Still more on authentic help

Well, my friend finally showed up around noon.  And it turned out to be a really nice visit.  She's actually taken a film course (and is a really good photographer) so she has a bit more of an idea when it comes to low-budget filmmaking and stuff like that.  She said she has been interested in documentary filmmaking also.  I'd like to have more conversations with her about stuff like that. 

We also talked about Chicago and some mutual friends and colleagues.  We're both sorta in the "helping" professions and I was telling her some of the things I've been thinking about again regarding Paulo Freire's notion of "authentic help" whereby you try to avoid the dichotomy between the helpers and the helped and the "help" (I don't actually like that term) is a collaborative process based on the idea that it's not done out of charity but out of recognition that it's in the interests of all involved.

We talked about it until I had to leave for my fem theory class and then in there I brought it up again.  I didn't feel like the idea got fully fleshed out there in the way I was intending but I am determined to do something with this so I'm going to write my term paper on it. Something about problematizing "development" and how we can go about working towards a more equitable distribution of the world's resources in a way that doesn't patronize or disempower some people (or countries in this case) on behalf of others.  You know what I mean?  It's the difference between the World Bank and local, in country "self-help" programs. 

I don't know how to answer the question but I remain convinced that we need to ask it.

It's not a given that help can be done in a way that's not disempowering and patronizing to some extent.  It might just be the price you have to pay.  We talked about this.  She and I both lived and worked with homeless people in this particular place in Chicago.  I said the place where we lived fell far short of bridging the gap between the helpers and the helped but it's still lightyears better than a larger-scale institutional-based program (say, The United Way, for example). 

She said that relationships between people who live there by choice versus people who don't have as many choices are necessarily "paternal" (whether because of drug addictions or chemical dependencies or mental illness or whatever).  Maybe they have to be that way.  But if so, I want no part of it.  And indeed, I'm not currently doing any of this kind of work in my life precisely because of this.  Because local efforts I've been involved in all to some extent were touched by this hierarchy.  Everything from the city's official homeless shelter to more grassroots just-a-bunch-of-friends-getting-some-stuff-together kinds of efforts.  If I can't interact with other adults on an equal footing, then I don't want to do it at all.

I still know some individual folks who are homeless from when I did work with those groups and when I run into them on the street, we chat or sit and have coffee together or something.  And then I feel like the interactions are more normalized, ya know.  And that feels better. That doesn't feel like I have all the power and they don't.  Of course that's just talking.  I'm not handing them a sandwich.  Would the dynamic change if I did?  Maybe.  But maybe not.  We already have a relationship outside of the action of me handing them a sandwich.  But then again, if I have the sandwich to hand out and they don't, that's just a power imbalance plain and simple.  And no amount of friendly talk can change that.

So is it impossible?  Maybe, to some extent, under a capitalist system it is.

Comments

[tom]

i don't think you can ever be on "equal footing" because you have a safety net whereas homeless folks usually don't. personally, i don't think i can ever truly relate to not having any safety net, but thinking about it is scary. you could try to get rid of your safety net, but that would involve breaking ties with everyone who would help you out.

but hey, if everybody had a safety net, maybe then the footing could be more equal. if we just made the universal declaration of human rights into law, that would go a long way.

good luck with the term paper that sounds like a pretty big subject. personally, i don't see how we can have an equitable distribution of income without dismantling capitalism and eliminating nation states. could you argue for something that extreme in your term paper?

[kate.d.]

ahhh! you used the word "problematize"! the pain, the pain... :)

but seriously, this is a really interesting question, and one that i think about while working in non-profits. i think i have a much more rudimentary understanding of the dynamics, and i think my own continuing level of discomfort with certain realities kinda inhibits my full understanding.

for instance, i have a high level of frustration working in a small, direct service non-profit that has to do with the culture of the organization and its lack of professionalism in many ways. now, this is really my problem, not theirs. i like a more professional setting; they don't need one. the remedy for me might be to consider moving to a bigger, more established non-profit. however, whatever i would gain in an atmosphere or professionalism there would put me further away from the real work being done with and for real people. is that what i want? is that ok with me? i don't know.

anyway. the dynamics of "help," and the role that human psychology and sociology play in those dynamics, is a really interesting topic. i'd definitely recommend tackling it in your term paper!