Now days I am trying to engage myself with various issues related to indigenous communities. As a part of academia it is a constant quest for all of us, how can we engage ourselves to make the world a better place to live. All the reading of this week addressed the aspects of reflexivity and engagement; and, one of them is an article by Zoller (2005) that discussed many aspects of activism, communication and social change. Though in his article he focused mainly on the health and related issues; I think we can use this framework (along with other frameworks like CCA) in other broad contexts, such as the context of indigenous lives, indigenous knowledge, science, technology, art, craft, and other infrastructural issues.
Zoller (2005) perceived activism as a means for social change by challenging existing power relation. He mentioned different approaches of participation and emphasized on the aspects of community group mobilization for collective actions. In this context he discussed various ways of engagement with activism, such as advocacy- challenging the dominant paradigm and urging for democratic participation in knowledge production, social movement- through networking promoting solidarity to facilitate collective actions such as protesting and performing resistive acts to address larger social, political, economic and cultural issues, community organizing- adopting a bottom-up approach of designing and implementing policies and programs by community members and thereby empower individuals (community members).
He also argued that, both the hidden and the apparent conflicts should be addressed by activists. Though, the goal and political orientation may vary from one case to another. He conceptualized various forms of political orientation through two sets of binaries- in terms of context/ space: individual vs. societal level, and in terms of final goal/ aspiration: partial vs. radical social change. In this process, he came up with four different political orientations- alternative (individual, partial social change), reformative (social, partial social change), redemptive (individual, radical social change), and transformative (social, radical social change).
Along with various approaches and political orientation of activism, he emphasized to conceptualize activism in broader interdisciplinary frameworks. In this context he showed that activism can be understood (a) multisectorally – by connecting activism with larger economic and social roots and by addressing issues of social inequality related to race, class and gender etc., (b) in relation to globalization and policy issues by facilitating a bottom-up approach and thereby resisting neoliberal moves, (c) by connecting with larger material and symbolic political arguments.
Thus the framework of Zoller (2005) addressed many key issues that are relevant health and other contexts of our lives. Context of indigenous people is one of those. I believe, frameworks such as this can be very helpful for activist works in indigenous and other underserved/ subaltern contexts.
Zoller (2005) perceived activism as a means for social change by challenging existing power relation. He mentioned different approaches of participation and emphasized on the aspects of community group mobilization for collective actions. In this context he discussed various ways of engagement with activism, such as advocacy- challenging the dominant paradigm and urging for democratic participation in knowledge production, social movement- through networking promoting solidarity to facilitate collective actions such as protesting and performing resistive acts to address larger social, political, economic and cultural issues, community organizing- adopting a bottom-up approach of designing and implementing policies and programs by community members and thereby empower individuals (community members).
He also argued that, both the hidden and the apparent conflicts should be addressed by activists. Though, the goal and political orientation may vary from one case to another. He conceptualized various forms of political orientation through two sets of binaries- in terms of context/ space: individual vs. societal level, and in terms of final goal/ aspiration: partial vs. radical social change. In this process, he came up with four different political orientations- alternative (individual, partial social change), reformative (social, partial social change), redemptive (individual, radical social change), and transformative (social, radical social change).
Along with various approaches and political orientation of activism, he emphasized to conceptualize activism in broader interdisciplinary frameworks. In this context he showed that activism can be understood (a) multisectorally – by connecting activism with larger economic and social roots and by addressing issues of social inequality related to race, class and gender etc., (b) in relation to globalization and policy issues by facilitating a bottom-up approach and thereby resisting neoliberal moves, (c) by connecting with larger material and symbolic political arguments.
Thus the framework of Zoller (2005) addressed many key issues that are relevant health and other contexts of our lives. Context of indigenous people is one of those. I believe, frameworks such as this can be very helpful for activist works in indigenous and other underserved/ subaltern contexts.
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