Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Transmissive
Predetermined
Prescribed
Closed
Instrumental SR
Authoritative
Deferential/Compliant
Training/conditioning
Participatory
Active citizenry
Social learning
I
II
III
IV
Socio-Constructivist
Transformative
Transactional/Co-created
Socially critical/action-oriented
Open
Grassroots SR
Figure 14.3
Emancipatory and instrumental perspectives on fostering social responsibility in the
organic sector (after Wals and Jickling 2002).
processes are prescribed to citizens. The resulting force field (Figure 14.3) shows four different
conceptualisations of social responsibility and the role of citizens in moving towards social
responsibility (Wals and Jickling 2002).
The upper left quadrant of the force field can be named 'big brother' or instrumental social
responsibility: social responsibility that has been authoritatively determined and defined by
experts and prescribed to relatively obedient and passive citizens (see Orwell 1949). The lower
right quadrant represents grassroots social responsibility, characterised by the active and
critical involvement of competent and action-oriented citizens with high levels of self-deter-
mination in finding pathways towards 'social responsibility as agreed upon by all', and high
levels of empowerment and self-actualisation. Whether the resulting society is sustainable or
would be viewed as 'socially responsible' from the outside is questionable, but people might be
happier with their situation (as compared to the first scenario), at least for a while.
The other two cells represent forms of social responsibility characterised by a limited
openness and/or involvement. This can be seen, for instance, when groups are encouraged to
actively participate in the implementation of a guideline for social responsibility that has been
predetermined without their involvement. Limited or even false participation is often the
result.
Figure 14.3 as presented here is perhaps normative with a bias towards openness and par-
ticipatory democracy. The bias is somewhat contrived when considering, for example, the role
of expertise. In the upper left quadrant there is a tendency to downplay ordinary peoples'
voices and to stress expert knowledge ('the experts know what's right, the others know
nothing'), while in the lower right quadrant there is a tendency to downplay expert knowledge
and to stress the ordinary peoples' voices ('leave it to the people and their own local knowl-
edge, without outside interference'). A more fruitful approach may be to consider each
quadrant as a potential starting point towards social responsibility and to recognise that all
quadrants have something valuable to offer. This becomes immediately clear when we return
to Table 14.1 and Figure 14.2, which emphasise the utilisation of multiple perspectives depend-
ing on the context and the stage of development. Figure 14.3 can be ref lected upon as a heuris-
tic device that can support the analysis of positions adopted and alternative future directions.
