GARDENING REALLY SPEAKS..................

The idea of community collaboration is often so compelling that people feel that it is an end in itself. The truth is that it is a process to achieve a result. We use the community collaboration process because we consider it able to achieve better outcomes, real changes that affect real people and improve their quality of life.

When I was reading one of the articles on collective action suddenly I came across how the concept of gardening is related to the cooperation in the community everyone of us know, in order to grow a good garden, the quality of the seed ,preparation of soil, Pruning and weeding & fertilizing and watering play important role.

Like growing a good garden, the key is good soil, quality seeds, a bit of gardening know-how and the fortitude to follow through. Community collaboration, like gardening, would be easy if the conditions will always be perfect and predictable. If we could control the weather, our garden would always grow according to plan. Now the question is-does this happen? Well, It depends...
Preparing the soil has a direct relation with whether there is a rich history of collaboration or cooperation in the community. If you can answer to the affirmative here you have an advantage. People can easily understand what you are trying to do and have the skills to join in. If there is no history of collaboration in your community you will need to spend a lot of time educating, shaping expectations and developing buy in from potential partners, funders and others whose support is crucial to your success.
Another thing that is to bear in mind is the reputation of your group and each of its members. If you have people in your collective who are well known and trusted with a reputation for getting things done it will take far less time to develop trust and to achieve the kind of clout required to catch the attention of stakeholders which is just like what a fertiliser does.
Finally, the last is an appropriate political and social climate for the things that you want to accomplish. If your issues are well known and commonly understood as important they will be supported more easily; that is, there will be fewer weeds to pull.
Planting a seed in community collaboration is about engaging community members in the idea to achieve buy-in and to mobilize the collective energy and will of the community. How we engage our community to achieve this buy-in “depends.”
The very act of planting the seed is critical and requires leadership. Like a garden, you need to know what you want to plant, how the plants may grow, how far apart the tomatoes should be, etc. If you do not have a vision for the garden planting seeds can be futile. Imagine digging a big hole and throwing all of your garden seeds into it. That’s not much of a garden. Thus,engaging members in the idea is very important otherwise,collaboration or cooperation is just for the namesake or in other words, no proper engagement means no cooperation
Once the harvest begins you need to have the energy and the will to realize the gain. Most importantly, you have learned that it is more important to do it together as a community than to do it alone. You take the time to celebrate not only to keep everyone motivated but as a way to mobilize even more people. Resilience is relentless incrementalism, taking small steps, seeing each one as if playing dominoes, knowing that each step leads to a whole and once many steps are in place change occurs. Like dominoes set up in a pattern, one behind the other, tip just one and a wonderful story unfolds just like a new plant.

blogspots-an innovative concept to bring in people sharing same vision and interests

I think that sharing creates the fewest demands and you can see it happening via flickr (photos), digg (stories), blogs and the number of small niche communities with common interest or concern. Co-operation requires a bit more co-ordination especially if there is to be some collaborative production involving decision making. Something like wikipedia manages this sort of participation really well then collective action is definitely a harder step. It needs a strong enough shared vision which binds a group together and people will put effort in for. Many of the blogspots,sites and diggs that exist today are more of the effort of the collective action,co operation and mutual sharing.A typical example is one of the blogspots that I recently visited which maintains the collection of the indian archive comics series which has lost its identity after the internet era and people from different strata who have a affinity towards the comics collection post the threads of downloading those comics.This is a very innovative attempt where we could revisit the nostalgiac childhood days of comics reading.These blogspots are on the way to prove themselves as the most efficient means of bringing in the people with shared vision at one common platform.Moreover many of the sites existing today whithout any external financial support are collective efforts of people who regularly keep updating these sites out of their volition and interest.

COLLECTIVE ACTION: another power play

What i have read be it movements or seen or understood from real life, i believe collective action mostly fails. According to me, it just shifts the power from earlier parties to the people initiating collective action. People who actually take the lead or are active members in it are not able to acquire power. The weak continue to stay weak no matter what weapons they select and are now made powerless at the hands of new parties which ousted the earlier ones.
So my question is just this... why collective action when it is just a paradigm shift?

valentine's day is round the corner...is there any collective action possible at a batch level for bringing together aspiring couples???

i can see both males nd females around me wanting to propose someone without having the guts to do it...what they are afraid of is fear of rejection from other side in a public space...

To get around this problem, what if at class level we organize a secret voting where every person can vote for one person he/she wants to be with on V-day? a pair is assumed to be formed if 2 individuals vote for each other...the election commissioner(a respected individual among us who is married) will convey the results by mail to the pair if there is a hit...

all people who dont receive a mail can stop dreaming nd prepare for end term..nd the ones who receive mail can revel in their glory!!!

ny issues, kindly raise...

thanks

Synergism or collective action?

Synergistic behaviour between individuals and collective action are two kinds of behaviour attempting to achieve the same objective. The sum total of the isolated actions of individuals produces synergism and this synergism tries to bring about a social change. In this, the actors are not consciously contributing to the movement. On the other hand, a collective action results from a situation wherein individuals interact with each other and produce relationships to achieve a common aim. This interaction is missing in synergistic behaviour.

Looking at both synergism and collective action, I wonder where one would place the Weapons of the Weak as stated by James Scott. The everyday form of resistance as shown by the peasants of Malaysia has an effect of wearing down the power of the powerful. These peasants did not have any interaction amongst themselves and took the decision to rebel individually. Hence, will we take it as collective action taken by the hundreds of silent and oppressed peasants or will we take it synergistic behaviour? 

Gandhi’s Non-Aggressive Activism:A solution for today

"Little deeds of kindness, Little deeds of love , will help to make this earth happy, like the heaven above……. "

Mahatma Gandhi’s theories if applied judiciously can serve as a way out of many problems for current world’s situation where faith has lost its value, where individualistic concern has surpassed love for others, where non-violence has become merely a word in dictionary and where we don’t know what value system we would be transferring to next generations since we have neither created or carried any from previous generations.

In Mahatma Gandhi's terminology, truth (Satya) implies love, which should engenders firmness/dedication (Agraha)- thus, Satyagraha refers to the "firmness in a good cause." Gandhi's philosophy of Satyagraha is often conflated with the passive resistance in social movement literature, though a better descriptor would be dedicated non-violent resistance. For Gandhi, any system that used violence, psychological or physical, blunted a society's moral sensibility and rarely achieved lasting results. Every successful use of violence inured people to that level; increasingly larger amounts of violence would be required to achieve the same results. As an alternative, Gandhi offered the idea of Satyagraha, a process by which marginalized groups could confront the opponent by first trying to work out a mutually agreed upon solution, and if that failed, by disobeying the law, refusing to carry out the opponent's orders or co-operating with the opponent. Gandhi's idea of non-violent conflict resolution rose from a deep appreciation of the idea of oneness/interconnectedness of the universe. He marked out a new domain of public intervention by insisting that the method of fighting an objective was an integral part of the objective, and the goal did not exist at the end of a series of actions, but was part of it. Thus no action for a just society could be conducted by unjust/violent means. Non-violent means of conflict resolution (Satyagraha) described above, was the only way which reflected unity of belief and conduct, and therefore the ethical way of resolving social differences.

In promoting the idea of Satyagraha, Gandhi rejected the abstract, rational, institutionalized violence that is central to the structure of nation-states. Instead, Gandhi drew on "feminine" principles for action in the public arena, particularly the "superior capacity for suffering and self-sacrifice rather than forceful intervention to protect self interests”. The two central symbols associated with Gandhi in the antiimperialist struggle – spinning khadi and making salt – were quintessential "domestic" tasks. Gandhi effectively used these symbols to breach the symbolic dual spheres divide, legitimate the participation of women and other peripheral groups into the public political arena, and demonstrate a process by which marginalized people could resist psychological and political colonization in a non-violent manner. He popularized these ideas through mobilization of the masses, who, lacking weapons of violence or access to legal channels, would engage in non-cooperation as a means for expressing dissent and/or resolving conflict. "It has become disloyal, almost sacrilegious to say no to the government. This deliberate refusal to co-operate is like the necessary weeding processes that the cultivator has to resort before he sows”. According to Gandhi, by refusing to co-operate with marginalizing forces, by resisting without violence, and by becoming victims of state sanctioned violence, the dissenters could wrest the moral power from the ruling elite, and restore some dignity and power of their communities.

THE MANGALORE SHAME

The nation is shocked by the recent attacks on women in a pub in Mangalore by the Sri Ram Sene activists who portray themselves as custodians of our "great Indian culture and traditions." In the much glorified democratic country of ours, the activities of religious outfits serve to tarnish our image on the global map. Acts of vandalism, attacking people in the name of religion, culture and values, intimidating people can not be tolerated in any civilized society. On one hand, such organizations say that women are the incarnation of Goddess Durga and hence must be respected and on the other hand, they attack women, misbehave with them and molest them without even thinking once! Where do their traditions and ethos vanish then? Into thin air, i believe. Outfits which carry out such activities are damaging our social fabric on the pretext of purifying our society. I fully agree with the Home Minister when he says that no organization can become self-styled police force. We, in this country, have our freedom of choice and we need not be dictated by others as to what we should do, how we should do, where we should go and with whom we should go. Rather than creating another headache for the administration, these outfits which claim to be patriotic zealots should contribute positively to the development of our country which is plagued by innumerable issues. We already have enough external threats and we can ill-afford to channelise our energy in combating extremism from various quarters, whether external or internal. These organizations are a threat to our society. The people of our country, especially the youth must take a call and demand for banning such organizations. These incidents evoke intense public outrage and yet there hasn't been any serious action taken against organizations that spearhead such shameful acts. We need to prevail upon the government bodies to take concrete measures to check such incidents recurring in future.