Activities Of Agencies Research Articles

The Recovering Citizenship Learning Collaborative: a system-wide intervention to increase citizenship practices and outcomes

PurposeThis paper aims to describe the Recovering Citizenship Learning Collaborative (RCLC), a training, consultation and implementation effort for 13 local mental health authorities and two state hospitals.Design/methodology/approachThe learning collaborative used a Recovering Citizenship approach, which holds that recovery occurs in the context of people’s lives in their communities and society, that is, their citizenship. The RCLC was implemented by the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) in the USA and the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health along with lived experience leaders. The RCLC supported system change through training DMHAS staff on concepts of recovery and citizenship and developing agency action plans, with the long-term goal of improving citizenship-oriented care at the agency-level and recovery and citizenship-related outcomes for people receiving services.FindingsLessons learned include the importance of assessing organizational readiness for change, addressing leadership investment and attention to systemic barrier, and offering tools to promote structure and accountability. Next steps are supporting agency action plans through technical assistance, state-wide educational offerings and a resource library.Research limitations/implicationsSystemic barriers are considerable and must be addressed before system transformation is possible.Practical implicationsThe authors are hopeful that the RCLC has been part of overcoming those challenges and can be a tool for building foundations for improving citizen practices and people’s citizenship-related outcomes.Social implicationsNext steps are sustaining agency action plans, ongoing agency-specific technical assistance, ongoing state-wide educational offerings and a resource library.Originality/valueThe RCLC has provided tools and supports to build the foundation for improved citizenship practices and client outcomes at the multiagency system level.

Conjuration and Conspiracy. The Controversy over the German Covid Policy as a Mediumistic Trial, or: The Medium is the Mess

Based on anthropological fieldwork among protesters against the Covid policy in Germany, this paper elaborates the symmetry of accusations made against each other by proponents and opponents of the state-imposed protection measures against the backdrop of an asymmetrical distribution of power. The social dynamics that emerged during the pandemic are often understood as the result of a knowledge controversy that most participants thus categorize as a media problem. A key finding of my research on protests against the German Covid policy is that, as in my research on the controversy over mediumism, the controversy is about the agency of human and nonhuman actors and carried out to a great extent based on the same values on both sides, which at the same time accuse each other of not conforming to these values. The protesters are part of a heterogeneous minority that in large parts embodies the values of the majority and, in a way, exceeds them, i.e., a minority that is hypercritical and has extreme expectations about the values of the majority society – in this case: of solidarity, science, transparency, rationality, and coherence. From its marginal position, the minority develops a canny eye for the unfulfilled promises of the majority: its contradictions and conscious or unconscious double standards are perceived as bigotry against the backdrop of the aspiration to absence of contradiction. Therefore, this minority suspects that the motivations and goals behind the measures taken are other than just the protection of health, while the majority in turn see the minority’s commitment to society and democracy as (self-)deception and also suspect hidden motives and actors behind it. This mutual suspicion leads to a hysterical state of doubt and distrust, which is rooted in the nature of mediality.

Agency in action: Towards a transactional approach for analyzing agency in sustainability transitions

This article formulates a conceptual and analytical contribution to investigations of agency in transitions. Transition studies often assume, rather than assess, structure-agency dynamics through conceptions of a ‘nested hierarchy’ between, or a ‘structuration continuum’ within, niches and regimes. Neo-institutionalist and practice theoretical approaches have provided tools for more precise investigations of this interplay, like institutional logics, institutional work, and the de-and re-routinization of habits. Yet, both also struggle to adequately reveal how structures enable or constrain action and how actors build structures. We introduce transactional pragmatism, with its focus on how actors and their context are in constant functional coordination, to further develop the concept of habits as a central mechanism through which the process of de- and re-routinization takes shape in action. We draw on Practical Epistemology Analysis and the concept of privileging to suggest analytical concepts and questions for facilitating future research on the topic.

The Mountain Valley Provision—Impacts and Implications for the Market and the Future

The political theater that recently played out related to the US debt ceiling may have illustrated the chaos that polarization has brought to Washington, but it showed one other thing as well: even when it does not have much to do with the matter at hand—as in defaulting on the national debt—there's actually an appetite for federal permitting reform on both sides of the aisle. The Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) addressed some immediate priorities relating to infrastructure— including changes to the review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). But then, surprising many in the natural gas industry, as well as many of the industry's critics, the FRA actually ordered the regulatory permitting of the long‐delayed, controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). For over five years, MVP has been in various stages of regulatory limbo, having received a certificate from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) years ago but continually failing to secure the other federal permits necessary for completion. That failure was generally not the result of actions of the agencies involved, but rather of successful efforts by project opponents to gain appellate court reversals of the agency actions approving the pipeline. The MVP saga has proven that even an “act of congress” does not necessarily end the drama. Well after the passage of the FRA, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which had been the dominant forum for most of the previous stoppages, issued a stay of the construction under a U.S. Forest Service permit that MVP had already received. The outcome of that action is unknown at the time of publication, but presages the ongoing legal arm‐wrestling that will likely surround the FRA provision and the project.

Becoming Chilean: Hipólito Gutiérrez and the Construction of Chilean National Identity During the War of the Pacific (1879–1881)

This article investigates a memoir written in 1881 by Hipólito Gutiérrez, a semi-literate man from rural Chile, about his experiences as a soldier in the War of the Pacific (1879–1884). Through a microhistorical approach, it seeks to contextualize the memoir with the aim of uncovering how Gutiérrez constructed himself to be Chilean through his participation in the war. Unlike assessments made by past scholars, Gutiérrez cannot be considered representative of Chilean peasant-soldiers. The memoir provides a window into which researchers can see agency in action by a subaltern actor and how national identity is constructed from below.

How to … use theory as method in HPE research.

Recognising that scholars in health professions education (HPE) are often unfamiliar with theory-informed research, we provide guidance on a robust method for using theory as a method to inform every aspect of research design from research question formation to data analysis and reporting. Using the Figured Worlds theory to illustrate the process, we mapped six concepts of particular importance to HPE: the figured world, agency, improvisation, discourse, positionality and power. Together the concepts were helpful analytic tools for our topic of interest. The concept of the figured world informed the construction of our program of research. Agency was useful in exploring the ways that subjects acted or did not act. We crafted interview questions to illustrate participants' unique improvisations. Discourse, or the world's artefacts both verbal and embodied, informed our understanding of the world's norms. Positionality allowed us to compare the agentic action of different participants. Finally, power offered an opportunity to recognise the intersection of the positional identities of participants and their stories of action or inaction. While theory-informed analytic tools offer an opportunity to construct nuanced understanding, generating new insights into study subjects and their worlds, caution is necessary as qualitative inquiry is an evolving process of give and take. Everything from the study's questions, methods and even theories might need to flex in response to the data. Ultimately, though initially intimidating, theories offer concrete methodological tools HPE scholars can rely on.

Turkey-Africa Relations and Turkey’s National Role Conception as the Centre Country: Continuity or a Break with the Past?

ABSTRACT The increase in Turkey’s visibility and power in Sub-Saharan Africa has attracted great attention. The rise of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party, the story goes, engendered an abrupt shift from a cautious to a proactive foreign policy. We posit, however, that the seeds of Turkey’s opening to Africa date back decades and are an extension of its centre country (merkez ülke) national role conception. Turkey only appeared cautious prior to the 2000s because of resource constraints. Instead, Ankara’s political leaders of all stripes have shared a common conception of Turkey as something far bigger than the nation-state, and have fostered policies aimed at enhancing its agency of action (limited by structural and resource constraints) so as to resume Turkey’s role as Afro-Eurasia’s centre country. This national role conception coupled with an increase in Turkey’s national power since the 1980s have resulted in its opening to and subsequent engagement with Sub-Saharan Africa.

Becoming active in the micro-politics of healthcare re-organisation: The identity work and political activation of doctors, nurses and managers

The changing organisation and governance of healthcare work represents a persistent focus of micro-politics. Whilst there is a developed literature describing the micro-political struggles that occur amongst healthcare occupations, there is little understanding about how, when and why actors become politically aware and active. Framed by research on political activation and the concept of identity work, this paper reports on a narrative interview study with 65 people, specifically doctors, nurses and managers, working in the English healthcare system. The narratives show that healthcare workers become increasingly aware of and engaged in micro-political activities through incremental stages based on their accumulating experiences. These stages are opportunities for identity work as actors make sense of their experiences of micro-politics, their occupational affiliations and their evolving sense of self. This identity work is shaped by actors' changing views about the morality of playing politics, the emotional implications of their engagement, and their deepening political commitments. The study shows that political socialisation and activation can vary between occupations and rather than assuming political affiliations are given or acquired the papers highlights the reflective agency of healthcare actors.

COVID-19 and the participatory place branding impasse: a study of actor agency

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on participatory place branding processes and, in particular, on multiple actors’ ability to build agency.Design/methodology/approachAn in-depth qualitative inquiry of place branding processes in Cardiff (UK) was undertaken during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured (online) interviews with 28 city representatives from the public, private and voluntary sectors are analysed using three-stage conceptual coding.FindingsFive transitions in the meaning-making and engagement processes at the nexus of participatory place branding are identified: heightening value of the local environment; building and sharing local knowledge; embedding a sense of community into relational networks; innovating engagement channels; and blurring of roles and responsibilities. Combined, these demonstrate a cultivating place (brand) attachment and evolving logics around participation.Research limitations/implicationsTransitions in actor agency require monitoring over time, drawing on additional studies, wider samples and multidisciplinary frameworks.Practical implicationsLocal knowledge and multi-actor networks are increasingly viewed as valuable assets, providing legitimacy for those in possession of these resources and for the brand. Practitioners, policy makers and community representatives should support innovative ways to involve and learn from local actors, including those not currently active across the place brand web.Originality/valueAntecedents to actor agency are investigated, highlighting that during a period of disruption actors gained legitimacy for their participation by emphasising the value attached to localities, building place (brand) attachment and drawing on blurred place branding boundaries.

Connecting People with Science: A Proof-of-Concept Study to Evaluate Action-Based Storytelling for Science Communication

Many of the major environmental problems facing society remain intractable because members of the public neither perceive the relevance to them nor how their individual actions might help the situation. Post-consumer textile waste is one such disregarded problem, whereby disposal of waste from the fashion industry, especially the discarding of functional but out-of-fashion garments, releases significant greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Here, we used action-based storytelling as proof-of-concept of an innovative way to promote agency for climate action by showcasing pro-environmental behaviour through social modelling within stories. We evaluated the effectiveness of action-based storytelling in evoking agency, self-efficacy, and intention to increase second-hand clothing consumption. This research sought to identify if the choices faced by the story’s hero impacted these variables. The research is innovative in its use of a mixed-methods research methodology and community-based social marketing approach. Two focus groups identified consumer barriers to, and motivations for, second-hand clothing consumption in order to inform the development of three action-based storytelling videos (each with a different hero character: (i) a scientist, (ii) an influencer and (iii) students). A quasi-experimental survey evaluated how action-based storytelling and the different story heroes impacted participants’ levels of agency, self-efficacy, and intention. Results showed that participants’ levels of agency, self-efficacy, and intention significantly increased after watching the videos. Furthermore, the influencer hero was found to have the greatest effect on these variables. This research concludes that action-based storytelling can be an effective communication approach which demonstrates promising results in evoking agency and self-efficacy and increasing the likelihood that consumers will adopt pro-environmental behaviours.

Spatializing stigma-power: Mental health impacts of spatial stigma in a legally-excluded settlement in Mumbai, India.

In disadvantaged neighborhoods such as informal settlements (or "slums" in the Indian context), infrastructural deficits and social conditions have been associated with residents' poor mental health. Within social determinants of health framework, spatial stigma, or negative portrayal and stereotyping of particular neighborhoods, has been identified as a contributor to health deficits, but remains under-examined in public health research and may adversely impact the mental health of slum residents through pathways including disinvestment in infrastructure, internalization, weakened community relations, and discrimination. Based on analyses of individual interviews (n = 40) and focus groups (n = 6) in Kaula Bandar (KB), an informal settlement in Mumbai with a previously described high rate of probable common mental disorders (CMD), this study investigates the association between spatial stigma and mental health. The findings suggest that KB's high rate of CMDs stems, in part, from residents' internalization of spatial stigma, which negatively impacts their self-perceptions and community relations. Employing the concept of stigma-power, this study also reveals that spatial stigma in KB is produced through willful government neglect and disinvestment, including the denial of basic services (e.g., water and sanitation infrastructure, solid waste removal). These findings expand the scope of stigma-power from an individual-level to a community-level process by revealing its enactment through the actions (and inactions) of bureaucratic agencies. This study provides empirical evidence for the mental health impacts of spatial stigma and contributes to understanding a key symbolic pathway by which living in a disadvantaged neighborhood may adversely affect health.

Connected by emotion: Teacher agency in an online science education course during COVID‐19

AbstractTaking on an agentic perspective, this study employed a digital ethnographic approach to examine a science teacher's emotional experiences in an online graduate science education course during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Veronika, the teacher, revealed her feelings of grievance and loss to the graduate course cohort at the advent of large‐scale school closures. Her emotions, shared through the online course, connected the members of the cohort to overcome emotional and pedagogical difficulties caused by the pandemic. She received both emotional and professional support from the cohort and designed an environmental related learning activity that centered on fun and connection in science learning. The activity stimulated students’ positive emotions and simultaneously served to reset Veronika's emotions. This study underlined that emotions connect teachers during a social crisis in ways that address obstacles encountered in teaching and learning. Lessons for teacher education include providing space for and acknowledging emotions in teaching, especially in times of stress and the importance of fostering agentic actions, collegiality, and collaboration by explicitly connecting an individual's emotions and beliefs to their professional practice.

Informality as a safety net: civic agency and the crisis of local governments in Hungary

ABSTRACT Most research on post-socialist civil society has focused on analysing the characteristics that explain (the lack of) civic strength. Although recent research has highlighted the rise of urban activism, it has failed to look more closely at the agency of actors. By focusing on informal groups and their engagement in public affairs in the aftermath of the 2019 local elections in Hungary, this paper seeks to unravel the civic strategies and narratives that underpin informal civic resistance to political and institutional pressures at a time when both local municipalities and civil society are experiencing a gradual loss of autonomy.

Associations between hope and trajectories of critical consciousness among U.S. youth of color.

We examined associations between hope as an internal asset that supports positive youth development, and growth trajectories of three critical consciousness components. Using five waves of data collected over the course of high school (N = 618), we modeled growth trajectories of awareness of inequity (critical reflection), a sense of agency about taking sociopolitical action (critical agency), and behaviors targeting systems of oppression (critical action). Hope was highest among those with high trajectories of critical agency and critical action. Clear associations with hope emerged at the last time point for critical reflection, suggesting that sustained growth in critical reflection is associated with hope. When supporting the critical consciousness development of youth of color, concurrent support for hope may be instrumental.

Problematizing the Diversity Debit Hypothesis

One of the most studied hypotheses in political economy and development literature posits that social heterogeneity is negatively associated with favorable societal and political outcomes. This study problematizes the diversity debit hypothesis. It overviews its theoretical underpinning and uncovers its roots to be in rational choice theory and the homo economicus framework of human behavior. As such, scholarly accounts of diversity debit have attributed it to the agency (or lack thereof) of minority groups and their impaired ability to engage in collective mobilization to pressure elites for concessions. Through case studies of three most-different countries: the US, Turkey, and Vietnam, this study discovers that even when mass mobilization has been waged by minority groups either along ethnic or cross-ethnic boundaries, it has not led to favorable outcomes. Diversity debit has subsisted and will likely continue to exist not as a result of individual failure, but due to the interaction of structural (neoliberal capitalistic) forces with the agency of either government-led actions (antagonization and discrimination of minority groups) and corporate profiteering.

Creating points of opportunity in sustainability transitions: Reflective interventions in inter-organizational collaboration

This paper addresses the lack of attention for the behaviours and agency of actors in organizations in the sustainability transitions literature by focussing on practices of inter-organizational collaboration in the transition to circular construction. Practices of inter-organizational collaboration can slow down this transition and are deeply embedded in the construction regime, creating critical points of intersection. This research therefore investigated how reflective interventions can enable project actors to change their practices and support the transformation of critical points of intersection into points of opportunity in circular construction. To answer this question, we adopted a case study approach with action research elements. The results of this study contribute to the sustainability transitions literature by showing how reflective interventions can assist in the transformation of critical points of intersection through five processes, including prioritising reflection on practices, critically evaluating practices, creating a breeding ground for new practices, implementing new practices and embedding new practices in partner organizations. Furthermore, we move away from the focus on policy interventions and offer more room for the agency of actors in projects, by showing how reflective interventions can create experimental environments close to the day-to-day activities of project actors enabling them to simultaneously unlearn obsolete practices and learn new practices.

Models of activity in the narratives of people with schizophrenia.

This article presents an analysis of the narratives of people with schizophrenia from the perspective of descriptions of activities. The goal is to look for changes in activity models under the influence of a psychotic crisis experience. Three fragments of auto-narratives concerning periods: prior to illness, during illness and during remission periods, were compared. These were created after psychotic crisis. The narratives of 26 people with schizophrenia about their lives and self-perception during the aforementioned periods made up the research material. Linguistics textual analysis was conducted, distinguishing the determinants of six selected models of activity relating to sense of agency and intentionality of action. Frequency analysis and multivariable methods were applied to compare the relative frequency of their occurrence in narratives. Descriptions of activities during the illness are more strongly saturated with models of an extrinsic control site, impersonal control over action, avoidance, individual actions, states in comparison to the remission period, and in particular, descriptions of activity prior to the illness. The results of analysis of schizophrenia patients' narratives indicate a decreased sense of agency related to experiencing states of disorder (subjectively defined). This motivational deficit also concerns remission periods after the active phase of the illness, though to a lesser extent. Analysis of motivational models reveals differences of descriptions of own activity, indicating alterations in auto-narration and narrative identity under the influence of a psychotic crisis in a retrospective approach. These changes pertain to deep layers hidden in the relationship between the form of the narrative and its content. They indicate other images of oneself (self-positions or self-narrative voices) as a healthy, sick and in remission person - especially in terms of the perception of their own agency.

What are We to Do with ‘Muslim Subjectivity’? Prospects and Pitfalls of the Research Approach in a Historiographical Context

The author discusses, in the historiographical context, problems posed by the growing wave of research on the “history of Muslim subjectivity.” Noting the paradoxical danger of the reorientalization of and the loss of historicity in Islamic studies, the author insists on the importance of the very designation of the emerging approach and suggests as a more correct term “history of Muslim subjectivities”. Some aspects of the nowadays’ interpretations of the interaction between the individual and the social and cultural in history, of the role of agency and subjecthood of historical actors are considered, as well as the correlation between persona studies and studies of the “techniques of the self.” Proceeding from the approaches that presume the “return of the subject,” the author emphasizes the expediency, for the studies of Muslim subjectivities, of microhistorical approaches, in particular, the “pragmatic turn” and the Russian version of microhistory with its characteristic attention to the individual and its complex vision of the historical context.

Attitudes Toward Park and Recreation Agency Actions in Support of People Experiencing Homelessness

Park and recreation providers are increasingly called upon to interface with and serve an unhoused user population. However, park and recreation agency policies are often inconsistent with increasingly progressive societal attitudes toward the issue of homelessness and people experiencing homelessness. Despite the growing salience of this issue, there is a relative lack of information regarding attitudes toward agency actions intended to support people experiencing homelessness. In this note, we use panel survey data to provide descriptive information and group comparisons via independent samples t-tests that we believe will prove useful for practitioners, policy makers, and researchers in this context. Our results indicate that while respondents are largely supportive of this type of agency action, park users, younger people, and those who are more affluent and economically conservative are more supportive of actions intended to support people experiencing homelessness.

Exploring social processes in transformation: the case of a collaborative water partnership in South Africa

ABSTRACT We explore the social processes supporting transformation towards collaborative water governance in the uMngeni catchment, South Africa. Using Holling’s adaptive cycle as a heuristic of phases (conservation, release, reorganisation and exploitation) present during transformation of social-ecological systems, we consider the role of learning, power, agency and structure during each phase of the evolution of the uMngeni Ecological Infrastructure Partnership (UEIP). The UEIP is a partnership between government, research institutions, and civil society groups that facilitates broader and more collaborative participation in water management. During the conservation phase, strong control power and institutional structure (denoted by a hierarchical governance mode embodying control and regulation by the State) limited the introduction of new ideas and reinforced single-loop learning. The release phase was triggered by a shock which weakened control power and permitted the introduction of new ideas thereby enabling double-loop learning. The changing conditions gave rise to protean power (defined as results of practices of agile actors coping with uncertainty) which enhanced the agency of key actors who began to mobilise others in a rapid phase of re-organisation. Triple-loop learning was evident in the exploitation phase as new collaborative institutions, that were better able to accommodate innovative ideas, began to emerge. We found the adaptive cycle helpful for delineating phases of change, while the four multi-faceted processes of learning, power, agency and structure proved useful in illuminating dynamics of change. This understanding may help to inform actions to steer transformations towards more sustainable and collaborative water governance in South Africa and elsewhere.