by Srilatha Batliwala
16 December 2007
Change is a Slow Dance is one of the most appropriately named documents I have ever read. The title reflects precisely the feeling, as you read it, of moving in slow, gradual steps with the three participating organizations as they struggle to improve the gender equality strategies and outcomes within their structures, and within the constituencies with whom they work in South Africa. The dance leads us through the intensely personal movements of an individual’s experience with trying to catalyze change within The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), to the more purposive and determined tempo of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), and finally, the passionate whirl of the change process in Justice and Women (JAW).
The concept of “resonance patterning” that was used by the facilitators in all the three settings sounds somewhat mystical and new age, and yet is somehow quite compelling because experience shows that sustained and profound changes in human behavior are ultimately located somewhere beyond the realm of logic and rationality. It is an approach that is quite convincing because it’s built around the notion that shifts in the “deep structure” of organizations and their behavior - the hidden dynamics of power, hierarchy and influence - require something more than the usual palliatives of changes in policies and practices. They are influenced, as the CSVR case shows so poignantly, by our own histories, and need an intensely deep, tectonic shift in our sense of identity and security and hence our relationships with others; they need the blocked pathways of our sense of empathy and justice to be cleared from both hearts and minds.
Two of the cases – of CALS and CSVR – are fairly typical. Founded by progressive human rights activists and advocates as social justice organizations / units within larger organizations during the anti-apartheid struggle, they were male-led and enculturated. Despite having strong and multiple programs of research and advocacy focused on women’s rights, the subtle, deeply embedded patriarchal biases in their internal structures and strategies went unaddressed. It was their participation – or rather, the participation of some of their key staff - in Gender at Work’s Action Learning Program - that pushed real confrontation with these issues in new ways. In both cases, contiguous opportunities (such as strategic planning exercises and reviews) were seized to gain broader ownership for the change process.
What is less typical, though, is the process through which these organizations struggled to achieve change. The individual catalyst who took the onus of leading change in CSVR, while simultaneously battling and confronting the ways in which her own history of abusive treatment shaped her engagement with peers and supervisors is a profound and rare tale of understanding the links between individual and organizational identities. Although the change she triggered was limited, the exploration of processes through which others could grapple with hidden resistance are fascinating – maintaining personal diaries and the use of photography, for instance. The nuances of racial politics in an originally anti-apartheid centre in a post-apartheid era also provide deep food for thought.
In CALS, we see the challenges that remain even when a once-male-dominated organization is now staffed and led primarily by women, but has developed other disfunctionalities – the “silo” mentality, fragmentation, little coherence or collective identity. But we also see once again the possibilities for change when the key leader is deeply committed to and takes responsibility for driving a change process. The CALS case is particularly absorbing for the manner in which it deals with several internal contradictions and tensions – between activists and academics, and between those programs that challenge government and those that work closely with it. For many of us who have grappled with similar divergence, this is an insightful journey of change.
The JAWS case was my personal favorite – perhaps because it’s the most uplifting, and the one where the deep structure changes were the most profound. Set up as a “project” or “service” by several NGOs, but run by victims of violence, it was the site of power struggles between its founding organizations for many years, reinforcing the power vs. powerlessness dynamic that its staff were all too familiar with. Gradually, through predictably unpredictable circumstances, JAWS staff begin to take control of their program and lead the quest for its autonomy. But rather than asserting independence and recreating a flawed and oppressive governance structure, they decide to search for a way to transform their own self-image and that of the organization at the same time. This is an extraordinary process of confronting how their own experience of victimhood and subordination informed and shaped their internal and external relationships, and learning both. As the protagonists move from the stance of victimhood to power, agency, and autonomy, we feel it is our triumph too, and it is hard not to cheer!
And so the dance ends in an exhilarating waltz, and you feel energized and ready to take on the challenges of your own self and contexts with new insight and strength….
