Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 30, No. 4, August 2002 (
Universidad Autonoma
de Barcelona
This paper addresses the importance of the concept of ideology in community work. The implications of a Marxist approach to ideology in community
practice are analyzed in terms of the concepts of problematization (P. Freire,
1979) and consciousness-raising (J. Barreiro, 1976), illustrating the point with
some examples. The traditional Marxist perspective is also examined in rela
tion to the perspectives of social constructionism (I. Ibanez,
1996), cultural
studies (A. McRobbie, 1992), post-Marxism (E. Laclau & C. Mouffe, 1985),
and feminism (D. Haraway, 1991). It is argued that the concepts of hegemony
and habitus (P. Bourdieu, 1985) can be useful to community social psychology theory and practice. A situated perspectivein which it is possible to
dialogue from different subject positions, and articulate transformation and
political actionis argued. The implications of this shifting in the concept of
ideology by means of theoretical developments outside social community psychology can help to define the external (outside) agents position in community
practice.
KEY WORDS: ideology; problematization; consciousness-raising; situated perspective.
It has been widely recognized (see, for example, Wiesenfeld, 1994) that
the concepts of problematization (from the Portuguese neologism problematizacao)
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new word) who was influenced by Marxists versions of the notion of ideology
(Allman & Wallis, 1997). These versions consider ideology as a set of ideas
that make people see asymmetric power relationships as natural and, consequently, maintain these relationships, hiding the contradictions in the forms
of exploitation on each historical period. Thompson (1990) would label
this understanding as epiphenomenal, meaning a system of ideas which
expresses the interests of the dominant class but which represents class relations in an illusory form (1990, p. 37). This understanding is significant for
community interventions implemented in Latin America (and elsewhere),
both in terms of its theoretical and its practical dimensions. Consciousnessraising and problematization refer to the process by which individuals and
people become aware of their conditions of life and, consequently, transform
them.
Nevertheless, authors such as Laclau and Mouffe (1985), Thompson
(1990), Eagleton (1995), Zizek (1995), Iba nez
(1996), and Parker (1999),
have revised the Marxist interpretation of ideology, criticizing (a) the representational nature of the traditional Marxist concept of ideology and (b) the
centrality of the working class as the privileged group for social transformations. And although issues such as living conditions have been considered by, among others, Vio Grossi, Fals Borda, Le Boterf, De Witt, and Park
(1977), Serrano-Garca (1989), and Wiesenfeld (1998) in terms of the centrality of peoples awareness in the process of community transformation,
there is a lack of critical reflection about the conception of ideology underlying these concepts in community social psychology developed in Latin
American, and in its theoretical and practical implications (for exceptions
see Montero, 1989).
This paper considers the concepts of hegemonyas worked by
Laclau and Mouffe (1985)and habitus (Bourdieu, 1985) to examine and
discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the Marxist conception of ideology for community social psychology as originally developed
in Latin America, and applied elsewhere. I shall also argue that a situated
perspective can be sustained for community social psychology. A situated
perspective considers community processes as complex articulations of semiotic and material subject positions of knowledge and action. Each subject
position holds a partial knowledge of the articulation with no privileged subject position from which to achieve total understanding; therefore, there is
not an underlying reality that can be uncovered, as knowledge is dependent
on each subject position. In this perspective, from the semiotic and material
situations of members of community and external agents it is possible to start
a productive dialogue to construct the articulation of political movements
of transformation departing from community processes.
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& Montenegro, 1998) where this consensual fact was questioned in different
group discussions. In those meetings, community members manifested their
dissatisfaction with the local transportation, and acknowledged the duty
of the company to provide regular transport. After admitting that it was
possible to have local transportation, and that an already existing authorized
enterprise should provide it, community members got in touch with that
company, as well as with relevant local institutions, demanding a regular
service (more frequent, on time) for the neighborhood. That intervention
was effective, and their demand was granted after a few weeks. This is an
example of a shift in the awareness of the community, regarding the right
to have an adequate transport system, leading to actions of complaint that
changed their life conditions.
In both examples, the use of concepts such as problematization and
consciousness-raising, led to practical actions carried out by the community
for the community, helping people to transform their passive acceptance
of their life conditions and to improve them. The examples illustrate the
relationship between problematization and action. Community members
tackled specific issues in their communities after critically reflecting within
community groups. They also show how community interventions incorporate a critical perspective regarding the social relations sustaining the
current state of affairs, as the relationship of the community with a wider
social, economical, and political context is considered, in order to promote
transforming actions.
Community social psychology, as developed in Latin America, criticizes
interventions directed towards adapting the community to its social and
political contexts. Instead, it aims at the active transformation of the community context through the actions emerging from the dialogue between
external agents and community members. And the need for wider social
transformation lies in the assumption that societal resources are unequally
distributed because of exploitative social relations (Serrano-Garca, 1989).
This brief presentation of community psychology practice in Latin
America, discloses the importance of the underlying Marxists conception
of society, in community intervention practice. From a Marxist perspective,
social relations are produced by historical and social conditions. In that context, capitalism divides society into two different social classes with antagonistic interests: the ruling class and the working class. The control of the
ideological and productive system ensures the maintenance of relations of
exploitation from the dominating class to the dominated class (Althusser,
1971), and ideological forms of consciousness need to be explained through
economic conditions of production. Consequently, a certain form of consciousness is characterized as the ideological means to uncover how the
interests of the dominant class are safeguarded. Because any form of
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of reality (as, by the external agent, those representations are the result of
a process of naturalization) and, therefore, community members lack an
accurate understanding of their life conditions. The ontological and epistemological criticisms to this approach should be taken into account by community practice and, therefore, the external agents perspective should not
be prioritized over community accounts. Nevertheless, we cannot get rid of
our political commitment to positive social transformative action. Next section explores some of the options available from a reconstructed concept of
ideology.
RECONSTRUCTING IDEOLOGY
Some attempts try to maintain the critical potential of the concept of ideology for positive social transformations, while taking into account the criticisms aforementioned (Bourdieu, 1985; Eagleton, 1991; Laclau & Mouffe,
1985; Zizek, 1995).
Laclau and Mouffe (1985) use the concept of hegemony developed
by Gramsci (1976) suggesting what they call a move towards radical
democracy in contemporary societies. Radical democracy can be understood as an alternative to the traditional Marxist concept of ideology. For
Gramsci, hegemony is the articulation of a set of meanings by apparatus and
institutions associated with a historical block. A historical block refers to
articulations of political alliances between different social agents in a shared
political process, in order to maintain or transform the present social order.
The concept of hegemony does not conceal the notion of false consciousness, as the traditional Marxist concept of ideology does. For Laclau and
Mouffe (1985), it refers to the alliances between fragmentary elements as
a historical block where meaning is not fixed as in the concept of ideology.
Instead, the meaning of free floating signifiers is fixed by the mode of
their articulation. This articulation creates a relative unified social and political space that constructs itself as antagonistic to other spaces and acquires
its meaning in specific contexts and relations. Zizek (1995) poses the example of ecology to explain Laclau and Mouffes position. From this perspective ecology is not ecology as such, it is always enchained in specific
series of articulations. It can be socialist (the problem resides in the capitalist profit-orientated exploitation of natural resources), feminist (the exploitation of nature follows from a patriarchal domination attitude), liberal
capitalist (environment damage must be included in the price of products
and leave the market to regulate the ecological balance), and so on. With
this example Zizek aims to illustrate that in Laclau and Mouffes account
there is no literal meaning prior to the articulations that make possible the
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1996).
After these critiques, the claim of a universal truth is unsustainable and is also
contradictory with community psychologys commitment to social change.
The concepts of hegemony and habitus may help to answer what should
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CONCLUSIONS
As seen, revising the concept of ideology is relevant for community social psychology. Equally important is to critically examine the use of concepts
such as problematization and consciousness-raising, linked to a Marxist
conception of ideology (Wiesenfeld, 1994). Those concepts, used within
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