Who Will be the Shade of Our Tree When You Leave? Collaborating as Women to Advance Community Emancipation

• Published in: American journal of community psychology Vol. 37; no. 3-4; pp. 211 - 218
• Main Author: Daniels, Doria
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers 01.06.2006; Blackwell Science Ltd
• Subjects: Adult; Collaboration; Community; Community Development; Community Involvement; Community Networks; Community organizing; Community-building; Conflict (Psychology); Cooperation; Emancipation; Ethnic Groups; Ethnic Relations; Female; Females; Group Processes; Housing; Humans; Informal settlement; Middle Aged; Ownership; Politics; Race Relations; Social activism; Social Change; Social conditions & trends; South Africa; Transformative learning; Women; Women - psychology; South Africa
• ISSN: 0091-0562; 1573-2770
• DOI: 10.1007/s10464-006-9045-4

In 1994, out of a population of 45 million people an estimated 7.7 million people lived in informal settlements in South Africa (South African Institute of Race Relations, 1994). This article focuses on one community whose residents' desperation to own housing contributed to community disintegration, typified by infighting among women, and threats to human life. Issues of diversity became more prominent and destabilized community‐building efforts. One effort to collaboratively break down barriers that deterred women from working together is presented to illustrate how these women created bonds based on “discovered similarities.” The participatory and personal‐experience approach described here contributed to their becoming active protagonists of their learning and encouraged tolerance and understanding among community women from differing ethnic, linguistic, and political backgrounds. The article concludes with a discussion of the critical importance of recognizing and working with and through differences within the current South African reality.