Optimistic Anthropology’s Founder, Alison Gold, has contributed a chapter to the new book, Anthropological Optimism: Engaging the Power of What Could Go Right. The book was edited by Anna J. Willow and is available from Routledge Press on April 25, 2023.
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Alison’s chapter is entitled "Optimistic Anthropology in the Work of Systems Changemakers" and it focuses on the themes of:
Who needs to be engaged in the work of transforming systems;
How to cultivate interdependency between people, communities, and institutions that make up systems;
How to understand a system’s history.
Order Anthropological Optimism: Engaging the Power of What Could Go Right from Routledge Press
Alison explores these practices by sharing the stories and reflections of three systems changemakers that she’s had the chance to collaborate with - Jyothi Marbin, MD, Director of the UC Berkeley UCSF Joint Medical Program; Kevin Wright, PhD, Director of the Center for Correctional Solutions at Arizona State University, and Archie Nagraj, the Executive Director of Destiny Arts Center in Oakland, CA.
The chapter also builds on concepts that Alison has been working with over the last two decades – first as an on-the-ground practitioner who worked in communities, then through research and technical assistance while working in philanthropy, and most recently as a strategist, facilitator, and consultant in her work at Optimistic Anthropology.
There was so much rich content that emerged from her discussions with others while developing the chapter, that she wasn’t able to include all of it in the final version. What follows is bonus content not featured in the published version.
The work of systems changemakers is about shifting the conditions of the system to a healthier state. And the most powerful lever for systemic change is not policies and practices and funding flows, but what people believe the goals of a system should be, and what paradigms or cultural models people hold (Meadows 1999). Cultural models “are widely shared assumptions, expectations, and ways of reasoning about the world that people use to interpret information and engage with communications about systems. Some cultural models are more productive than others.” (Frameworks Institute 2020).
The powerful part about writing a chapter in conversation with systems changemakers who I respect is that through our interactions additional examples of the practice of optimistic anthropology in their work emerged. In my discussions with the three changemakers who’s insights and work is featured in the chapter - Kevin Wright, Archie Nagraj, and Jyothi Marbin - they all touched upon a fourth practice of optimistic anthropology employed by systems changemakers: the work of reimagining and bringing into being new system goals and cultural models.
I’ll highlight a story that Kevin shared about both the goals of the system and the cultural models informing it in his work. He was sharing some information about a new program with a group of incarcerated men:
It was a program where they could choose to transfer to a different unit as they neared their release from prison and there would be a number of opportunities available to them in that new unit. They could get identification cards, enroll in health care programs, receive job training, and possibly even leave prison with a job in hand. I was excited. The guys were excited. And then they asked who was eligible for the program. I quickly relayed that it was for people who were “high-risk.”
High-risk (to recidivate) is well-known in correctional research, in that treatment and programming should be reserved for those at highest risk to recidivate. When programs are ‘evidence-based’ in corrections, it usually means that the program reduces recidivism. It’s therefore well-known that to reduce recidivism, you should enroll people who are at highest risk to recidivate in the programs, as measured by a number of factors…
The demeanor of the guys immediately changed. One said he wasn’t getting out ever, and so he was ineligible. One said that those risk assessments are completed immediately after you are convicted, sometimes in the middle of the night, and that the person doing the assessment doesn’t know anything about what they’re asking. One said that he desperately wants and NEEDS this programming, but doesn’t score high on the risk assessment and therefore can’t take it.”
Kevin reflected on how, “That experience, and others, led me to think how limited our measure of success is when it comes to our correctional system…That the reduction of recidivism should not solely guide us, and that pursuing a bad event not happening makes no sense.”
Learn more about Kevin and his colleagues’ work at the ASU Center for Correctional Solutions.
He believes that, “Theories, programs, and policies based on the evidence for what works to reduce recidivism could produce an artificial ceiling for the potential impact of our correctional system and, worse, could unintentionally produce harm to the people who live and work within it.”
This of course ties back to Kevin and his colleagues’ work where they put forth a fundamentally different goal for the correctional system, steeped in a different cultural model of the role of incarceration and the potential of human beings: what if the correctional system supported people living and working within it to become more fully able to contribute to their families, communities, and society?
Most people are not thinking about the goals of systems, or recognizing the cultural models that are so ubiquitous that they are holding the status quo in place. In contrast, systems changemakers develop an awareness and critique of the goals of the systems they are working to transform, and the cultural models that are informing those systems goals as well as the processes and relationships which are necessary to achieve them. They are working to imagine and bring into being alternatives that will support the work of moving systems to healthier states.
