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Positive Organizational Scholarship: What is Wrong with this Picture?
A Critical-Post Colonial View
By
Latha Poonamallee, Michigan Technological University
Email: lcpoonam@mtu.edu
&
Anita Howard, Case Western Reserve University
Email: anita.howard@case.edu
Abstract
In this paper, we contribute to the current dialogue between Positive
Organizational Scholarship (POS) and Critical Theory Approach to initiating and
managing change. We argue that the exclusive focus of POS on the positives can be as
limiting as the ‘deficit’ view that they critique. We particularly focus on application of
POS to Organization Development & Change (ODC) in social contexts. We argue that
POS has the potential to become an even more sophisticated co-opting mechanism for
maintaining existing structures by creating a system in which contentious and critical
issues are silenced while creating an illusion of openness, inclusion, and virtuosity. We
also problematize the neglect of power issues by positive organizational scholars in an
effort to lift up the goodness and virtuosity of humankind in general. Drawing from post-
colonial social experiments and their narratives, we argue for a dialogic approach that can
co-hold positives and negatives of organizational life and also that in that interplay lies
generative potential.
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Introduction
The exchange between Fineman (2006a,b) and Roberts (2006) is the beginning of
a much-needed dialogue between Positive Organizational Studies (POS) and Critical
Theory. Replying to Roberts’ (2006) defense of positive scholarship and rebuttal of his
critique, Fineman (2006b) writes that “it (the gathering momentum and
institutionalization of positive scholarship) reinforces the need for organizational scholars
– positive or otherwise – to keep a critical eye open and an inquiring voice heard”
(2006b: 306). The one point of congruence between the arguments of Roberts (2006) and
Fineman (2006 a, b) is that positive organizational scholarship needs more careful work
and needs to include those elements of organizational life that are problem-centric or
negative. Roberts (2006) concludes her paper that “to create a holistic picture of human
and organizational life, we must capture the inherent tension between positive and
negative states and the infinite possibilities for overcoming and flourishing”. Other
scholars have echoed this call (Grant & Humphries, 2006; Lopes & Cunha, 2006). In that
our spirit, we do not advocate for an either-or ontological approach but an approach of
dialogic interplay between the various dimensions of any phenomenon. We offer an
epistemological framework that can potentially help scholars simultaneously co-hold
both positives and negatives of organizational phenomena by proposing that critical
reflection can draw on both the positives and negatives of organizational life. We
elaborate our argument by providing an example of two key organizational processes that
are laden with assumptions of power and meaning: conflict and cooperation. We propose
that both conflict and cooperation are essential processes in organizations for effective
social change.
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Roberts (2006) also asks a very pertinent question: “Does positive scholarship do
more harm than good?” We argue that Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) in its
current form has the potential to become even more sophisticated co-opting mechanism
for maintaining the status-quo of existing structures because it can create a culture of
silence around issues that are truly contentious and critical because they are ‘negative’
while creating an illusion of openness, inclusion and virtuosity. We also problematize the
neglect of power issues by positive organizational scholars in an effort to lift up the
goodness and virtuosity of humankind in general. Moroever, as Roberts (2006: 293)
writes, Fineman’s (2006) critique was largely targeted toward micro level areas of
positive psychology and their limited or problematic application to the workplace.
Roberts (2006: 293) also writes that as a result, many of Fineman’s (2006) concerns do
not pay attention to the study of positive institutions and communities. Similarly, Lopes
& Cunha’s (2006) paper focused on positive organizational behavior at the micro level.
This paper partially attempts to fill that gap by examining the application of POS to
Organization Development and Change (ODC) in the social change arena.
We support our argument through two contrasting examples in India and a third in
U.S.: 1) a totalized narrative of a corporate initiative in a post colonial setting produced
through the use of Appreciative Inquiry; 2) a community that drew on affirmative
assumptions about itself but in combination with acknowledgement of power issues and a
willingness to fight to reclaim their power, and 3) an historic social change effort at the
national level, the American Civil Rights Movement. In the first example, we hint at what
this narrative at best does not highlight and at worst hides. In the second example we
argue that the community’s willingness to engage with both the ‘positive’ and the
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‘negative’ led to a successful and sustainable social change movement, and in the third
we describe a social change movement that was energized and sustained through cross-
boundary discourse on positives and negatives.
Positive Organizational Scholarship: One-eyed view of the world?
Roberts (2006) defines positive scholarship as an “umbrella term that categorizes
previous research and provides an organizing frame for current and future research on
positive states, outcomes, and generative mechanisms in individuals, dyads, groups,
organizations, and societies. The overarching emphasis of this work is on identifying
individual and collective strengths (attributes and processes) and discovering how such
strengths enable human flourishing (goodness, generativity, growth and resilience;
Frederickson & Losada, 2005)” Roberts, 2006: 292). Positive Organizational Scholarship
was pre-empted by and a culmination of many scholars who highlighted the
consequences of what they termed ‘deficit discourse.’ For instance, Gergen (1994)
eloquently put forth the paradox of the mental health professionals who shared a strong
and genuine commitment to a vision of human betterment but also pathologized the
whole human experience. Cooperrider & Srivastva (1999:6) called for organizing as a
living value system – a multiperspective colloquy of valuing. Both Roberts (2006a;b) and
Fineman (2006) highlight the zeitgeist in which positive scholarship took roots and the
rationale for why it appealed and captured the imagination of many scholars. Fineman’s
(2006a) paper begin with a review of positivity, its moral agenda and focusing on the
virtues of positive deviances and then critiques its moral, cultural and social
underpinnings which not only separate the positive from the negatives but also provides
no scope for differences in cultural and social differences.
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However, Roberts (2006) also claims that, “only through positive scholarship will
we discover the extent to which virtues and goodness are culturally influenced” (Roberts,
2006:298). Fineman (2006a) calls this kind of focusing exclusively on the positive the
‘separation thesis’ and describes it as a one-eyed view of the world. He argues that in
favoring positive narratives, it fails to value the role of the negative experiences in
fostering positive change. Similarly, Lopez & Cunha (2006) whose critique is focused on
Positive Organizational Behavior (POB), argue that POB is biased in looking only on the
positive outcomes of positive psychological capabilities and lack of consideration for the
negative side of positive capabilities. They argue that positive psychological capabilities
can produce either positive or negative outputs the same way negative psychological
states do. Lopez & Cunha (2006) cite Langfred (2004) and Janis (1972) and argue that
too much trust between team members may be detrimental and cohesive groups may
suppress dissent, censor information, create illusions of invulnerability, and stereotype
opponents. Paul Levy’s (2001) case, “The Nut Island Effect: When Good Teams Go
Wrong” is an example of such a situation. Howard & Coombe (2006a) examined the
speech of two social change leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela, and
argued that their leadership impact was moved by discourse that, while grounded in
positives (shared national values and ideals), also addressed negatives (systemic
problems, violence and/or upheavals in the collective life space). Similarly, Parameshwar
(2006) has proposed that ten extraordinarily effective social change leaders invent higher
purpose through personal suffering and studies like this show how it is myopic to
exclusively consider any one frame as the ultimate truth. We build on this argument and
suggest that such exclusive focus does not ignore the negative, but also actively silences
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so called negative discourses in the organization. In a friendlier garb, POS gets caught up
in the same predicament as the negative ‘deficit based’ discourse because both discourses
are based on either-or approach that does not allow for a dialogic interplay between the
positive and the negative - that they are in danger of becoming what they criticize.
Morrison & Milliken (2000) write that the collective-level phenomenon of
“systemic organizational silence” is potentially a dangerous impediment to organizational
change and development and is likely to pose a significant obstacle to the development of
truly pluralistic organizations. They define a pluralistic organization as “one that values
and reflects differences among the employees and that allows for the expression of
multiple perspectives and opinions (Morrison & Millken, 2000: 707. They argue that
there are far too many organizations in which most employees know the truth about
certain issues and problems within the organization yet dare not speak the truth to their
superiors. They cite Ryan and Oestreich’s (1991) study that found that the
‘undiscussables’ in organizations included managerial incompetence, pay inequity,
organizational inefficiencies, and poor organizational performance. If these areas of
concern are already considered ‘undiscussable’ in what the positive scholars would term
deficit oriented organizational contexts, exclusive positive focus would make these issues
even more so. Morrison & Milliken (2000) also write that one of the factors that underlies
the construction of a system where such silence is fostered is the belief that unity,
agreement and consensus are the signs of organizational health whereas dissent and
disagreement should be avoided. They also write that a pluralistic view is one in which
dissent is regarded as normal and conflict as potentially healthy. We contend that POS is
such an approach sophisticated enough to quash dissent while seemingly fostering a
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cohesive, positive culture. Agocs (1997) posits one of the prerogatives of a position of
power is the comfort of assuming that one’s own perception of reality is reality and that
one’s interests are universal interests. POS’s exclusive focus on the positives has the
potential to reify the top management perception of reality in organizations aided and
abetted by practitioners of POS.
As Fineman (2006b) argues, positive organizational scholarship as it exists, does
not explore the issues of power and its dynamics in organizations. Moreover, most POS
follows the traditional vantage point of management literature – that is rooted in the
managers’ perspective masked as organizational perspective but does not necessarily
approach ODC/Social change from the perspective of those who are powerless,
disenfranchised, or have less access to resources. How many organizations get the
workers to vote in their selection of OD consultants – positive or otherwise? As Fincham
(1999) posits, the consultant-client relationship in change management is best regarded as
part of an overarching managerial structure. Similarly, Agocs (1997) in her discussion of
institutionalized resistance argues that most organizational change scholarship addresses
management-initiated change and not the change proposed by advocates for the
powerless and the disadvantaged. She defines institutionalized resistance as “the pattern
of organizational behavior that decision makers in organizations employ to actively deny,
refuse to implement, repress or even dismantle change proposals and initiatives” (Agocs,
1997:918).
Scholars have criticized even traditional OD perspective for its lack of grounding
in an analysis of power relations (Burke, 1987; Pettigrew, 1985). As Cooke (1999)
writes, change management has evolved in a way that masks its radical roots in Lewin’s
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(1948) work. Now, it appears that POS is claiming (tempered) radical change as its own
without acknowledging the power dynamics of any radical change scenario. However, as
Agocs (1997) writes, a typical organizational change project places the OD practitioner
or scholar accountable to those who hold power in the organization and POS succumbs
and reinforces this truism even more by ignoring structures and resources that shape
power in organizations and communities. Greiner & Cummings (2004) point out how in
the 1970s OD was criticized for its cult-like activities, for forcing organizations to
undergo its ideology of openness and use of T-groups. The emerging critique against
POS appears similar in flavor – cult-like and evangelistic in its efforts to proselytize and
one sided in its focus.
While POS relies on the idealistic notion of pure human goodness, a quick glance
at our history over the last few centuries show that such naïve and simplistic
understanding has led to the undermining of a number of indigenous tribes and races
across the world (examples: Native Americans and Australian aborigines) and
enslavement of many countries under colonial rule. Cooke (2007) enquires whether AI's
purposeful focus on the positive leaves organizations, and particularly people within them
more vulnerable to dark-side processes than they otherwise might have been. If the Indian
Independence Movement had applied an exclusively positive lens on its situation, Indian
society may have bought into the fiction that India was better off under the British rule
because Britain built the Indian Railways. But the leaders and the followers asked alike,
“What was wrong with this picture?” This critical view of the same institution betrayed
its oppressive nature: Indian Railways was built to dump machine made goods from a
newly industrialized Britain that needed a bigger, affluent market; with trees cut down
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from Indian forests, thus banishing in one fell swoop the livelihood of the weavers,
craftsmen and artisans and the hunter-gatherer populations.
Positive & Critical – never the twain shall meet?
As mentioned earlier, the one point of congruence between the arguments of Roberts
(2006) and Fineman (2006 a, b) is that positive organizational scholarship needs more
careful work and drawing on more than the ‘positive’. Roberts (2006) concludes her
paper that “to create a holistic picture of human and organizational life, we must capture
the inherent tension between positive and negative states and the infinite possibilities for
overcoming and flourishing”. Other scholars have echoed this call (Grant & Humphries,
2006; Lopes & Cunha, 2006). For instance, Grant & Humphries (2006) argue similarly
about Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and Critical Theory and offer a framework for Critical.
Lopes & Cunha (2006) propose that non linear relations between positive organizational
capabilities, and performance outcomes and health need to be explored. They also
suggest that contextual approaches, counterintuitive techniques may also help in
enhancing our research of positive organizational behavior. In that our spirit, we do not
advocate for an either-or ontological approach but an approach of dialogic interplay
between the various dimensions of any phenomenon. We offer a dialogic framework that
can potentially help scholars simultaneously co-hold both positives and negatives of
organizational phenomena by proposing that critical reflection can draw on both the
positives and negatives of organizational life.
We elaborate our argument by providing an example of two key organizational
processes that are laden with assumptions of power and positive meanings: conflict and
cooperation. We propose that both conflict and cooperation are essential processes in
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organizations for effective social change and provide two contrasting examples: one of a
totalized narrative of a corporate initiative in a post colonial setting produced through the
use of Appreciative Inquiry and another, of a community that drew on affirmative
assumptions about itself but in combination with acknowledgement of power issues and a
willingness to fight to reclaim their power. In the former example, We hint at what this
narrative at best does not highlight and at worst hides and in the latter, we argue that this
community’s willingness to engage with both the ‘positive’ and the ‘negative’ led to a
successful and sustainable social change movement.
The dialogic approach
‘Dialogics’ is a term primarily associated with Mikhail Bhaktin (1895-1975).
According to Bhaktin (1986), dialogic process by which we find meaning through
interaction constitutes the entire scope of human life. Dialogics is the study of the way
meaning is constructed out of contending languages within any culture. Bhaktin argues
that there is a constant cultural tendency to try to unify languages within an official or
unitary language, in response to the endlessly changing conditions of the society and
generates new languages and new relations between them. We argue that POS is yet
another cultural tendency to unify organizational language and action under one
umbrella. Originally a linguistic device, dialogics has been appropriated and put to use by
scholars from multiple disciplines. For example, in the field of organizational studies,
recent work of David Boje (2005) illustrates different concepts from Bhaktin’s dialogic to
study organizations. The dialogic approach is predicated on an ever emerging and
renegotiated reality through dialogue between multiple approaches/voices (polyphony).
Dialogic process is more akin to Clegg, Cunhe & Cunhe (2002)’s concept of permanent
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paradox, which involves exposing the tension between two opposing entities in conflict,
while retaining the contradiction and assuming the permanence of paradox. Western
thought is imbued with a style of thinking based on dichotomy and binary opposition
(Carr & Zanetti, 1999), Dialogic approach to organizational paradoxes would allow us to
see the interplay between apparently contradictory polarities and offers us to a means to
renegotiate the positives and negatives of organizational life. We argue that critical
reflection is a necessary element to this renegotiation.
Researchers in education and learning have extensively used the concepts of
reflection and critical reflection. Scholars have discussed specific aspects of critical
reflection. For instance, Brookfield (1988) writes assumption analysis, contextual
awareness, imaginative speculation and reflective skepticism are central to critical
reflection. Hatton & Smith (1995) identify four central issues concerning reflection. One,
we should learn to frame and reframe complex or ambiguous problems, test out various
interpretations, and then modify our actions consequently. Second, our thoughts should
be extended and systematic by looking back upon our actions some time after they have
taken place. Third, certain activities labeled as reflective such as the use of journals or
group discussions following practical experiences, are often not directed towards the
solution of specific problems. Fourth, we should consciously account for the wider
historic, cultural, and political values or beliefs in framing practical problems to arrive at
a solution. The last is often identified as critical reflection. Reynolds (1998) not only
distinguishes between reflection and critical reflection but also draws attention to their
role in management learning. He argues that the crucial difference is that critical
reflection asks questions of purpose and on confronts the taken-for-granteds - concealed
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interests and ideologies which inform managerial thought and action. In addition, critical
reflection examines social and political taken-for-granteds, within their historical and
contextual. According to Reynolds (1998), critical reflection questions the fundamentals,
both about practice and its social and institutional contexts and histories from a
theoretical or moral perspective.
We also argue that contrary to POS that privileges cooperation in the study of
organizational life, conflict is an equally important organizational process that deserves
attention. Many critical thinkers from Hegel and Marx onwards have celebrated conflict
as essential to social change. In contrast, radical humanists and interpretive thinkers have
celebrated the spirit of cooperation as a critical component of social change. As Rao,
Morrill & Zald (2000) argue new and emergent social forms are bound to be
characterized by conflict, because there are usually entrenched issues of power in these
contexts. We also argue that generative capacities of organizations lie in the interplay
between conflict and cooperation and this interplay is characterized by boundary
management actions. (Author, 2007).
Scott (1992) defines boundary as, “the domain of effort through which an
organizational entity interacts with its environment in order to survive.” Cross, Yan &
Louis (2000) define boundary activities as those in which an organization engages to
create and maintain its boundaries and to manage interactions across those boundaries.
They classify these activities into three generic kinds: buffering, spanning, and bringing
up boundaries. Buffering is an organization’s strategy to protect itself from disruptive
forces in its environment in order to enhance the possibility of rational action within the
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system. This may be either responding to or proactively preparing for these disruptive
forces. Boundary spanning is the strategy of reaching out to critical stakeholders in the
system. This may either be a response to the environment or a proactive strategy of
managing its interdependencies. The third action is bringing up boundaries is focused
inward toward creating a coherent organizational self and aims to maintain a shared sense
of the climate of the group. All the three actions are key in an effective change process.
Santos and Eisenhardt (2005) argue that boundaries are a central phenomenon and
provide a deeper understanding of boundary concepts. They develop four boundary
conceptions: efficiency, power, competence, and identity. They also write that
organizational actors may choose to influence other organizations through a combination
of ownership and non-ownership mechanisms.
Next, we present a contemporary example of a totalized ‘positive’ narrative
produced through the use of Appreciative Inquiry and highlighted in the Case Center for
Business as an Agent for World Benefit (BAWB). It is the story of the ‘Shakti Intiative’
by Hindustan Lever Limited (an Indian subsidiary of Unilever). C K Prahalad (2004) also
describes this story in detail in his book, Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. For
purposes of this discussion, we are not going into the merits or otherwise of the Bottom
of the Pyramid approach, but simply draw our attention to the story profiled by BAWB.
This case describes how Hindustan Lever Ltd. (HLL) the Indian subsidiary of
Unilever, Inc. created a new model of inviting and including masses of rural women to be
the direct to home sales and distribution force for the company resulting in social
development of the villages through their Shakti initiative. This is claimed to enhance the
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earnings potential of the families of the women but also affords them an opportunity and
resources to consume more for themselves and their families, thus supporting an upward
spiral of growth for the industry as a whole. The Shakti initiative selects entrepreneurial
women from the remotest villages of India, training and appointing them as direct to
home sales force of HLL products in their respective villages. They are called Shakti
Ammas (Shakti means energy as well as Goddess and Amma means the ‘mother’).
Through joining this process, they not only enhance their earning potential but have also
become the repository of unique knowledge about the needs of the village and the
varying product demands. Through participation in this initiative, they earn between Rs.
3000 and 7000 ($80 to $150) per month thereby creating a new capacity to consume for
themselves and their families.
While there is no doubt that this was an innovative business and marketing
strategy, positioning this case as one of the exemplars in the area of business as an agent
of world benefit can be misleading. This story being solely positive does not draw
attention to the potential negative impact of the scheme itself. For instance, a scholar who
does not share the same evangelical faith in protecting the positive from the
contamination of the critical, thus the ‘negative’ may have atleast speculated on potential
negative outcomes of the initiative: the potential unsustainability of this model in
creating a few individual entrepreneurs/distributors and a large mass of consumers who
may not have the means to continue buying these products over time or the potential
impact of creating individualistic entrepreneurs on the social fabric of communities
whose primary resource is their social cohesion and kinship networks.
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Focusing and nurturing individual entrepreneurship might not necessarily lead to
the increased prosperity of the region or village, because, on a long term basis, if only
one or two families are increasing their purchasing power through participation in Shakti
schemes and the rest of the villages remain as mere consumers and do not find effective
ways to participate in and partake of the larger economy, it might be difficult for Shakti
Scheme to continue on its growth path. So, it may be helpful for the company to think
about creating partnerships and/or offering its expertise to other members of the village.
For example, the initial investment required of a Shakti Dealer is bound to prove to be a
challenge for many poor women. Considering that this scheme unlike the traditional
Women’s Self Help Group model promoted by Grameen Bank develops individual
entrepreneurs. Not only is it perhaps difficult to get potential entrepreneurs to see the
long term benefits of investing such a large amount, but even raising the money might be
difficult for many women. The danger is that this requirement might make this scheme
accessible to women of lower middle classes who can much more easily raise the money
rather than the poorest of the poor who the BOP model focus on. Even if unintentionally,
this scheme may reproduce and reify the existing feudalistic economic arrangements
although with a different kind of capital. While the feudalistic model might have worked
for the landlords on whom the others had to depend for work and wages, in this model,
the Shakti dealers are equally dependent on the other poor for their sales and profits. An
exclusively positive version does not allow the researcher to consider these issues. Nor
does it address the environmental impact of such large scale migration from natural
alternatives to soaps and shampoos to chemically based personal toiletry items which
may in turn pollute the water bodies in the rural areas which may impact their livelihood
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negatively over time.
More importantly, it does not provide the context and the compelling need in
which this initiative was born: severe competition from a local detergent manufacturer
called Nirma. The first and primary goal of Shakti project is to increase the reach in the
rural market. Shakti is not just a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. It was
a market imperative. As Prahalad says in his book, the population in the bottom of the
pyramid across the world is 4 billion strong. In the case of India, access to distribution as
well as media in rural markets has been problematic but industry could not continue to
ignore this problem, if they wanted to be financially viable and growing. The industry has
felt a strong need to increase their reach in the rural market and Hindustan Lever has been
at the forefront of this movement. Even though Hindustan Lever was still the market
leader, competition was closing in fast. While the primary competitors included the
multinational organizations including Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Colgate
Palmolive, it also faced a strong challenge from a local Fast Moving Consumer Goods
(FMCG) conglomerate, Nirma, and a number of other local manufacturers. Before Nirma
arrived on the scene, HLL could rest comfortably on the urban market but Nirma
penetrated into the rural market with more economical offerings and began to catch up
with HLL in the eighties. Another big challenge that faces the FMCG companies
operating in the developing countries is that of fakes. Be it soaps, shampoos, toothpaste,
counterfeits abound. Even the most brand loyal consumer does not usually realize that he
or she has bought the fake, till after it is consumed, unless they are the kind who routinely
check the package for the name. Considering that a large population of the rural
population is illiterate, fakes are a big problem for these companies to contend with, even
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in the presence of traditional rural retail channels. Leading MNC’s such as P&G, Gillette,
Nike and Unilever have been reported to have suffered revenue losses of several million
dollars due to counterfeit sales. This forced HLL to be innovative and develop alternate
strategies to retain and consolidate its market leadership, which was when HLL made a
focused entry into the rural market.
An exclusively positively focused scholarship may not only silence divergent
views such as the ones described above, it may also end up being co-opted by
corporations as unwiittng PR consultants. For instance, Caza and Caza (2005) argue that
POS plays a critical theory role in contemporary organizational scholarship. While POS
brings an equally valid perspective as that of the deficit based problem-solving approach,
it is not certainly a critical methodology and the very claim is isomorphic of the
cooptation that could and is happening in the field.
Interplay between “positives” and “negatives” of social life
In contrast, we provide an example of a social movement in India founded on affirmative
assumptions and attention to power issues. Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), a non-
governmental organization founded by Rajendra Singh, has been working for twenty
years, with a thousand villages in the Alwar district, Rajasthan, India on environmental
and social rejuvenation through a revival of their traditional water harvesting methods.
These villages have formed Gram Sabhas (GS, Village Committees) to take ownership,
responsibility and management of their commons including water and forests. They also
have formed local non-governmental River Parliaments to protect the five rivers that have
been rejuvenated in this process. During the twenty years of their operation, TBS and its
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concept have spread to over a thousand villages and the reverberations of this movement
have not only been felt in the facets of ecological reclamation like protection of water,
forest and animals, but also in other areas of social emancipation, including education,
women’s movement, development of indigenous leadership, and reclamation of people
power over the commons, which elevates this initiative to the scale of a social movement.
While the whole movement started with a question about the prosperous past of
the region, it flourished and grew because they were unafraid to fight to reclaim their
power over their commons. Rajendra Singh, Magsaysay Award Winner for Community
Leadership in the Year 2001, the founder of Tarun Bharat Sangh, the NGO which
catalyzed the change in this community was a young man of 23 when he gave up a
promising career as a civil servant to stay and work with this community. He had traveled
through the State as a civil servant and found that this was one of the most affected
communities with a completely denuded environment. He says that he decided that he
had to do something with and for this community and he says that he believed that he
needed to talk to the people in the community itself. Based on his conversation with an
old man called Mangu Patel, Rajendra Singh dug the first pond all by himself.
This is the beginning of the saga that has continued to spread to over 1000
villages in the last two decades built firmly on affirmative assumptions that are prized by
positive organizational scholars. However, like every part of rural India, the people in this
region also follow strict caste rules. They marry within their own castes and their social
status is reflective of their caste. They still practice their caste rules in social relations;
they don’t claim an unrealistic sense of harmony but have managed to find it around
issues that matter to all of them.
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The first tank they ever built did not only bring water and prosperity but also
brought government action. The State Government irrigation laws were an archaic
inheritance from the imperial government and hence denied the villagers any right of
ownership over their common lands and resources. So, the government issued an arrest
warrant to Rajendra Sigh for tampering with government property. This infuriated the
villagers who refused to let him be arrested. They contended that he could be arrested if
all of them could be arrested. Because all of them built it together. This was an important
point of acceptance of Rajendra Bhai by the people as well as recognizing their own
power as a collectivity. The Government retreated. Arvari Sansad, the River Parliament
almost immediately on formation had a struggle with the government authorities. When
the river came alive and started swelling, with it came the fish. Government, without
consulting with the villages, granted a fishing license to a fishing unit. These villagers
believe in the principle of Jeevan Daya – Compassion for Life and that includes the fish
in their waters. The villagers through the parliament fought this decision through peaceful
means (Satya graha) and retained their right and power over the river. The struggle
continues and people seem to emerge out of it victoriously and harmoniously.
Interplay between “positives” and “negatives” in national-level social change
Last, we offer the example of a social change movement in U. S. that was
galvanized by attention to both positives and negatives in the national experience. As
described by Howard & Coombe (2006b), the American Civil Rights Movement of the
1960s tackled the longstanding problem of U.S. race relations, a major issue since the
nation’s founding:
“For example, the institution of race-based slavery underlay the country’s deadly
Civil War (1861-1865); the immediate aftermath of the Civil War produced the
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Civil Rights Amendments that freed the slaves, made the slaves citizens and
extended equal protection of the law to all US citizens (Amendments 13, 14 and
15) (Miller, 1966). But these advances were undermined by four subsequent
developments: (1) the Compromise of 1877 which ended the post-war occupation
of the South by federal troops; (2) the Redemption of the South, the period which
saw the restoration of political control to White supremacists; (3) the rise of
institutionalized race violence as exemplified by the Ku Klux Klan; and (4) a
series of US Supreme Court decisions culminating in 1896 with the declaration
that segregation of the races was legal. It was not until a full century after the
Civil War that the USA enacted major civil rights legislation that permanently
ended de jure segregation of public accommodations (Civil Rights Act of 1964)
and enfranchised African American voters (Voting Rights Act of 1965). Although
black Americans’ rights were now protected by law, it would take Civil Rights
Movement activism to end de facto segregation (Jim Crow practices) and
behaviorally integrate race relations in the South (Williams, 1987) (Howard &
Coombe, 2006c, p. 7).
A driving feature of the ‘60s Civil Rights Movement was a new and emergent social
change discourse that outlined pressing problems faced by African American individuals
and communities, and called for redress of these difficulties. In framing movement
petitions African American activists, citizens and supporters drew on collective rights and
values set forth in and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution — i.e., a fundamentally
“positive” discussion on shared American ideals. This approach is not surprising. African
Americans, by and large, fully embrace the ‘American dream’ (Hochschild, 1995a). They
accept it as an ideology braced by democratic principles and doctrines, and as the
nation’s promise that “everyone, regardless of ascriptive traits, family background or
personal history (Hochschild, 1995b, pp. 18-19)” may pursue success and an improved
standard of living–– whether material, spiritual, or otherwise. Moreover, in her 1995
treatment on race, class and the threatened future of American Dream ideology,
Hochschild documents the ways in which contemporary black Americans paradoxically
believe in the American dream yet increasingly view it as a failed promise. The history of
21
African Americans is steeped in this paradox; their formative relationship to American
society was that of chattel, a condition legally and morally sanctioned by the state as
separate and distinct from the class of humanity extended human rights and the
protections of citizenship. The ensuing (postcolonial) journey of the African American
subgroup can be cast as one in which enfranchisement was sought and won, and the
structural legacy of slavery, preserved thereafter through the device of institutionalized
racism, was (and still is) struggled against persistently or openly opposed (Harding,
1983).
We argue that leaders and participants in the ‘60s Civil Rights Movement
typically identified with and internalized the democratic and humanistic values espoused
in the American creed while simultaneously comprehending the ambivalent nature of the
nation’s investment in the black community. Rather than implying a relatively
uncomplicated link to the social establishment, their embrace of American democracy
had much to do with an interest in resisting societal features that foster discrimination,
institutionalized racism or other systemic barriers to the material and psychological
wellbeing of African American citizens. This result was exacerbated by the role that
coercion has played in the social experience of black Americans. The use of violence and
coercive power was a central feature in the imposition of slavery, Jim Crow and 1960s
Civil Rights Movement opposition as well. Thus, Lewis Coser’s (1956) description of
“realistic conflict” is an apt rendering of ‘60s Civil Rights Movement energy:
Social conflicts that arise from frustrations of specific demands within a
relationship and from estimates of gains of the participants, and that are directed
at the presumed frustrating object, can be called realistic conflicts (Coser, 1956,
p.156).
22
As movers of “realistic conflict”, Civil Rights Movement leaders and participants offered
clear articulation of the negatives associated with black life in America. This was as
important to them as clear articulation of American values, democratic ideals, U.S.
Constitutional rights — and America’s responsibility/will to fully extend these positives
to its African American citizens. We suggest that the American Civil Rights Movement
in the ‘60s thus engaged a (then) new and rich discourse on both positives (shared
democratic ideology and national creed) and negatives (shared racial history and societal
problems).
Drawing on the example of our three post-colonial social experiments and their
narratives, we argue that POS does not foster critical reflection that is crucial for
considering the whole picture with positives and negatives and subjective and objective
realities. Nor does it facilitate any boundary setting that is crucial for disenfranchised
groups and organizations in their dealings with those in power. However, while critical
theorists do this quite well, their sole preoccupation with problems and ‘deficit’ may not
allow them to engage or tap into the highest selves or dreams of the consciousness of that
which they study. It is time for the groups that share at the core, a deep belief in liberation
and empowerment of humanity to begin to build bridges and we argue that the dialogic
interplay as an epistemological framework is one way to do it.
Conclusion
To summarize, while we agree that being cognizant of one’s strengths as an
individual, organization or society and building on them is vital, but it is not sufficient. A
realistic assessment of today’s world shows that power differentials continue to remain
and can be said to be widening in terms of access to opportunity structures and resources.
23
POS in its current form of exclusively positive approach, can be equally if not even more
dangerous than the garden-variety deficit mode, because it can create an illusion of
equality, goodness and human flourishing without much change in reality.
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