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Key words that begin with the letter A

by Phil Bartle

ACCULTURATION

The word "acculturation" means the process of learning a new culture, in contrast to enculturation (learning the culture into which we are born. Some social scientists reverse these two meanings).

Often this means moving to a new society where culture is different, but it is also part of the adaptation that we need for coping while our own community changes (ie develops) around us.

Your work as a mobilizer results in social change (development) in the community. Members of that community must "acculturate" (get used) to the newly changed community.

See the discusssions on resocialization.

ACEPHALOUS

Headless (ceph = head). In small groups of gatherers and hunters, political structure was minimal, almost equalitarian. Where there were no identifiable chiefs or kings, anthropologists called such groups acephalous.

In modern society, they may be found as temporary and usually changing groups of friends. Only in the smallest and less established communities would you find acephalous political systems.

ACTION

Action takes place when the group, your target group, does something, in contrast to merely learning about it. The most effective training is action training where the participants learn by doing. Your job as mobilizer is to both stimulate and guide community action.

You have not mobilized a community if you have brought them together for a meeting or if you have formed a committee that has done nothing yet. You have mobilized them only after they have engaged in action, ie moved.

ACTIVIST

Animator, Mobiliser

ACTORS

The actors are all the persons or groups of people who have identifiable tasks, activities or responsibilities in implementing a project. See: role.

AESTHETIC-VALUES DIMENSION OF COMMUNITY

The aesthetic-values dimension of community is the structure of ideas, sometimes paradoxical, inconsistent, or contradictory, that people have about good and bad, about beautiful and ugly, and about right and wrong, which are the justifications that people may cite to explain their actions.

A dimension of culture. Basic unit = symbol. See "Culture." Learned; not transmitted genetically. Ideology. Values. See dimensions.

AFFECT

The word "affect," as a verb, is a modification on something, caused by some other factor. "When you eat too much you will be affected by heartburn."

The word "affect," as a noun, is related to the word "affection" and means there is some emotional or sentimental feeling. "I think of him with great affect," means I like him very much.

How you go about your work as a community mobiliser will affect the outcome of community response.

Do not confuse the word "affect" with the word "effect," which is related to causality.

AGRARIAN

This is a society where the main mode of production is based on farming. The word “agrarian” describes the society, not the farming.

AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION

Perhaps the single most powerful and influential change in human history was the conversion from gathering and hunting to agriculture (herding and tilling).

Like all social change it tended to be cumulative rather than the new immediately replacing the old. It began perhaps twelve to fifty thousand years or more ago, and continues today

It produced a food surplus which allowed some members of society to produce the food and other members to concentrate on other things.

It facilitated and promoted many revolutionary social changes: urbanism and urbanization, writing and accounting, division of labour, concentration of population, and the formation of social classes based upon allocation of the food surplus (aristocracy, scribes, civil servants, accountants, military, police, traders, legal professions, medical practitioners, engineers, planners, infrastructure builders, trainers, food producers and the disenfranchised).

AGRICULTURE

The mode of production called agriculture means the human domestication of plants and animals.

The domestication of plants requires some saving instead of consuming all of the harvest, fruit and seeds, for the following growing season (leading to economic and religious ideas of sacrifice and investment). While gatherers consume (or store) what they gather, tillers put some aside to use for seeds the following season.

The domestication of animals requires controlling animals so they could be harvested when needed, are not dangerous to humans, and that their reproduction and offspring might be controlled also (equally leading to concepts of sacrifice and investment).

Raising plants is called horticulture or tilling, while raising animals is called herding, and true agriculture means the combination of both, even though, historically, these two modes were often incompatible; groups specializing in one were often in conflict with other groups specializing in the other. (Cain and Abel story).

Agriculture continues to replace gathering and hunting, which do not call for human intervention in encouraging the supply of the product.

The mode of food production is very important in shaping the social organization of a community, and therefore of the methods needed in community empowerment.

ALTRUISM

Altruism is one of the sixteen elements of strength, power or capacity of a community or organization. See: Elements of Community Strength.

Altruism is defined as the degree to which a unit of an organism (or group) is willing and able to make sacrifices for the good of the organism (or group) as a whole. In sociology it is the proportion of, and degree to which, individuals are ready to sacrifice benefits to themselves for the benefit of the community as a whole (reflected in degrees of generosity, individual humility, communal pride, mutual supportiveness, loyalty, concern, camaraderie, sister/brotherhood).

In human society, perhaps the ultimate act of altruism is to die for one's country. In mobilization, it means willingness to donate resources (including one's own time, labour, energy) to the community without expecting payment. As a community develops more altruism, it develops more capacity. (Where individuals, families or factions  are allowed to be greedy and selfish at the expense of the community, this weakens the community). When stimulating a community to organize and act, the mobilizer needs to be aware of the role of altruism in empowering that community or organization.

ANGEL

When a society is polytheistic, it has several Gods, usually in a hierarchy with a CEO such as Jove, Jehova, Saturn or Yahwah, plus subordinate Gods. When it is being converted to monotheism (one God) there is a problem of what to do with the remaining Gods. Converting them to angels was one solution.

ANGER

Potentially, the most dangerous emotion in our work is anger –– how we deal with it. As human beings, we have emotions, and anger is only one of the emotions. It is OK to be angry; that is part of being human. We should not feel guilty or become embarrassed when we feel the emotion of anger. Anger itself is a normal human emotion. We need to accept it when we become angry.

How we act when we are angry, however, can affect our work, whether we are mobilizing communities, co-ordinating volunteers or managing staff. When a client, volunteer, staff or community member makes a mistake, especially one that affects our objectives, for example, we are tempted to show our anger, when that is precisely the time we should be calm and cool.

When we see someone make a mistake that affects our desired output, we need to recognize that seeing it makes us angry and that it is our responsibility to deal with that anger. The best immediate action to take is to go for a walk. If there is not enough time, then we should at least go into another room without displaying our anger, and let it die down there, outside the view of those who angered us.

Then, when we have our anger under control, we can more effectively deal with the thing or event that sparked our anger. If it was a mistake by a client, volunteer, staff or community member, we can take action as described in the key word, Mistake. That action can only be effective if we undertake to do it while being cool, calm and collected.

ANIMATION

Sometimes called social animation. From the classic word anima (life, soul, fire, auto-movement). To stimulate or mobilize a community so that it moves itself, so that it lives, so that it develops.

Sometimes the word is used as a substitute for mobilization. Animation means uniting and mobilizing the community to do what it (as a unity) wants to do.

Community Management Training takes social animation a step further, using management training methods to further increase the capacity of the community, or its community based organizations, to decide, plan and manage its own development. It trains community members and leaders in management techniques needed to ensure the community takes control of its own development.

It also encourages and trains government officials, local authorities and community leaders to abandon the patronistic role of providing facilities and services. They learn to facilitate communities to identify resources and undertake actions to provide and maintain human settlement facilities and services.

ANIMATOR

Activist, Mobiliser. See: animation

ANTHROPOMORPHISE

To "anthropomorphise" is to consider any non-human thing as if it has human characteristics.

This is a problem in biology, for example, where some people talk about a duck or a bear as having a "family" (a human social organism), when they do not.

In sociology and in mobilization, the term is applied to the incorrect thinking of a social organism, such as a community, as if it had human characteristics.

A community is not a human being.

APATHY

Apathy is one of the five main factors of poverty.

It is sometimes related to a fatalistic philosophy. In contrast, "Pray to God, but also row to shore," a Russian proverb, demonstrates that we are in God's hands, but we also have a responsibility to help ourselves.

We were created with many abilities: to choose, to cooperate, to organize in improving the quality of our lives; we should not let God or Allah be used as an excuse to do nothing.

APPLIED SOCIOLOGY

In contrast with pure sociology, applied sociology seeks to make changes in society or its institutions.

Community empowerment is a branch of applied sociology.

AUTHORITY

Authority is power that people think of as legitimate.

The job of the mobiliser is to identify authority in a community, see if it is changing, and try to predict what it will look like in the future.

When organising and mobilising a community, the activist must not overlook, forget, or ignore authority.

AUTO MANAGEMENT

"Auto Management" is a term borrowed from Spanish mobilizers in Central and South America, "auto gestion."  It means that a community manages itself. See Self.

See Self Management. It means that the community has taken control over the management and other decision making that affects its development.

AWARENESS RAISING

One of your most important responsibilities is to convey information simply and accurately. You want to convey that, yes, there is a problem, but the solution lies with them in the community.

See the document, Awareness Raising. Sensitizing. They may assume you bring resources or will solve their problems (thus they get raised expectations), but you must counteract those assumptions.

© Copyright 1967, 1987, 2007 Phil Bartle
Web Design by Lourdes Sada

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Last update: 2015.09.22