Views on social activism

When our Peer Consultants were trained as community researchers the context for their role as volunteers was the Supporting People programme’s emphasis on ‘service user involvement’. Service users were encouraged to sit on management boards and take part in other decision-making forums to ensure that services were being designed to suit their needs.

There are obvious benefits to involvement in this form, for example it means (when it’s done well) that there is a partnership between the providers and beneficiaries of services that facilitates feedback and respect for beneficiaries that is empowering for them. However, sometimes it isn’t done well and this is why there is some criticism of this approach. One argument is that because involvement does not alter existing power imbalances it is just the people who make the decisions allowing those who don’t a place at their table – but without real influence.

We want our peer consultants to have real influence over the services that they and their peers receive. We’ve had a lot of success in making sure the ‘traditional’ involvement activities our peer consultants undertake are genuinely empowering, but we’re also open to new approaches to involvement – including social activism. We didn’t know what our peer consultants would make of the idea that they become activists and campaign in their own interest, so we asked them. A key debate that emerged during the discussion we facilitated was about what activism meant to them and the methods they would employ.

One opinion was clearly that activism would not be effective if it meant demonstrating on the street; you had to have influence in other ways:

“With the cuts that are planned and happening anything that anyone is demonstrating about is going to be ignored. It doesn’t matter that people are demonstrating if there is no money, what can the government do? The thing to do is sit at the table rather than stand in the street. That’s true activism.”

“To be truly active you have to be part of community engagement activities rather than protests. Street protests don’t change anything – it’s the wrong way.”

“You get more done by sitting round a table talking.”

However, there was a worry that if you didn’t protest your voice wouldn’t be heard:

“Activism is about raising awareness and following that up to make sure that the people who can bring about change are actually going to do it. These people can often be inert, so sometimes you need to go out there and protest on the street.”

A key concern about demonstrating was that it could have detrimental effects, something that supporters of this approach acknowledged:

“But protests get undermined by violence – it is human nature, regardless of the training people receive. Nobody listens if there’s violence at a protest and there always is.”

“Violence will happen but you shouldn’t be put off by that, it shouldn’t stop sensible protest.”

But the benefit to protesting was felt to be its power to demonstrate the feelings of lots of people:

“In a meeting there’s only you – in a protest there’s a crowd to show the number of people interested in the issue.”

The discussion ended with a clear statement of interest in becoming social activists:

“Being an activist in your spare time would be great – you would be putting something back into the community.”

This reinforces the central point made by the Manifesto for Inclusion – people from the margins of society have knowledge, experience and insight that they can share with their local communities. It also demonstrates they have a pretty nuanced understanding of how ordinary people can influence those with power and create change. We hope to secure funding that will allow us to provide the training in activism that the peer consultants say they need to take on this role.