Concepts and Transformation - Volume 4, Issue 2, 1999

Here we outline one variant of social constructionism — one that emphasizes social ontologies as constructed in ongoing co-ordination processes. We stress that these may be constructed in relations between written and spoken words, non-verbal actions, artefacts, and objects 'in nature'. Relational processes often construct persons and worlds in either/or relations, but 'both/and' is also possible. We explore some 'new' both/and possibilities in various areas of practice showing, for example, that research can be viewed as construction and that it does not have to strive to enact the standard view of science. Instead, it might construct inclusive, multilogical, and heterarchical relations, constructing 'power to' go on in new ways. While social constructionist arguments do not demand any particular methods or relations, we suggest that there are good reasons why approaches of the sort described might be of value, might be more ecological, in today's fast', postcolonial, multi-cultural worlds.

Non-governmental organizations are gradually coming to play an increasing role in developmental projects and organizational psychology is being challenged to contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of inter-party collaboration. This article documents how the stakeholders in a social development project develop meaning through discursive practices, when they define the issues they work on from their own particular perspectives. Development work is pictured in the use of metaphors as being aid, trade, transfer, exchange, etc. through the use of specific forms of thought and language. Each metaphor leads into different meaning configurations and characterizes a specific quality of dialogue. Special attention is paid to the action strategies that allow the 'weaker' parties to remain included in the development project. Discursive practices, metaphors and qualities of dialogue are illustrated for two multi-party projects. These illustrate how a social constructionist reading can reveal and generate discourses that allow the inclusion of weaker parties, in the cases under study, as representatives of the local communities.

This article describes an action research process to solve problems of democracy in neighborhoods in a modern European city. A relational constructionist approach has been used as the theoretical basis for this work. The methodological framework is based on action research, survey feedback and search conferences. The article begins by describing the historical and cultural context of democracy in the city. Special attention is paid to the development of the relationship between researchers and members of neighborhood associations on the one hand, and to the building of a mutual consensus on the problems, focus and methodology of action research on the other. Multiple voices of democracy start to make themselves heard in a process of data gathering and feedback. New futures and strategies for the associations were developed at a search conference. After the search conference had taken place new relationships were established in a communal dialogue with neighborhood councils. An evaluation of the process focuses on lessons learned by members of the associations in terms of strategy formulation; the establishment of relationships during the process; the multiple voices of democracy in a modern city; the effectiveness of the combination of a start up conference, survey feedback and search conference; and the way representative democracy can be improved in a relational process of social construction.

In this paper we attempt to write a conceptual contribution on the possibilities for intervening in contexts of exclusion and where 'raising voices' is at stake. It can be argued that organizations can only be vehicles, i.e. spaces for intervention, which need explicitly to be related to societal discourses. This conceptual framework is developed in the context of a research project focusing on intervention initiatives in Danish social psychiatry, re-addressing the position of psychiatric patients. It is effected through exploring three conceptual lines. First, we re-read the literature of OD from a becoming ontology, indicating its exclusion of history and time as part of its analytic frame. Second, we develop the notion of 'care of the self as a way to understand how one can work patiently at one's own (discursive) limits. Third, we develop a conceptual frame of nomadic intervention, through the writings of Deleuze and Guattari, which makes such a nomadic practice of the care of the self possible. The paper seeks to be stone thrown in the water, where OD and HRM is active, and where the expanding circles in the water remind us that every concrete intervention is a matter of politics/ ethics.

This article presents 25 years of experience with the theory and practice conducted through the intercultural relationships between an indigenous rural Mexican community and a team of urban professionals who became an insider partner in regional human and community development. The first section offers the synchronic and diachronic aspects of the epistemological perspective that has been evolving over the years; the theoretical basis that includes three challenges and six levels; and the methodology of presence, interdisciplinarity and agency. The second section is the narrative of the experience. It was rewarding and enriching to discover at international psychology congresses the convergence of our approach with that currently used by the social relational constructionist group led by Dian Marie Hosking.