The social conditions for successful community mobilisation: Learning from sex worker led projects in India
Lead Research Organisation:
Glasgow Caledonian University
Department Name: Health
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Publications
Anuprita Shukla (Author)
(2009)
Mobilising stakeholder support for community-led HIV/AIDS projects : learning from Indian sex workers
Boesten, Jelke; Poku, Nana K.
(2009)
Gender and HIV/AIDS: Critical Perspectives from the Developing World
Boesten, Jelke; Poku, Nana K.
(2009)
Gender and HIV/AIDS: Critical Perspectives from the Developing World
Campbell C
(2010)
Towards a "fourth generation" of approaches to HIV/AIDS management: creating contexts for effective community mobilisation.
in AIDS care
Campbell C
(2010)
Heeding the push from below: how do social movements persuade the rich to listen to the poor?
in Journal of health psychology
Campbell C
(2012)
How can community health programmes build enabling environments for transformative communication? Experiences from India and South Africa.
in AIDS and behavior
Catherine Campbell (Author)
(2011)
Creating contexts that support effective community mobilisation for health
Cornish F
(2009)
The social conditions for successful peer education: a comparison of two HIV prevention programs run by sex workers in India and South Africa.
in American journal of community psychology
Cornish F
(2012)
From brothel to boardroom: prospects for community leadership of HIV interventions in the context of global funding practices.
in Health & place
| Description | We summarise our project findings in relation to our three research questions. 1. How do social conditions constrain and enable successful community mobilisation? We identified three interdependent dimensions of social conditions enabling the successes of community based organisations (CBOs). - At a material level, relative security of project funding has enabled the CBOs to focus on local and long-term priorities, resisting both a 'drift' of aims (to match shifting donor preoccupations) and funds with conditions counter to their community mobilisation aims. - At a relational level, both CBOs have forged profitable reciprocal relationships with powerful actors, enabled initially by well-connected founders/advocates with political know-how, and subsequently by becoming recognised change agents locally. - At a symbolic level, both CBOs adamantly challenged the stigmatisation of their members and acquired legitimacy through 'strength in numbers' combined with publicising their achievements. Our analysis highlighted that the CBOs do not simply absorb the powerful impacts of their social contexts, but that a primary reason for their success is their sophisticated active management of their relationships with the powerful actors who create their contexts. Hence the following question: 2. What strategies do community organisations use to mobilise stakeholder support? Three types of strategies emerged, each with strengths and weaknesses: - Persuading (giving information or verbally requesting help - low risk but without leverage) - Protesting (mobilising collective protest - risks creating adversaries, but effective if the stakeholder risks embarrassment through public protest) - Exchanging favours (drawing the stakeholder into a reciprocal relation - risks making compromises, but can forge sustainable relationships of mutual benefit) 3. What organisational processes best enable community mobilisation of traditionally marginalised groups? Two features emerged most strikingly: - An articulate, resolute philosophy of empowerment: Both CBOs adamantly insist (often against the odds) that all their activities must promote sex workers' empowerment and mobilisation, and that sex workers have the capability and power to take important decisions and run interventions. - Leader-follower relationship - The public legitimacy of the CBOs has been maximised by well-connected, culturally and politically skilled non-community advocates and leaders. The leaders' public influence, in turn, has been made possible by representing large, organised, effective community organisations. Our primary conceptual contribution has been, at a general level, to suggest that development ought to be a process of producing means for poor people to exert leverage over the powerful actors who shape their environment. More specifically, we have begun to articulate the means available to poor people to do so. These findings lead us to implications for social policies to promote community mobilisation: - Health/development policies concerning community mobilisation should incorporate 'stakeholder engagement' as a key component expected of community mobilisation projects. - Development agencies could play a brokering role in mobilising political will among a wide range of powerful social actors to create optimal conditions for community mobilisation. |
| Exploitation Route | For community development organisations, we produced training materials to help community members and advocates to analyse and influence their stakeholders. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy |
| Description | Building AIDS-competent communities : experiences from South Africa and India |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | LSE Health and Social Care Formal Seminar Series, LSE |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Building social capital to facilitate local responses to HIV/AIDS : Entabeni vs Sonagachi |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation to AIDS2031 workshop on 'Mobilising social capital in a world with AIDS' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Collective protest, expedient bargaining or giving gifts : how Indian sex workers' organisations exert influence in local networks of power |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited Seminar, Department of Psychology & Education, Universite de Neuchatel, Switzerland, 19 November 2009. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Community mobilisation and structural interventions : using comparative case studies to unpack processes |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation at STRIVE research programme consortium capacity-building workshop, LSHTM, coordinated by Dr Lori Heise |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Community mobilisation for HIV/AIDS management : case studies from India and South Africa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation to WHO Global Health Histories Seminar Series/World Health Organisation, Geneva, 27 April. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Conceptualising local-global connections for research into HIV/AIDS management in low income settings |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Symposium on Health systems, Health economies and Globalisation: Social Science Perspectives, London. Organised by Kings College London, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health) and LSE Health. 2-3 July, LSE, London |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Creating contexts for community-led health interventions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Presented at workshop on Creating contexts for successful community-led health interventions: Learning from participatory HIV/AIDS programmes. LSE, 21-22 September. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Development as 'transformative communication' : comparative case studies of HIV/AIDS management in South Africa and India |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | HIV Multidisciplinary Seminar Series. Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Dialogue and transformation : towards the empowerment of marginalised communities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation to FUROR workshop (European group of socio-cultural psychologists) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Empowerment of women and end of social discrimination through the formation of self help groups |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited contribution to a public discussion (organised by local government and NGOs, with an audience of women interested in self-help groups) on the role of self-help groups in preventing trafficking of women (Bongaon, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal). 28 Feb 2008 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | From brothel to boardroom : multi-sited ethnography and leadership of community HIV interventions in India |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited seminar to London Medical Sociology Group |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | From brothel to boardroom : prospects for community leadership of Indian HIV interventions in the context of global funding practices |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation to Institute for International Health & Development Seminar Series, Queen Margaret University |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Pleading, protesting and exchanging favours : how sex workers win support for HIV prevention from powerful others |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Presented at Workshop: Creating contexts for successful community-led health interventions: Learning from participatory HIV/AIDS programmes. LSE, 21-22 September 2009 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Political will to implement effective social development programmes? : participatory HIV prevention amongst sex workers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited seminar to Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics. November 2009 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Putting social capital to work : how may communities gain influence over their powerful stakeholders? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation to AIDS 2031 workshop on Social Capital & HIV/AIDS. Salzburg, 17-21 May 2010 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Sex workers' social movements and identity struggles : origins and future challenges |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation at seminar: 'Indian Society and Practising Sociology: Changes and Challenges', Sociology Department, Kalyani University, West Bengal, India,13-14 March |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | The social conditions for successful peer education : a comparison of two HIV prevention programmes led by sex workers in India and South Africa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited Research Seminar presented to Center for Interdisciplinary AIDS Research, Yale University, USA, 26 July 2007 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | The social constitution of community development success : Indian sex workers' organisations and their positions in networks of power |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited seminar, Institute of Social Psychology Staff-Student Seminar series, LSE, 28 October. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Towards a more complex understanding of the contexts of HIV/AIDS management |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Paper presented at workshop on local-global dimensions of the fight against HIV/AIDS in low income contexts. London School of Economics |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |