Student leaders’ unrest: A call to action for social justice through social dream drawing

As a drive toward social justice anchored in the South African Higher Education Act, 1997, co-governance policy, all groups, including student leaders, have a role to play in the universities’ fulfilment of its goals. Nonetheless, South African youth, including university student leaders, protested, and pursued social justice through the hashtag Fallist movements. The social movements stand as student leaders’ adamant radical project to establish a sense of belonging and, finding their voices and place regarding decolonisation and transformation within South Africa and its universities even as the movements have received disapproval. Through social dream drawing and socioanalysis, student leaders’ experiences within South African universities have been explored. This paper, therefore, aims to discuss a CIBART (conflict, identity, boundaries, anxiety, role, task) analysis of student leaders’ social dream drawings that explain their unrest. Synchronically it foregrounds their call to action towards social justice that emerged through reflecting on their participation in social dream drawing.

For instance, an association to a dream led student leaders to reflect on a campus problem regarding students’ accessibility to career choice guidance services. Without these services in rural and poor South African communities, students mostly choose careers and consequently register to study courses that result in unhappiness, discontent, and despondency. After social dream drawing and the innovative space it provides, student leaders were able to generate ideas regarding initiating a project for establishing a career centre on campus for the well-being of students. Due to this, the group could self- emancipate from self–limitations of high conflict and anxiety, and self–authorise to take responsibility for making the change they want to see and actively participate in co-governance within the university structures. Additionally, regarding mental health, a significant issue on campus, student leaders learned about social dream drawing’s ability to be a cathartic and processing space that they could incorporate into their intra and inter – group practice. For them, the group setting of sharing dreams and corresponding drawings acts as a container for intense emotional expressions of unrest, thus setting a conducive, non – threatening space to share difficult and complex experiences in a vulnerable and deep manner. Accordingly, social dream drawing could be a process for diverse and indigenous groups to use in sharing experiences relating to mental health due to the African resonance to dreamwork. Thus, social dream drawing is a transformational enabler that contextualises student leaders as co-researchers obtaining impactful outcomes that achieve social justice. Consequently, it suggests a dynamic experiential learning facility to inspire peer learning and coaching, enhancing relationship building and increasing collaboration while eliciting a student leader advocacy role resolving their student leadership identity and boundaries that are in crisis. This transformative impact leads to innovative and expanded problem solving and strategies toward South African social justice within student leadership, enabling the voice of student leaders, ultimately clarifying their role and task. Consequently, the co-productive, participatory, and democratic posture of social dream drawing translated the South African student leader movements (as incepted through the # Fallist movements) into potential sustainable change toward social justice.

Koortzen, P. & Cilliers, F. (2005). Working with Conflict in Teams – The CIBART Model. HR Future 10(1): 52–53.
Long, S. (Ed.). 2013. Socioanalytic Methods: Discovering the Hidden in Organisations and Social Systems. London: Karnac.
Mersky, R. & Sievers, B. (2019). Social Photo-Matrix and Social Dream-Drawing. In Methods of Research into the Unconscious: Applying Psychoanalytic Ideas to Social Science, ed. K. Stamenova and R. D. Hinshelwood, 145–168. Routledge.
Zuber-Skerritt, O., Wood, L., & Kearney, J. (2020). The transformative potential of action learning in community-based research for social action. Action Learning: Research and Practice, 17(1), 34-47.

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10 MINS

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The Dynamics of the ‘Seeking Asylum Project’

The “Seeking Asylum Project” initiated by Group Relations Australia (GRA) emerged in 2013 in the context of disturbing policies about refugees and asylum seekers arriving by boat, which the then – and previous – Australian governments had implemented. In this paper we explore the question of whether it is possible to use systems psychodynamic thinking to engage with complex socio-political issues, to potentially intervene and how this might be done.

The project architects understood the mixed Australian community and policy responses to asylum seeking to be defences against distress and a fear of ‘the other’ together with a wish on behalf of many in the community to act or ‘do something’. But how? The project was itself part of this dynamic.

Group relations is founded on systems psychodynamic thinking. The second of GRA’s organisational aims is: ‘to play a socially responsible role, taking up, wherever appropriate and within scope of the organisation’s purpose, current issues in society’. It seemed an important way the organization could apply systems psychodynamic thinking to intervene for the good of Australian and other societies. In particular it was hoped that it would at least open up opportunities for fresh dialogue.

This paper seeks to explore these questions further and is an exploration of the dynamics of the project itself, including whether it made any socio-political difference.

The paper comprises three short presentations:

1. Description of the project:
The coordinating group met regularly for 3 years to manage the sub-projects and to explore the emerging parallel dynamics. Sub-projects formed around an organizer with a group of colleagues interested in working on that sub-project area. Multiple sub-projects were conducted, including: the work of the coordinating group, an experiential inter-project event, a reading group, social dreaming matrices, a special issue of the international journal Socioanalysis, and a community art project – a “Slow Walk” and dialogue. A proposed set of scientific meetings and a mini group-relations conference did not come to fruition.

2. Presentation of a brief example of a scientific paper which emerged exploring Australian policy and its roots in the ‘chosen trauma’ of boat arrivals

3. Observations about the experience, process, and value of the project.
The project aimed to find a systems psychodynamic / ‘socioanalytic voice’ and some form of agency – to contribute to a more mature, public understanding of the issue and perhaps a more humane response. Australia’s policy continues, however, with perhaps less discussion and largely unchanged. What were the limitations of the project’s reach?

In this third part of the panel, we are particularly interested in the limitations of the project, the psychodynamics of the project itself, and the capacity of systems psychodynamic thinking and ‘socioanalytic activism’ to generate alternative narratives, shape social opinion or influence public policy.

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20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

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10 MINS

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Problematising our orthodoxies

“I am always more interested in what I am about to do than what I have already done”
Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson’s (1962) classic volume Silent Spring exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT, eloquently questioned humanity’s faith in technological progress and helped set the stage for the environmental movement. However, it was initially met with widespread denial and disavowal. Sixty years on, we are finally beginning to see more acceptance of the ‘truth’ of her dire warnings. Why is it that critiques of ‘accepted’ truths and practices are so difficult to think or engage with? What can we learn from social movements that do attempt to counter such orthodoxies – particularly those challenging Global North neo-liberalisms, and Euro-centric modes of thought?

The presentation interrogates the question posed in the conference invitation “what can systems psycho-dynamics add to an understanding of [social]… movements” with a counter question: “what can social movements add to an understanding of systems psycho-dynamics”. How can we contend with the denial and disavowals in which we participate in our systems-dynamics work and in what way can critical progressive social movements helpfully challenge or mitigate these defences? We make use of our experience delivering innovative Group Relations (GR) conferences grounded in social movement politics to support our conceptual efforts.

Applying thinking emerging from social movements, we endeavour to create the space for thinking about the ethos, ethics, power, and politic of our systems psycho-dynamic work and we offer an invitation to explore what different modes of thinking are needed, possible and emergent to allow for development.

Owning that we inevitably draw on traditional frameworks, we also contend that our theoretical models stem from a colonialist and European post-Reformation pedagogy that requires a radical re-evaluation and new lexicon – in particular conversational and dialogic ones. The power differentials of Global North and South and the impact of this power axis of globalised economies is linked to worsening inequalities and disparities globally, generationally, and in terms of the impact of climate change. Insights about these matters and their relevance to systems psycho-dynamic thinking are some of the contribution social movements can make to our discourse and practices.

The presentation problematises key concepts that are used in systems psycho-dynamics thinking as they are embedded in GR work and reviews them from a critical social justice lens, highlighting where ‘orthodoxies’ emerge and where the reliance of established normativities are pervasive. We re-imagine these core concepts, from our experience with several recent GR conferences informed by social movements grounded in social justice which have challenged our own thinking and practice. We look specifically at: primary task; boundaries; containment; authority; consultancy and leadership roles. We will also explore the relationship of projection, projective identification and splitting as they apply to the binarisms that beset social processes and in doing this we will examine how individual and collective anxiety gets rigidified and leads to static identifications in ways that inhibit examination of power-oppressive relationships with the consequence of preventing new thinking and accountability.

Can we make use of progressive social movement’s challenges to our field and expand our understanding of social justice processes to facilitate learning and containment with a wider range of actors to invite rather than resist new forms of knowing?

“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘what if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?’ ”
Rachel Carson

Further Reading:
Carson, R. (1962) Silent Spring. Cambridge (Mass). Houghton Mifflin Co. & Riverside Press.

Goodwin, J & Jasper, M. 2014. The Social Movement Reader. Cases and Concepts. London, Wiley-Blackwell.

JASS, 2021. Feminist Movement Building. https://justassociates.org/what-we-do/feminist-movement-building/ Long, S. (ed). 2013. Socioanalytic Methods. London: Karnac

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20 MINS

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Building Social Justice Movements: What’s organizational role got to do with it?

Social movements and protest as a strategy of such movements, have made major contributions to advancing progressive modes of thought, and have transformed social policy and action toward more ‘just’ societies around the globe for centuries. They have often been justifiably provoked by egregious violence – often by the Global North and forms of white patriarchal supremacy. And at the same time, they have also been initiated to guard and enforce so-called ‘traditions’ of inequality, supremacy and injustice.

The international organizations with whom we work, viewed from the perspective of new social movement theory, are social movement organizations and part of postmaterialist social movements characterized by flexibility and diversity, and preferring to adopt non-hierarchical modes of organization (Melucci, 1989 in Little, 2016). They understand themselves – as do we – to be doing sustained social movement-building, and are oriented specifically toward social and climate justice, feminism, and equity.

More specifically, many of our clients are funds or funding networks, mobilizing and redistributing philanthropic resources to sustain grassroots organizing as part of larger social movements. They all employ evaluation tools to assess their impacts and reflect on their learnings. And yet, the resistances and collective unconscious defenses they employ frequently prevent reflection about their own uses of power and authority, confound role clarity, and thwart useful attention to boundaries.

Our intention in this presentation is to explore our work with one of these international funder networks (Alliance) with whom we have consulted for several years. Membership of the Alliance is based on a shared belief that philanthropy has a crucial role to play in the systemic change that is needed to bring about justice, equity and the wellbeing of the planet. One of the stated priorities of the Alliance is to build solidarity, accompany and learn from social movement activists. This identification with social movements is at the heart of how the Alliance understands itself in relation to and as different from other philanthropic actors. It forms the foundation for the Alliance’s (desired) legitimacy as a radical actor in a sector that has been described as a ‘manifestation of plutocracy’ (Haslanger, 2020).

Our work with the Alliance has been to accompany their learning processes and provide subject matter expertise to support networked governance processes, leadership development and member-engagement as they build the network. They are aware that our work rests on both subject matter expertise and a psychodynamic orientation – though in practice this is mostly demonstrated as a ‘double task’ (Gold & Klein, 2005; Raffaelli, 2008) in coaching the executive director. We have made use of psychodynamics thinking to inform our consulting efforts to understand how defenses are mobilized collectively to manage anxiety.

We explore several hypotheses about our work with them, explore the meanings that Board, staff and members seem to attach to involvement in social movements, and consider how these affect work roles:

That the fantasy of ‘social justice’ in the board collective unconscious prevents them from tackling the hard questions about what they can actually achieve as an organization, a network and as part of larger social movements; what it means in practice to be ‘in solidarity’ with social movement activists; and what conflicts have to be faced.

That ‘resistance’ can reproduce that which is being opposed and requires very careful reflection (Foucault, 1982)
That in their alliances to progressive aspirations and actors and so as not to be seen as ‘bureaucratic’ nor reinforce ‘establishment’ normativities of neoliberalism and the pervasive influence of Global North paradigms of organizational structures (with by-laws, policies, and role descriptions), they make use of splitting, demonizations and denial to inhibit their capacity to take up effective organizational functions, roles and accountability.

References
Foucault, M. (1982). ‘The Subject and Power’. Critical Inquiry, 8 (4).
Gold, S. & Klein, L. (2005). ‘Harold Bridger, T.D., D.Litt., B.Sc. 1909-2005.’ Organizational and Social Dynamics, 5(2), 161-162.
Haslanger, S. (2020). ‘The Problem with Philanthropy’. The New Statesman’, 16 October.
Little, W. (2016). Introduction to Sociology, 2nd Canadian Edition, BC Open Textbook Collection: British Columbia, Canada.
Raffaelli, D. (2008). ‘Working the other way’ in Graves, D. (Ed.) Sense in Social Science: A collection of essays in honour of Dr. Lisl Klein, Broughton, 109 – 122.

Session schedule

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30 MINS

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20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

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Redefining Uncertainty – what the cultural and creative movements can teach us about social movement organising

In understanding social movements we often look to the past, developing blueprints and rules which attempt to explain why some social movements succeed in their aims and others fall flat. However, what these analyses often fail to take into account is the profound uncertainty of organising for social change and the reality that past success is a poor indicator of future resonance. In order to understand social movements we should be learning from systems like them, ones which are defined by unpredictability of outcome, uncertainty of input as well as the potential for radical, transformational cultural resonance.

The cultural and creative industries have long been studied as a countercultural industry that challenges traditional notions of how to plan strategy. In 2000, Richard E. Caves outlined the principles of what had come to be known as the cultural and creative industries. Key among them was the principle of demand uncertainty. Even with all information on past success available to us, nobody knows what will be a hit until it is. This principle defines an industry where a small number of hits are the product of an enormous number of unsuccessful attempts and, among other features, seeks to explain an industry which thrives on constant innovation, diverse skills and iterative testing and development.

This paper will apply the lens of cultural and creative industries to social movements arguing that they are in fact the same kind of system, governed by similar forces and requiring a similar approach to achieve desired outcomes. Drawing from both social movement theory, cultural economics, cultural theory and writings on narrative and social change, this paper will provide a new way of viewing social movement organising which puts creative thinking, dynamic organising and innovation at the centre and which forefronts the leadership and thinking of artists and creative workers.

Grounded by the author’s experience as a social movement organiser for animal and climate justice in Australia and the UK, this paper will bring together two disciplines to draw new insights for social change organisers, grassroots activists, academics and those interested in how we can catalyse and support social change.

This paper will draw on the following sources:
Bate P, Robert G, Bevan H, (2004), Towards a million change agents: a review of the social movements literature: implications for large scale change in the NHS, NHS Modernisation Agency, http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1133/1/million.pdf Caves, R. (2000) Creative Industries: Contracts between Art and Commerce. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass)
Engler, P & Engler, M (2016). This is an uprising : how nonviolent revolt is shaping the twenty-first century. New York : Nation Books
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1982). Dialectic of enlightenment. New York: Continuum.
Popovic, S., & Miller, M. I. (2015). Blueprint for revolution: How to use rice pudding, Lego men, and other nonviolent techniques to galvanize communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world. Spigel & Grau Trade
Shephard, B (2011). Play, creativity, and social movements : if I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution. New York. Routledge

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

30 MINS

Whole symposium open reflection discussion

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