https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)61690-6.pdf

Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health

‘The Production of Space’, in: Frans Jacobi, Imagine, Space Poetry, Copenhagen, 1996, unpaginated.

The Production of Space

It is increasingly common for social scientists to describe political processes as “path dependent.” The concept, however, is often employed without careful elaboration. This article conceptualizes path dependence as a social process grounded in a dynamic of “increasing returns.” Reviewing recent literature in economics and suggesting extensions to the world of politics, the article demonstrates that increasing returns processes are likely to be prevalent, and that good analytical foundations exist for exploring their causes and consequences. The investigation of increasing returns can provide a more rigorous framework for developing some of the key claims of recent scholarship in historical institutionalism: Specific patterns of timing and sequence matter; a wide range of social outcomes may be possible; large consequences may result from relatively small or contingent events; particular courses of action, once introduced, can be almost impossible to reverse; and consequently, political development is punctuated by critical moments or junctures that shape the basic contours of social life.

/pdf/increasing-returns-path-dependence-and-the-study-of-politics-32zejax04q.pdf

Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics

Stakeholder participation for environmental management: A literature review

This glossary aims to clarify some of the key concepts associated with participatory action research.

https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/60/10/854.full.pdf

Participatory action research

Explains to outsiders the conflicts between the financial interests of the coal and land companies, and the moral rights of the vulnerable mountaineers.

Power and powerlessness : quiescence and rebellion in an Appalachian valley

Preface Acknowledgments Editors' Introduction 1. Introduction "We make the road by walking" 2. Formative Years "I was always getting in trouble for reading in school" "Reading has to be a loving event" "I couldn't use all this book learning" "I always am in the beginning, as you" "Pockets of hope": Literacy and citizenship 3. Ideas "Without practice there's no knowledge" "Is it possible just to teach biology?" "I've always been ambivalent about charismatic leaders" "The difference between education and organizing" "My expertise is in knowing not to be an expert" "My respect for the soul of the culture" "I learned a lot from being a father" 4. Educational Practice "The more the people become themselves, the better the democracy" "Highlander is a weaving of many colors" "Conflicts are the midwife of consciousness" 5. Education and Social Change "You have to bootleg education" "The people begin to get their history into their hands, and then the role of education changes" 6. Reflections "Peaks and valleys and hills and hollers" "It's necessary to laugh with the people" Epilogue Index

We make the road by walking : conversations on education and social change

Around the world, new spaces and opportunities are emerging for citizen engagement in policy and governance processes. Yet opportunities for participation do not automatically translate into spaces for change. Much depends on the power dynamics that surround and infuse them, shaping who participates, where and with what result. Building on previous work based on the ‘three dimensions’ of power originally elaborated by Steven Lukes (1974), this article argues that these dimensions or forms of power must also be understood in relation to how spaces for engagement are created and the places (from local to global) in which they occur. Understanding each of these – the spaces, places and forms of power – as themselves interrelated dimensions, each of which has at least three components within them, these dimensions are visually and analytically linked together in a ‘power cube’. This framework, the article argues, can be used to assess the possibilities of transformative action in various settings.

/pdf/finding-the-spaces-for-change-a-power-analysis-2estyusmyo.pdf

Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis

Summaries This article explores approaches to participation in social policy, setting them within broader debates on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Drawing on studies of participation in a range of social policy arenas in the North and South, it explores the implications of a shift from a focus on clients or consumers of social policies as users and choosers to a more active engagement of citizens as agents in the making and shaping of the social policies that affect their lives.

John Gaventa

Papers

Power and powerlessness : quiescence and rebellion in an Appalachian valley

We make the road by walking : conversations on education and social change

Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis

From Users and Choosers to Makers and Shapers: Repositioning Participation in Social Policy

Power and Knowledge