- Priyanjali Mitra
This is the third post in our series What Do Sociologists Do? which is aimed at providing our readers with the opportunity to learn the possibilities of doing Sociology.
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| Photo by fauxels from Pexels |
Young professionals today can choose from a plethora of
options in the growing field of policy consulting. Traditionally it used to be the
domain of management and economics graduates. Social scientists have over the
years carved a space for themselves in it. Development sector consulting can be
defined as a subfield of consulting that entails addressing complex problems
across multiple sectors such as health, education, housing, and governance using a
range of methods.
The work spans throughout the policy cycle – research, monitoring and evaluation, policy development, and organizational reform. It often involves understanding the impact of a programme in the field. You could evaluate government schemes or programs, develop strategies to scale up existing programmes or provide a deeper understanding of an issue.
Having worked across the spectrum of the policy cycle, I have found my sociological training helpful in whatever the issue may be - sanitation, education, or public health. I draw from my limited experience to illustrate how training in methods and knowledge about the structures of society are crucial to policy consulting.
In the sphere of qualitative methods, it could be in-depth interviewing, participant observation, or focus group discussions. Often, the research design of the evaluation requires you to adopt an emic perspective[i] and get into the shoes of your respondents. A good interview is a good conversation too -one where you listen actively, pay careful attention to the cues you are receiving and probe when and where necessary. I was once interviewing a group of coffee cultivators in the southern district of Sekong in Lao PDR in an attempt to understand the impact of commercialization on their lives. The farmer asked me to spend the day with him to better understand the labour, and capital required as well as the challenges faced to grow coffee. Little did I know then, as a young researcher that a genuine interest in the people you are interviewing usually involves sharing food, doing chores together, teaching their children, or even sharing a cup of coffee.
In understanding the implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM)[ii] and toilet use patterns in India, one of the key factors governing both use and access to toilets is caste. In scaling the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, one of the challenges encountered was the association of purity and pollution that is so strongly entrenched in Indian society. The relationship between caste and sanitation cannot be delinked. In their paper discussing the social and cultural explanations of India’s open defecation problem, Coffey et. al[iii] outlines the values and norms of purity and pollution of private spaces and bodies that contributed to the salience of open defecation. Caste plays an active role in access to toilets as those belonging to the so-called ‘lowest’ castes are also the ones who are marginalized and economically depressed. They are also unable to get access to toilets in the absence of an Aadhaar card.
Caste is also central to manual scavenging and pit emptying process as workers from the erstwhile ‘untouchable’ communities have been engaged in this work for generations. Despite the legislations, people still use their bare hands to clean the pits and empty them of the faecal sludge, mostly with limited or no personal protective equipment.[iv] In the absence of automation and mechanization, their 'prescribed' role in society gets further reinforced, which is detrimental to their health and life, as well as dignity.[v]
Similarly, to change deep-seated patriarchal notions in Indian society, a single intervention is inadequate. In 2016, I was working as an associate at the Chief Minister’s Office in Haryana. Part of the role involved working towards the implementation of flagship government programmes and giving feedback on ways in which they could be improved. One of these was the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao[vi] – a nationwide campaign launched in January 2015 to generate awareness and improve the efficiency of welfare services intended for girls in India. While the programme drew flak for the way it was implemented, there was a lot to learn and reflect upon sociologically. Most significant was working amidst a bureaucracy that is in itself patriarchal, entrenched in the norms that they were attempting to change through the programme. I was able to see the extent to which these issues were interlinked and co-dependent.
There are innumerable challenges with attempting to improve the sex ratio in a society that has widespread son preference, female infanticide, foeticide as well as high dropout rates for female students. While the sex ratio at birth has improved in a few states since the inception of the programme[vii], the repeated field visits in Haryana revealed that mere sloganeering would not change the prevalent social norms.
One of the key aspects of research, especially when it involves extensive fieldwork, is reflexivity and the need to examine our privilege. From a sociological standpoint, this is even more crucial as very often the consultants are urban, educated, upper caste and upper-class individuals who bring various preconceived notions to the field. If reflexive practices are not a regular part of designing evaluations and engaging in fieldwork, one is doing a disservice to the entire process. In the early works of Talcott Parsons, reflexivity refers to the capacity of social actors in modern societies to be aware and conscious, and give accounts of their actions. This usage was further developed by Anthony Giddens, who argues that one of the main characteristics of late modernity is the heightened importance of reflexivity in this sense, both at the individual and the societal level [viii].
To engage in reflexivity often requires one to be deeply
aware of the position one occupies in society, structures of power, class,
caste, and gender. This often entails critical reading as opposed to constantly
pontificating on all forms of media. It means engaging in honest conversations
with the respondents, designing tools carefully, training interviewers
extensively, and being aware of the preconceived notions that one takes to the field.
Much of the perspective one gains in studying the discipline involves making choices about the kind of person you want to be, as it has a bearing upon the kind of researcher you would become. A sociological lens is not the one you shake off when you are not working or when you are off the field. It is a way of looking at the world, a way of critically inhabiting spaces, and of healthy scepticism for the information you encounter. While this article attempted to throw light on how the sociological lens can be used in policy consulting, similar cases can be made for several other career fields. C. Wright Mills captures the essence of this way of looking at the world in his work on sociological imagination in these many words -
"What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use the information and to develop a reason to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It is this quality, I am going to contend, that journalists and scholars, artists and publics, scientists and editors are coming to expect of what may be called the sociological imagination. The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables him to consider how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions. Within that welter, the framework of modern society is sought, and within that framework, the psychologies of a variety of men and women are formulated. By such means, the personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues" (Mills 1959) [ix].
[i]
An emic concept is grounded
in the worldview of the participants, reconstructed by the researcher, and
corresponds to the meanings participants themselves attach to their experience.
(Hahn, 2005, 2006; Headland, Pike, & Harris, 1990).
[ii] Swachh Bharat Abhiyan translates to Clean India Mission. This campaign was administered by the Indian government and was introduced by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. One of the objectives was to eliminate open defecation by building toilets in every household in the country.
[vii] https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/sex-ratio-improves-in-country-birth-and-death-rates-dip/article29846222.ece
[viii] Giddens, Anthony. (1991). Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
[ix] Mills, C. W. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. Oxford University Press.
***
Priyanjali Mitra is a development sector consultant who works with Oxford Policy Management (OPM) India on different parts of the policy cycle and across multiple sectors. Previously, she has worked with the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), the CM Office of Haryana, and the ILO (UN ESCAP) in Thailand specifically in informal labour and its gendered implications. She has an MSc in Sociology from Oxford University and did a B.A. (Honours) in Sociology from the Lady Shri Ram College (LSR), University of Delhi.
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