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Showing posts with the label transformation

The structures of neoliberalism: Redefining social change

In my book "Communicating Social Change: Structure, Culture, and Agency," I begin with the premise that how we define, operationalize, and measure social change essentially needs to be re-conceptualized in order to articulate an entry point for transformative politics in te backdrop of neoliberalism. I base this argument on the notion that traditional conceptualizations of social change perpetuate the status quo through their emphasis on individual behavior change in target populations and systematically ignoring the necessity for structural transformations. This is particularly true of social change as configured within capitalist formations, where the basic premise of social change has been co-opted within the frameworks of capitalism to keep intact the positions of oppression among the owners of capital, extracting profits through the exploitation of labor. Therefore, for a transformative moment to be re-captured witin the context of contemporary neoliberal phenomena w

Bible, whole lot of love, and transformative potential

Today we had one of our Hunger Coalition meetings in Tippecanoe county. The meeting went extremely well, much along the lines of how one might expect a community-grounded CCA process to unfold. The food insecure participants who experience hunger in their everyday lives came together today to lay out the steps of the coalition as well as the objectives of the coalition. I was incredibly impressed by how fast this project seems to be moving toward accomplishing multiple tangible goals. But I am going to spend my blog today about an event that happened toward the end of the meeting. As we were wrapping up the meeting and I started packing my bag, Sara (we will use her pseudonym here) walked up to me in trepidation and stood by me as other community members were leaving the room. I felt she needed to share something with me. When I looked at her, she walked up somewhat nervously and asked me if I would not be offended to accept a Bible written in Arabic (now I can't really read Arab