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Activity 6 Stakeholder politics

Friday, 11 Nov 2011, 05:54
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Briefly reflect upon the extent to which stakeholder politics may be present within or impinge upon the ideas you’ve come up with so far for a possible research project.

You should keep notes of your conclusions for use when working on TMA 01.

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Well i haven't actually done a stakeholder analysis yet, so i am writing this with no strict concept of who my stakeholders are.But let's take a few examples:

1. donors. i addressed this in my last post. However, the fact is that i am paying for this course myself, which i was fed up with at the time, but now am grateful. If my research is not to their liking, it remains an academic exercise for my own purposes.

2. fellows. the research i have in mind is aimed to help the fellows' continue an AWARD-type trajectory even after the fellowship is finished. But of course there are 250 fellows with different needs, experiences, wants and i cannot expect to find a homogenous group. Nor must I assume that the research i have in mind will be useful to them. If they cannot engage with it, it will have no meaning so I must contact them asap.

3. Me. maybe i should have put this in the personal politics actually. Anyway, I confess that a part of me wants to do this research to advance my career. I think it is good to mention that as it is something to keep in check if ever there is a choice between sexy options and boring but appropriate options in my research methods or conclusions i can draw,

4. Colleagues. Colleagues are fundamental to this process. They are the interface between me and the fellows and have all the indepth knowledge about the African context and institutions. Their commodity is knowledge and if they withdraw their collaboration, my task will be very hard.

5. academics. Not sure how this will go but I anticipate that since one objective is to make a contribution to an academic discipline, that could possibly mean through challenge and critique, not necessarily through additional evidence in support, so that could be a political issue.

Tags: stakeholders, politics, research
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AB

Activity 5. Professional politics

Friday, 11 Nov 2011, 05:35
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Edited by Arwen Bailey, Friday, 11 Nov 2011, 05:36

Briefly reflect upon the extent to which professional politics may be present within or impinge upon the ideas you’ve come up with so far for a possible research project.

You should keep notes of your conclusions for later use.

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the most likely way that professional politics is likely to impinge on my ideas is by accepting them uncritically. The group I work with and who i am sharing my ideas with and I, we work within a pretty shared worldview and vision of change. They are extremely clever and critical people and i expect some tough challenges and thought provoking critique, but at a first order level. I don't anticipate that anyone will challenge the paradigm that i - we - work in. That would shake the bedrock of our raison d'etre, not to mention our funding!! Also we believe it sincerely, in fact we are sure it is right so it is very difficult to see an alternative universe where it isn't.

I am not sure whether the following should go here or in the previous section on power and influence, but there is likely to be some pressure to find results that square with a. what our donors would like to see and what fits with their ethos and priorities, and b. how our Director envisages the future, as she is a very strong and committed character. Having said that, they are all open to evidence and a well researched, well argued case so as long as i do the job well that will not be a problem.

 

Tags: research, politics
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AB

Activity 4. Politics values, beliefs, power and ethics

Thursday, 10 Nov 2011, 05:52
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Edited by Arwen Bailey, Friday, 11 Nov 2011, 05:26

Briefly reflect upon how your personal politics (i.e. values and beliefs) may influence - or already has influenced - your thinking on:

  • ideas you have for research projects
  • how you may want to carry out your research.

Conclude this activity by actively considering how you would explain and justify to potential stakeholders your answers to the above.

You should keep notes of your conclusions for later use.

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The course is written in the context of organizations, which is not really relevant to me but probably i can find some parallels with my situation.

My personal politics

Handy thinks of politics in terms of power and influence- my commodity of power is relational as i have no formal influence. In fact this project will probably contribute to my power as a commodity related to expertise.

The course materials frame individual politics as 'values and beliefs'. Well, I guess i have an egalitarian view of the world, and believe that interventions can and should help those who have fewer options to have more options. I am quite a feminist too and believe that women are largely cut out of most decision making positions even though they do much of the work (i am talking about the context of rural livelihoods).

The third framing of politics is the wheeling and dealing that goes on in organizations.I am pretty naive and bad at this. I am pretty straight forward and transparent and lack that strategic capacity to choose the right timing for certain communications, or the right person for certain information. Where i am strong - and this goes back to power and influence above - is building networks of good feeling relationships.

So how do these affect my research?

1. Subject matter. The situation I would like to research is about empowerment and changing the balance of power at an institutional and societal level.

2. I am drawn to participatory methodologies, sharing ideas in a group. Casting the net as wide as possible, using CSH to make sure as much as possible that those affected but involved are not harmed, aiming to do good not harm. Also I believe objectivity is impossible, and prefer the call to be responsible, by triangulating, by surfacing underlying assumptions and by keeping a record so that research is transparent and can be challenged.

How would I explain these to stakeholders

Generally when i talk about my research I frame it in an instrumental way as I believe that most people can't see the benefit of an equity (right thing to do) argument:There is a body of research that indicates that where women have access to more assets, societies do better. There is also a commonsense argument that excluding half the population from problem solving is going to give you half the possible solutions to your problems.

About how to do the research... I actually work within a research organization with agronomists, economists and so on conducting research, which generally speaking I see as in a different tradition to my own (theirs is positivist), so i would expect challenges to the rigour and robustness of my research. However, the programme i work for is truly embedded in an adaptive, contingent, complexity-based view of research and development. So there I could present it easily and the challenges will make it stronger.

 

Tags: research, politics
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