THEORIES | mswportfolio

Theories that Guide My Practice

Chaos Theory, my personal favourite, is a truly interesting theory. Ary Vreeken had tasked a group of us with studying chaos theory and then presenting our findings to the class. All five us read, watched and listened to everything we could find on the theory. And all five of us came up with vastly different explanations for the theory. All of which, according to Ary, were (mostly) correct. My journey to understanding chaos theory was a tumultuous one. The more I studied it, the less I understood it. Until one day, I stepped back and thought about everything I had read, discussed and listened to… and something went ‘click’. Here’s my take on Chaos Theory as it relates to community development practice:

There are mathematical formulas that we use to explain life – to explain stock market price fluctuations, the life cycle of aphids. We like to think that these formulas are predicable. But in actuality, the rules that govern everything that we see in nature is unpredictable and chaotic at its core. This includes communities and the way in which communities interact and function (Gilchrist, 2000).

The application of this theory to community development work challenges most traditional forms of project management (Hudson, 2000). Most development projects are based on cause and effect thinking – which when applied to nature, humans, or communities can often fail miserably when, for example the project or community gets broadsided by an event that no one saw coming.

I believe, in my role as a community development social worker, it's important to have an understanding that nothing is predictable. Even with the best of intentions, logic maps and specific and clearly defined outputs and outcomes, there are no guarantees. A successful intervention will be one that would recognise the likelihood of the unforeseen circumstance and is built to move, bend and incorporate the unexpected.

Feminist Theory resonates with me as it focuses on eliminating domination, exploitation, and oppression, issues that I see as being the root cause of poverty. My feminist perspective borrows from some aspects of both radical feminism and socialist feminism (Heinonen & Spearman, 2010). I believe in women’s innate personal strengths and collective capacity for growth and transformation. I believe that if women in Low Income Countries (LICs) are given the tools that they need, such as education, access to basic health services and credit they can overcome many of the barriers they face, while at the same time improve the health and the lives of their families and communities (Weil, Reisch & Ohmer, 2013).

Structural Theory is a macro-level concept that views society as a complex system with parts that work together to strive for balance. The approach makes the assumption that inequality and oppression within societies is often caused by failures in social institutions (Mullaly, 2007). This fits nicely with the feminist approach to social work which posits that the personal and the political are inseparable and interlinked. This view enables an analysis of how structural aspects of society affect people differently. The goal being the improvement of situations for those who are most disadvantaged in a society by first locating the source of oppression and the barriers to empowerment.