El Seminario del Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos (IPP-CSIC) se celebrará este miércoles 6 de noviembre a las 12.00 hs.

En esta ocasión, se presentará la ponencia "Helping people navigate the system or change the system? A comparative analysis of asset-based and rights-based approaches in Scotland", a cargo de Cristina Asenjo Palma

Resumen:

After nearly ten years of austerity measures in the UK, third sector organisations working in socio-economic disadvantaged communities are finding themselves at a crossroad. They have to decide whether to continue working on /what people can improve by themselves /(i.e. helping people improve their employability, securing their accommodation, enhancing their social capital, etc.) or whether to become more actively involved in promoting /changes at a structural level /(i.e. helping people take actions to challenge austerity and secure social rights). For some organisations, the decision of whether to follow one or another approach is made by pragmatic reasons. If they want to secure funding, they might need to work alongside welfare reform initiatives that emphasize 'empowerment as self-help' and prioritize community solutions to community problems. For other organisations, this decision is made for ideological reasons. It might depend on whether transformative changes are thought to happen first at the level of individuals or at the policy level.

This presentation will explore the advantages and disadvantages that collective mobilization around self-help provision and political campaigning bring to third sector organisations and the communities they work with. To draw this comparison, I will use two contrasting approaches that have gained popularity within Scottish community development practice: the asset-based approach and the rights-based approach. The asset-based approach seeks to help people develop skills to address difficulties by themselves (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1993). The rights-based approach seeks to help people make governments accountable for addressing structural barriers to well-being (Gauri and Gloppen, 2012).

The presentation will discuss initial research findings by drawing on data collected through 34 semi-structured interviews across 12 organisations that identify their practice as either being closer to the asset-based approach or the rights-based approach.l seminario tendrá lugar en la sala Herbert Simon (3D18).