2005). A Positive Revolution in Change: Appreciative Inquiry. The change handbook: The definitive resource on today's best methods for engaging whole systems. 87.

Healy. K. (2012) Social work methods and skills. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke.

Kretzmann, J. & McKnight, J. (1993). Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Asset. Evanston, IL: The Asset Based Community Development Institute, Northwestern University. In Healy. K. (2012) Social work methods and skills. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lerner, R. M., Alberts, A. E., Jelicic, H., & Smith, L. M. (2006). Young people are resources to be developed: Promoting positive youth development through adult-youth relations and community assets. In Mobilizing adults for positive youth development (pp. 19-39). Springer US.

Mathie, A. & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: asset-based community development as a strategy for community driven development, Development in Practice. 13(5), 474–86.

Mannes, M., Roehlkepartain, E. C., & Benson, P. L. (2005). Unleashing the power of community to strengthen the well-being of children, youth, and families: An asset-building approach. Child Welfare, 84(2), 233.

Rose, H. A. (2006). Asset-based development for child and youth care. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 14(4), 236.

Scales P. C & Leffert N. (2004). Developmental Assets: A Synthesis of the Scientific Research on Adolescent Development, 2nd Edition. Search Institute. 2004.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. First published Wed Aug 9, 2000; substantive revision Wed Aug 5, 2015. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/

Twelvetrees, A. (2008). Community work. 4th edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. In Healy. K. (2012) Social work methods and skills. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

The Importance of Sharing Experiences, published 16.10.2016. www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-importance-of-sharing-experiences/381493/

Rissanen, P. (2015) Toivoton tapaus?: Autoetnografia sairastumisesta ja kuntoutumisesta.  (in English: Hopeless Case? An Autoethnography of Getting Mentally Ill and Rehabilitation of It) Kuntoutussäätiön tutkimuksia 88/2015. URN:ISSN:0358-089X. https://kuntoutussaatio.fi/files/2116/Paivi_Rissanen.pdf

Rissanen, P. & Puumalainen, J. (2015) Kokemuksen kautta osaamiseen: Vapaaehtoisuus, vertaisuus ja kokemusasiantuntijuus. Kuntoutus 1/2015.