Measuring Collectivisation

The following is a collation of the speaking points from a Webinar conducted on the topic  “Measuring Collectivisation - a process of how we developed a Self-diagnostic Tool”.

We will begin with setting the context - to understand why we were interested in evolving these tools, followed by how we went about the process. We will then deep dive into one of the collectives that we interacted with - the Resilience group that is working to collectivise sanitation workers in Tamil Nadu, India, to exemplify the process of collectivisation embedded in Sindhanai as a contemplative pedagogy.

We embarked into a journey of evolving a self diagnostic tool for collectives that access grants. We realised that not all collectives call themselves as ‘social movements’ as many are still in the formative stages. So we looked at social movement not as a structural formation but more as an approach. A collectivisation that follows a social movement approach necessarily is a collective of those at margins; that engages in collective agency or bargaining; and has collective leadership of members. 

There is a growing recognition that sustainable change, especially systemic shift and structural change, is possible only through community-led collective bargaining processes. This recognition has now percolated among grant makers. There is now growing interaction between funders and collectives.

In one of our interactions with community-led organisations and campaigns, we discussed the key challenges they face in their interaction with grantmakers. We found that some of these collectives face some challenging questions from grant makers. We asked them to list these questions down, which we then clubbed into three main categories - Diversity and Inclusion, Membership and Engagement, Financial Management and Sustainability.

It was not that the collectives were not aware of these questions. They were aptly seized of such matters. However, often the challenge is one of articulation. Generally, there is little time or space for the collectives to reflect on these questions and provide answers in a sustained way. In contrast, grant makers often have the luxury of knowing many similar collectivisation efforts and approach the collective from the lens of sustainability. 

The fear we had when we heard the voices of the collectives was that while grant makers appreciate the collectivisation process, their systems continue to look at these collectives like any other Civil society organisation/grantee. They also often use the same measurement tools for collectives as they do for CSOs/NGOs. We felt a need to develop a self diagnostic tool along with these collectives, to not only reflect on key significant issues but also help them engage with grant makers with a better articulation of their journey.

Our journey started with a meeting with seven collectives, followed by a review of our own experience and work with a number of grant makers on participatory grantmaking. We evolved five discussion papers and engaged with several experts. We then deep dived with one collective and evolved a self assessment tool. We realised that our process with that collective was not straightforward - it was not just asking them the indicators that they would like to assess themselves on. We travelled with different members of the collective in a journey of self reflection on a number of themes relevant to their own journey and challenges. After these discussions and reflection, we asked them for indicators to measure the change - and they evolved very informed indicators. We then took a step back to analyse these key concepts in discussion with the group, and were collectively able to evolve the indicators further.

Having seen the indicators developed for the Resilience group, we now take a step back to explore the discussions that helped evolve these indicators. While we created the self-diagnostic tool for one particular collective and it is relevant mainly to that collective, we want to eventually create a set of universal guiding principles or a skeletal framework which any collective can use to facilitate their own indicators. Through a set of seven concepts,  we are trying to understand the essence of what a self-diagnostic tool for collectivisation would delve into.

The key concepts that emerged through discussions revolved around two fundamental aspects of collectivisation. The first was a critical reflection on collectivisation itself - this included an exploration of the journey of collectivisation and the non-linear, cyclical nature of collectives; understanding the concepts of indignity and intersectionality to better articulate and comprehend systemic exclusion; and lastly, a deep understanding of the many structures and systems that determine the context for collectivisation.

The second was a critical reflection on the interface with grantmaking - in which we broadly looked at the three stages - 

1. Proposal stage - where the articulation of their Theory of Change is important.

2. Monitoring - which leads to the evolving of a self-diagnostic tool and 

3. Exit stage - dealing with the question of funds and sustainability, a key question for all collectives to develop what we call an ‘exist’ strategy. 

The key aspect that remains throughout is the concept of சிந்தனை (Sindhanai, or critical reflection). Let us get into each aspect in detail.

Critical Reflection on Collectivisation

The first concept is to understand that the journey of a social movement is most often non-linear and cyclical in nature. It goes through different stages, often having to resort to a tactical or even forced retreat. Along with the Sanitation workers group, we mapped the experience of a collectivisation effort.

Collectives often organise people within the context of prevailing societal norms and structures, largely referred to as the mainstream. The change that these movements desire typically conflicts with, and is often actively resisted by the values and norms of mainstream society. We mapped the trajectory of the collective in the form of stages, as explained below.

Stage 1 resonates with Ambedkar’s principle of Educate, Agitate and Organise. The collective educates its own community and also the mainstream on issues and challenges of the community members, with regards to mobilisation. They start agitating and realise the need to collectivise in order to push their demands in a forceful way, while the continuous process of organising leads to the sustained creation of a collective vision. During Stage 2, they are able to achieve some entitlements for the community, especially those that are already recognised. In Stage 3, they move into a domain where they agitate for structural and systemic shifts. In this stage, one would see that the mainstream wakes up. For instance, the collective of sanitation workers in Tamil Nadu, agitated by abstaining from doing any sanitation work in one of the villages of the dominant caste. This faced backlash from the dominant community, who approached the local administration to file complaints against these workers and force them back to work. This is when the mainstream also starts engaging in Educate, Agitate and Organise - primarily to counter the voices of the margins. For them, there are mainstream institutions to support them. In Stage 4, if the agitation continues, there is retaliation from the mainstream, often in the form of legitimised violence. In becoming a victim of retaliation, the collective is often forced to retreat or sometimes the collective itself goes into pause to fight the battle with recouped energy, and continues educating and building the collective to seek solidarity. Stage 5 is the pause stage. 

So it is these five stages that spiral over years - continuing for many issues and eventually evolving into a movement. A collective may be in different stages for different issues. Such a discussion on how a collective moves helps them understand where different forms of emotions of different members emerge from. It is also an important tool for grantmakers to reflect on and understand how collectives grow.

The second concept related to this is the need to understand indignity and intersectionality. In a journey towards change, every collective embarks to deconstruct the essence of the term social within the term social movement. And while attempting to deconstruct this expansive domain, they are often confronted with two challenges: 1. understanding Indignity and 2. understanding Intersectionality or the interconnectedness among various forms of oppression. 

Indignity is not just difficult to define but also to measure. A dictionary definition would say that it is an act that offends a person's dignity and self-respect or causes humiliation. People at the margins are subject to various types of indignities including discrimination, harassment, microaggressions, denial of rights, exclusion, segregation and derogatory terms, and more. These are a result of the common but deep-rooted narratives of the mainstream. 

Derogatory words and slurs used by the mainstream are largely directed towards those at the margins of society. Here we used a tool to better understand the collective’s unique experience, in which we asked the collectives’ members to list all derogatory terms that they know of. Once we listed down the terms, we made clusters of those terms according to the various categories that they are directed against. It is probably universally true that all derogatory terms are directed against one of the following - disability, mental health, women, the LGBTQIA + community, caste, race and sexual organs. People belonging to these categories are ‘othered’ by the mainstream and the narratives that are built help marginalisation transcend generations. For example, a Dalit boy/girl belonging to the current generation grows up hearing these terms about their community and feeling a sense of guilt or shame. And this is exactly what the mainstream wants or pushes for. This participatory tool measuring indignity helps the collective locate its efforts in terms of how indignities affect them and aims towards creating a shift in harmful narratives. 

The intersectionality debate is related to the above. In attempting to understand intersectionality, we used a participatory tool that helps collectives understand that every movement that is based on a social identity often tends to selectively focus on empowering their own identity, and in the process fail to realise that the mainstream provides them choices to leverage other ‘isms’ instead. For example, a feminist movement might be leveraging the caste system or racism to push its agenda. Similarly, an anti-caste or anti-racism movement might leverage patriarchy or capitalism to push its agenda. In other words, the sum total of all social movements often tend to reproduce in the same world dominated by patriarchy, casteism, racism, capitalism, ableism etc. in some form or the other, especially when there is an absence of solidarity among the marginalised. Here, by using the tool of Intersectionality, the collectives reflect on all their key decisions and identify whether they are effectively challenging other oppressive ideologies or not. This also ensures that they view their achievements from all lenses - caste, gender, disability, capitalism etc. 

The third concept is one that has become very popular within the grant making ecosystem in the last two decades, i.e. systemic change or structural transformation. While grant makers regularly use this term, collectives often face difficulties in understanding ‘system’ and ‘structure’. Here, we use the analogy of chess. 

The collective locates itself as ‘black coin holder’ while mainstream society is seen as the ‘white coin holder’. The white gets jump start and the black often responds to the moves of the white. The ‘coins’ - king, queen, bishop, horse and elephant- represent other organisations and institutions that the collective is engaging with. Each of these institutions have specific rules- the rules of how they move. The collective tries to understand what institutions they have to engage with and also their distinct procedures so that they know how to effectively use these institutions to ‘win the game’. If the rules are not helping the collectives, they have to advocate for a change of rules. The ‘Board’ is understood as a structure, like casteism or patriarchy or capitalism. The black and white squares, or the pattern reflects the rules generated by these isms. The other rules are subject to these patterns of the board. 

Thus the collective tries to understand their own advocacy strategy using this analogy and strategically plan their efforts. They know that there is a nexus among white coin holders/ the person behind the board, coins and the board. They all work together to protect the Game. It is this understanding that helps the collective realise the real challenge in what they are fighting for. Their enmity is not merely with the mainstream but the overall system and structure which supports this mainstream. And when they leverage any of the existing systems, they tend to empower the system; but then again what is the way out? The discussion often goes on. However, this collective reflection helps the community understand the gravity of the problem and helps them understand that personal is political, and nothing occurs in a vacuum.

Interface between Collectives and Grantmakers 

In trying to build its own understanding, the collective also encounters the worldview of the grant makers. It will be naive to assume complete solidarity in terms of ideology with anyone in the grant making ecosystem. There are three systems in grant making which are important to engage with. The first one is the log frame or theory of change at the stage of proposal development; the second one is the evolving of indicators and the third one is about ‘exist strategy’ or to be wary of projectisation.

Proposal Stage

A Collective generally does not embark into actively writing a Theory of Change (ToC), which often lies at the back of the mind of leaders of the collective. Further, often the imagined pathways to change are not static in nature, but require changes. There is also the possibility that different constituents within the collective will have different pathways in their mind. 

As explained earlier, in the context of non-linearity of the change, we realise that grant makers are collaborating with social movements from stage 1 to stage 2 - this is the journey that is something they like and would embark on smoothly. Stage 4, i.e. the stage of retaliation by the mainstream, is the stage that they fear. Hence, often this fear prevents the programme that they fund to move into stage 3. They are comfortable to achieve the goals between stage 1 and 2, which are restricted to achieving entitlements already existing within (and cooperating with) the mainstream. A framework that helps grantmakers convey this message to collectives is the logical framework (Log frame). In a Log frame, there are two items- risks and assumptions, and intervention activities are often decided purely subject to these risks. As a result, there is a sort of sanitisation of the project, where no activity gets listed which may lead to active retaliation from the mainstream. Thus, Log frame in a way becomes the enforcement of the power of the mainstream on the collective, through grant makers.

The ToC framework, on the other hand, is very interesting. This framework evolved to counter the linear factory model created by the Logframe in the development sector. Social change outcomes cannot be produced through factory models. A log frame approach wants frontline workers to work within dotted lines drawn by someone else, and focus on only their specific activities. They are not to be bothered about what and why other frontline teams do. Teams brought on board are thus social workers, not social thinkers. What was resulting in the development sector was the same what Marx defined as alienation in factory models. 

To counter this, ToC was an appropriate framework. Here the social thinker needs to understand the theory behind the change that is being envisaged. The theory so envisaged would provide causal pathways - a number of them. Depending on the local context and local power relationship, social thinkers can navigate themselves towards this ultimate vision for change, befitting the dynamism of the social movement approach. 

Nevertheless, what we see is that most end products of ToC also unfortunately come to resemble the Log frame. This is because the grant making ecosystem needs a “list of activities” to monetise and evaluate the programme. It is a system issue within the grant making ecosystem. As a result, Social movements need to be aware that they may be nudged to do certain activities within the current mainstream worldview, and run the risk that they may also start believing in the same. What is important for Social movements when they prepare a ToC is the awareness that they are not preparing ToC on a blank slate, but are doing so vis-a-vis a ToC of the mainstream. Patriarchy is ToC, caste system is ToC, Capitalism is ToC, racism is ToC. Each of these ToCs may constantly be trying to attract and absorb the ToC of social movements. 

Therefore, the TOC so prepared needs to undergo gender reading, caste reading and capitalism reading so as to ensure that the influence of the mainstream on ToC is well understood. And also to ensure that the social movements do not create a ToC that fears retaliation from the mainstream. While understanding this fear and evolving tactics is important, to give up on effectively engaging with the mainstream owing to the need for grants needs to be cautioned of.

Monitoring Stage

While we have already covered the monitoring indicators, one indicator that is very crucial is that of the Living Collective framework- a shift from what is always seen as a “functional collective” framework. Living is a broader word, which accounts for the social conditioning of what is perceived as functional or not. Sleep is not seen as an activity. Rest is not seen as activity. Defying these worldviews, a collective has to define its own indicators for its being living- especially those periods of angst and calmness and of sleep and rest- which is probably a way to recuperate for collective action.

Exit stage - being wary of Projectisation

The most significant aspect that a Collective needs to be wary about is about projectisation. One thing that the Collective needs to understand is the impact of Money on the movement. Funds often get inside the collective in diverse avatars. We used a participatory tool called the  Fund Angiogram. Like an Angiogram in which a dye is injected inside the body which identifies blockade in the heart, through this participatory tool, the members reflect on the ways funds convert into many forms and locates itself within movement. Forms can include activity, salary, honorarium, assets, skills and even narrative shifts. This helps them to understand funds not just as money but through its various avatars. This is also a way to create transparency about funds.

Then they can use Chapathi diagrams to locate various stakeholders that become powerful because of the movement of funds. The donor itself, the introducer as well as partners of donors are new entrants into the life of the collective. Funds also have new friends among those within collectives, such as direct beneficiaries or those who get honorarium, who now have a vested interest to be in favour of prevailing fund systems. Further, funding mechanisms could also favour certain roles, such as the report writer or communication person, mainstreaming these skills at the expense of others like mobilisation capacity. Funds create new power dynamics within a collective which it may not have interacted with earlier. They all look like powerless neutral innocent newcomers, however it is important to imagine their potential to inflict goal displacement. 

As the next step, they understand projectisation of the movement by assessing various potential mission drifts. Some of the projectisation elements identified by the CAAF collective were:

Shift from ‘community owned collective’ to ‘collective serving people’; from ‘community-led advocacy’ to ‘leaders led lobbying’; from volunteering based activities to incentive driven activities. These may or may not be directly related to grants. Further they may or may not be even wrong. What is important is for the Collective to recognise and be aware of what they are embarking upon and create a concurrent exit strategy, which is literally an exist strategy. There is thus a real possibility that grants might make a movement collapse.

At the end, the crucial aspect is the need to embed systematic space for Sindhanai. It is a contemplative, continuous process. The layers of discussions around themes and the way each of these discussions has an interpretation of real life issues facilitate building of a unique worldview or ideology of the collective. The movement is about more and more people embracing this ideology and expressing the same within their household family in drawing room discussions to community spaces and government spaces. The collective is often not about people becoming members of the collective but about people who embrace the ideology of the collective. Therefore, for us, Sindhanai is a pedagogy that needs to be holistically embraced and any self diagnostic tool should have this as a key principle. 

We have prepared a handbook which is called “Sindhanai as contemplative pedagogy: Embedding Measurement in Collectivisation”, which contains several of our discussions and participatory mapping tools for further context on the approach briefly explained in this excerpt. One can find the same here.