The role of time and social churn in impact assessment: An engagement-based model

Abstract

To participate in social impact assessments, members of a community need to understand both the nature and complexity of impacts at the individual and social level. This study considers the role of engagement in developing community understanding of social impacts by documenting and analyzing organizational and community actions and responses in the Adani Carmichael mine case. Findings suggest engagement facilitates the conduct of social churn. We define social churn as a process of collective level discussion, meaning-making, and consensus-building from multiple information inputs in response to equivocality or uncertainty resulting from organizational behavior, out of which is generated an articulation of community level perceptions of that organizational behavior and its impacts at an individual, community, and societal level. Theoretically, the findings of this study challenge traditional linear notions of social impact assessments and offer an alternative engagement-based model. Practically, the model identifies ways in which organizations can recognize and participate in the social processes that both create and represent the differing levels of social reality determining perceptions of those impacts.