ISTR Sixth International Conference Toronto, Canada / July 11-14, 2004 Contesting Citizenship and Civil Society in a Divided World

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	Abstracts

A search for relevant concepts and theory: Understanding the phenomena of “help” in low wealth communities---An exploratory study of four Southern African Countries
by
Susan Wilkinson Maposa and Alan Fowler
Building Community Philanthropy Project, The Southern Africa-United States Centre for Leadership and Public Values, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Coauthors: Susan Wilkinson Maposa and Alan Fowler

All societies demonstrate acts of giving, volunteering, self-help and reciprocal assistance that form important elements of social cohesion, survival and development. Consequently, under contemporary conditions of state withdrawal from many social service, support and development functions, there is increasing attention to strengthening these forms of associational behaviour clustered under the label “community philanthropy”, understood as “acts of individual citizens contributing money and goods, or volunteering time and skills, to promote the well-being of others and the betterment of the community in which they live”. While such “philanthropy” may be widely accepted as a well-rooted, resilient and a general phenomenon that has stood the test of time, the study described in this paper assumes that within any country there is culturally specific language, concepts, terms, conventions, norms and relationships for what constitutes “philanthropy of community”. In other words, what may be regarded as philanthropic behaviour, or ‘help’ within one setting and community may not necessarily apply to another. Understanding such differences is essential for initiatives that seek to enhance “philanthropy for community”. In Southern Africa, relatively little is known in a systematic way, about philanthropic behaviour of low-wealth communities in terms, inter alia, of reach, forms, motivations and purposes. Consequently, current and proposed initiatives to promote community philanthropy in this region of the world rest on weak foundations and untested assumptions. Investigating the nature and expressions of “philanthropy of community” is therefore the central feature of a two-year research project, commencing in August 2003, described in this paper. Specifically, the research project is designed to: 1. Describe what “philanthropy of community” is within four countries of Southern Africa; 2. Analyze why it is. Develop themes and concepts by defining items according to identified properties and (comparative) dimensions; and 3. Identify and compare patterns of relationships and understand causation in order to develop a theoretical framework that attempts to explain the phenomenon and contribute to this field of knowledge. The inquiry adopts a grounded approach that allows theory to “emerge from below”. This is a departure from much development-oriented and hypothesis-based civic research in Africa that is informed and pre-conditioned by dominant conceptualizations with foreign normative origins and linear assumptions. This approach furthermore requires not only a particular “mindset” to inquiry but also the use of tools and techniques in specific way. A grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) requires the detailed analysis of texts derived from open questions, allowing construction of theoretical frameworks from below rather than from existing conceptualizations. In sum, the study contains a methodological exploration around how to understand a phenomenon for which there is an inadequate conceptual base and one which by its nature is very textured or “fuzzy” and experienced as integral to the fiber of life that is rarely discussed, appreciated or enumerated. The conference paper will therefore concentrate on methodological discovery and exploration. Research findings gained by the time of the conference will be discussed to the extent that they illustrate methods and methodological issues related to the three core components of grounded theory: that is description, conceptual ordering and theorizing. Specific topics will relate to sample group selection, language choice, questioning and comparing, analytical tools and techniques and coding procedures. In addition, processes related to shifting researcher mindset and promoting a culture and comfort of research being both a critical and creative process, will be explored.

Date received: October 9, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # camm-54.