Agency: the capacity of an agent to act in a world or, in other words, the ability to negotiate and navigate in one's own world. We use it every day. It is the presence that makes others hear you, see you, and, ultimately, respect you. Agency is used to assert yourself as an individual amongst the masses; you are not just a cookie cutter person and should not be assumed as such. But the narratives of our negotiations and navigations can be misread or, in the case of highly stereotyped groups, ignored completely. Sometimes, it is just easier to judge people at their literal face value (color of skin, gender, religion, economic situation, etc) and categorize them with the others "just like them."
When people are in a position of authority--key holders or gate keepers, if you will--they can tend to exert their powers in misguided ways. Specifically, bureaucracy can hinder humanistic aspects of public organizations and, therefore, take away the agency of a person seeking services. So there seems to be a stand-off between bureaucrats and the people they serve. The public officials can be jaded by protocol and long hours and clients are left to the mercy of a tired system. If the officials are overworked, understaffed, and underpaid like most public service employees, people and situations can blend together into one categorical lump with one formula to treat the whole group. This leads to stereotyping.
There are some general truths to stereotypes because that's how they were created in the first place. Some stereotypes are good but others are quite terrible and, for the most part, unfair either way. When you place stereotypes on someone, they lose their identity to you. And if you've taken away their identity, you've also taken away their agency because they have no way of negotiating their situation and navigating the system. They are essentially at your mercy: you, the public employee and them, the client. Placing these boundaries and barriers on an already-established hierarchy makes communication, at best, difficult and frustrating. At worst, it's impossible for the client to get what they need in order to move past their current situation and into the next stage of their "American dream." Because, more often than not, they get stuck in the cycle of the system when no one is willing to look past them as just being another typical case.
Lauren J. Silver (2010), places an emphasis on "the relative roles of body positions, spatial setting, and cultural discourses in shaping narrative events, identity negotiations, and the social meanings inferred." That means: the physical position of bodies in a certain setting also affect how the interaction between a public employee and client transpires. If the bureaucrat places physical barriers between themselves and the people they serve, they are already presenting themselves as visually out of reach. The intimidation of this physical barrier can make the client even more timid to assert their agency to the public employee--it can almost equate to a child visiting the principal's office. The client can be made to feel like a child in front of this figurehead behind a big hardwood desk in his/her own territory. These officials should be aware of these issues and become more self-reflexive to be more receptive to the people they serve.
Practices in self-reflexivity that make you catch yourself thinking certain ways and then challenging why those thoughts are going through your head will force you to be more self-aware. I mean really question yourself. Say: "Why, when I saw this person, did I immediately jump to that conclusion about them? What elicited that reaction? Where did this thought come from? How does this affect my outlook on the world as a whole?" This is extremely important not only when working with the public but as a general contributing member to a constantly advancing society.
Influenced by: "Spaces of Encounter: Public Bureaucracy and the Making of Client Identities" by Lauren J Silver. Published in Ethos 38(3):217-2
No comments:
Post a Comment