Social Research for Mobilizers;
Practical, Applied and Purposeful
 by
Phil Bartle, PhD

Training Handout

Applied social research in aid of empowerment

Abstract:

 This document is aimed at the community mobilizer and her or his
 manager.

 Social science research methods in the pure sciences such as
 Sociology and Anthropology are similar to but different from the
 methods of applied scientific research used by the mobilizer or
 management trainer. Keeping the social perspective is essential to
 both kinds, and the results of pure research can be valuable to the
 applied scientist.

 The mobilizer in the field, however, needs to employ methods
 appropriate to her or his aims and objectives,
 the empowerment of communities and the capacity development of
 organizations.

Applied Social Science:

 It is useful to divide sciences between pure and applied. Pure
 science seeks to see how things work. Applied science seeks to make
 some practical use out of knowledge.

 While chemistry is a pure science, chemical engineering is an
 applied science. The empowerment of communities and the development
 of capacity within organizations are two examples of applied social
 sciences.

 While mobilization, empowerment, capacity development and management
 training are all applied social science, they are not the same thing
 as social engineering. The distinction between pure and applied
 affects how scientific research is conducted.

 Within pure science research, Anthropology commonly employs
 participant observation. In that method, the anthropologist goes to
 live with a community where the culture is different from that of
 her or his birth, learns language and customs, and reports on the
 culture of that exotic society.

 Participant observation (as in Anthropology) is time consuming. It
 would not be a practical method of research for the mobilizer who
 has limited time to obtain results in a community.

 Sociology, in contrast, commonly relies on quantitative interview
 surveys. A quantitative social survey (as in Sociology) is formal
 and perhaps a bit stiff.

 That formality often will affect how informants answer questions. A
 survey emphasises opinions of the respondents. A survey does not
 lend itself to discovering how a community, or any social
 institution, operates on the ground.

 These are only a few common examples. In general, the methods of
 research in the pure sciences are not appropriate or easily
 applicable to applied science (ie mobilization, management,
 empowerment).

 The results of pure science research, however, can be valuable to
 the mobilizer.

 It doesn't hurt to read pure social science research publications to
 see the findings and study the methods used. That is a good
 recommendation for the mobilizer.

 For the mobilizer to find out about a specific community enough to
 assist in empowering it, in contrast, the mobilizer may have
 to use other approaches.

Purpose of the Research:

 The purpose of research there (in pure science) is to see how things
 work. The purpose here (in applied science) is to help make
 empowerment interventions more effective.

 Finding out how things work may be a by-product.

 The goal of the mobilizer is to increase the power and capacity of a
 low income community. The usual method is to encourage, stimulate
 and guide the community to engage in action such as self help
 projects aiming at objectives defined by the community members as
 having the highest priorities.

 To be effective and successful, the mobilizer needs to know how the
 community is set up -- what changes it is going through and what
 structures or patterns currently apply. The mobilizer needs to know
 how the community will respond to different kinds of interventions.

 She or he needs to know how likely the community will be able to
 unify and choose an activity that will attract all members to get
 behind it. The mobilizer needs to know about the economy, the
 political processes, the technology, the interaction patterns, the
 values and the beliefs of the community members, in short, its
 culture.

 Information on all these things will help the mobilizer to be
 effective in choosing strategies for intervention to stimulate the
 community to develop itself.

 The manager of a programme for empowering several communities
 equally needs the social information produced by the mobilizers in
 the field. This information should not remain with the mobilizer,
 but records should be copied to a manager of a wider process or 
 programme.

General Approach to the Method:

 The mobilizer needs to find out all these things about a community
 without doing so in a way that will hinder her or his ability to
 stimulate the community to act. You, the mobilizer, do not have the
 time to spend a year or more in participatory observation like an
 anthropologist.

 A mobilizer can not usually organize a formal survey, lacking staff
 and other resources and because conducting such a formal survey will
 affect the views and behaviour of the residents.

 Social research by you, the mobilizer, should be informal and not
 noticeable (in ways which put people ill at ease). Although
 observations should be casual and without formal note taking on the
 spot, the mobilizer then needs to spend time every night, away from
 residents, making extensive notes of various kinds about what was
 observed and analysed during each day.

 When doing such social research, the mobilizer can not be too
 insistent on precision. Fortunately, precision is not an urgent
 need; approximate trends and patterns can help the mobilizer design
 a strategy appropriate to the community, and can help the manager
 design a strategy appropriate to the district.

Take Time to Write:

 Set aside at least an hour or more every day, to be by yourself
 undisturbed, to write your observations and analysis of the
 community in which you work. Keep a journal, including more than
 just events of the day, but also your observations, reactions,
 responses, thoughts, and considerations of what you see and hear and
 do.

 Your writing is an essential part of doing social research in the
 community. Do not omit it.

 Writing Helps.

 Writing helps to organize your thoughts. Since community is a
 sociological construct, and you can never see the whole thing,
 writing helps you to construct a picture of your community. You need
 to analyse the things you observe, and writing helps you to make
 your analysis. It contributes to your seeing the community as a
 whole thing, over and above the individuals that you meet daily.

 Rewrite, too.

Need Social Perspective:

 To conduct your research, as well as to be successful as a
 mobilizer, you need to see a community as more than a collection of
 individuals. You need to understand the Social Perspective. This is
 a corollary to the method of making observations while you are in
 the community or with community members, then privately writing
 copious notes about your observations and analyses.

 You can never see a whole community at once, but you can conceive of
 it as a single entity (See the Elephant Story). By writing, you can
 think and rethink the community as a construct, and get a better
 understanding of the whole community develop in your mind.

 To understand it better, you need to take a big overview of the
 community as a whole, and the society as a whole. Remember that the
 community, as a sociological construct, is beyond individuals. The
 "big picture" is in your head.

 The community is a functioning (sometimes dysfunctional), changing
 system. You need to translate individual observations into parts of
 that holistic view, and that is best done while you are writing your
 notes afterwards.

 Organize your observations into categories such as the six
 dimensions of culture. This will help you to identify aspects
 overlooked, and to keep a holistic view of the community as a
 superorganic entity. You can also organize your observations into
 the sixteen elements of capacity. This will help you to remain aware
 of the changes that your empowerment methodology needs to bring to
 the community.

Library Research:

 Do not be afraid to obtain sociological information about the
 community from pure sciences, including economics, political
 science, geography, anthropology and sociology. Although collected
 so as to further scientific understanding, the information can help
 you reach your empowerment objectives.

 Look through journal articles in sociological, anthropological and
 geographical academic journals, if you have access to
 them. University libraries and the internet are two good sources. Do
 not omit census data.

 Research done on similar communities in the same district, in the
 same ethnic group, in the same area, can be useful, so long as you
 remember that as well as being similar to others, every community is
 unique. Take notes, and test out some general observations by what
 you see in the field.

Maps and Then Some:

 In writing your notes about what you see and hear in the community,
 do not limit yourself to written words. From the beginning, start
 drawing different kinds of maps.

 Start with the usual geographic maps, sketching where things are in
 the community as seen from the sky. Do not stop there. Start drawing
 other kinds of maps, moving on to maps without a geographic base.

 Use the six cultural dimensions as an organizing mechanism.

 In the technological dimension, for example, map out the community
 as a living organism: what does it consume, what does it
 excrete? How does it act upon what it consumes before excreting them?

 Similarly, map out the economic dimension: where is wealth
 concentrated? How does wealth flow? (Distinguish between wealth and
 money).

 In the political dimension, map out the spheres of power and
 influence. Include traditional, inherited, elected, informal,
 unrecognised, and other kinds of sources of abilities to change
 things.

 How is power allocated within the community? How does it shift? Are
 there individuals that get their power from more than one source?
 Are any changing their source?

 What mechanisms contribute to those things changing? Do not be
 blindly influenced by what other people (including me) think; be
 creative. Make up your own maps. Yet, share and compare your maps
 with other mobilizers.

 Train yourself to see the community as a single organism, with
 features that are other than just a collection of individuals, but
 identify the forces and elements that contribute to the community as
 having a life of its own over and above the lives of its residents.

Making Lists:

 While it first sounds like a boring activity, making lists is a
 useful way to organize and review your observations, and coming to a
 deeper understanding of the community through a social perspective.

 Start lists, even if you do not finish them the same day. Make lists
 on any kinds of observation that you see about the community. When
 you make lists, you also become conscious of things that you have
 not yet observed, and will pay more attention to them next time you
 walk through the community.

 Go back to your lists later and review and revise. Share and compare
 your lists with other mobilizers.

 Your lists can be of people who fill roles related to one of the
 cultural dimensions; for example, in the power (political)
 dimension, start making a list of all the persons who wield power
 and/or influence in the community. For the economic dimension, make
 a list of all the commercial traders in the community. List all the
 ways that wealth is transferred other than by the use of money.

 List the ways that money is used to evaluate wealth in the
 community. List the valuable things that it is seen as wrong to
 evaluate with money.

 Lists do not have to be only about people. What about a list of
 religious buildings (churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, revival
 tents, local deity buildings, fetish houses)? What about a list of
 all cash crops grown and sold? What about communal facilities
 (schools, clinics, water supplies, electricity, meeting halls, roads)?

 Eventually you can make a list of all your lists.

 Use these lists to discover facts that you may have overlooked to
 collect during your informal discussions and observations in
 public. Compare your lists with those of other mobilizers, and
 discuss them with your manager.

 Managers, encourage your mobilizers to make lists, and discuss ways
 of using them as a way of ordering social research in each community.

Conclusion:

 Mobilizer social research is not quite the same as research in the
 pure sciences, such as sociology and anthropology. It needs to be
 faster, even if not so precise, and it needs to be as unobtrusive
 and non-intrusive as possible.

 It is not the seeking of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but is
 seeking information that will lead to efficient ways to empower each
 community.

 You need to design your own research strategy, designing it for
 conditions of the community. Discuss it with other mobilizers in
 your district or in the same organization, and exchange ideas and
 experiences.

 These are guidelines, not a recipe of how to do your work, in this
 document. Much of what you observe you need to rethink and analyse.
 Daily writing will help you to do that.

 See all your research as helping you to understand the community
 through the social perspective, and to understand more about how it
 is organized, what changes it is going through, and how you might
 best stimulate it towards increased capacity. This document (which
 emphasises the "how" of your research) complements the document,
 Community Research (which emphasises the "what" of your research).

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Updated: 2003 May 9