Discussion: Organizational Conceptual Model: Banking Intervention and Worker’s Collective Partnership
This case study presents the Usha Multipurpose Cooperative Society as a dissentient from hegemonic representations of economic development. Such representations of
development construct people in the ‘Third World’ as objects to be shaped by expert-led, technologically driven, modernist development interventions (Escobar, 1995). In seeking recourse from this intransigent view of progress, Escobar asserts that critical scholars must “imagine a post-development regime of representation to investigate and pursue alternative practices in the context of today’s social movements in the Third World (p. 11, 1995).” Study of such alternative practices must be situated within concrete local sociopolitical contexts so as not to reinforce generalizing definitions of and remedies for ‘underdeveloped’ countries, communities, and individuals. Indeed, the preceding analysis of the Usha Multi-purpose Cooperative Society illustrates the importance of historical, social, and political context to the organization’s current structure, culture, and impact on the community. Additionally, by focusing on practices located within the sex worker’s social movement attention is given to the ways objects of development reclaim the power to define and determine their social world.
Though this case analysis is anchored to the specific geographies of Sonagachi, there are several concepts and themes which inform the general discussion of global development in the new millennium. In this chapter I look deeper into the organizational form created by the partnership of the Usha bank and the DMSC sex workers union. The partnering of these two types of community-led organizations is a unique organizational system that has not been examined extensively in social policy or development literature.
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I argue that this partnership system is the key which unlocks the sex worker community’s ability to achieve multi-level (individual and community), multi-dimensional (logistical and political) empowerment.
The Usha/DMSC System.
Study findings detail how Usha and the DMSC contribute mutually supportive features that together form a system of logistical and political empowerment at the individual and collective level. The conceptual model presented below delineates 1) contributions to this system that can be primarily attributed to Usha or the DMSC, though all contributions are interdependent and 2) elements of the system to which Usha and DMSC each contribute different dimensions. These contributions come together to establish 3) a set of shared core values, material resources and symbolic resources resulting in 4) a set of multi-level, multi-dimensional outcomes achieved by this organization system. Figure 10.1 visually depicts this conceptual model.
Collaborative Contributions. Usha and the DMSC each have a different organizational expertise and were developed to address different facets of sex workers’ experiences. However, even relatively independent contributions of each organization are supported by the activities of the other. For example, low cost loans are provided to the community by Usha, but as we saw, it is through leveraging the DMSC social network that these low costs are achieved sustainably. Furthermore, Usha would not exist without the successful organizing of the DMSC, which convinced the West Bengal Cooperative Minister of the sex worker community’s capability to run a cooperative. On the other hand, universal social services and political advocacy of the DMSC are supported by Usha funds. Collective political action is a key tool of the DMSC worker’s collective and
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may go unfunded and unrealized without the financial help of Usha. Additionally, the legitimacy of the sex workers’ rights movement is bolstered by Usha’s high profile successes.
Though the organizations are clearly interdependent, maintaining some
organization boundaries was shown to be important for the healthy functioning of both organizations. For example, though Usha staff is often the first to learn about labor issues in the community, the DMSC is the primary mediator during instances of community exploitation. The DMSC is equipped to deal with the highly politically charged
environment of intra-community dispute. Usha does not have the training or resources to address these issues, just as the DMSC does not have the capacity to run a bank.
Delimiting organizational responsibilities allows each to focus on specialty areas. Usha and DMSC also mutually strengthen community processes such as the development of professional identity, development of sex worker leadership, reduction of stigma associated with sex work, and promotion of citizenship rights of sex workers. The DMSC promotes sex worker professional identity through, for example, labor rights advocacy and encouraging condom use as a marker of professional conduct (Ghose, 2008). Usha promotes professional identity through the codification of sex work as a legitimate profession and by helping sex workers invest and mobilize their earnings to achieve financial goals. Taken together, these elements of organizational structure and culture create a layered sense of professional identity which envelopes sex workers engaging in Usha and DMSC programs and services.
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Figure 10.1: Organizational Conceptual Model: Banking Intervention and Worker’s Collective Partnership
Resulting in:
Income and non-income contingent services
Ongoing fight against exploitation, violence, and abuse within the community
Organizational and financial sustainability of the system
Dynamic programs and services adaptable to community-defined needs
Active fight for formal and informal labor rights of sex workers
Development of sex worker leadership
Sex work leaders in the social movement and in the administration of services
Leadership in individual financial and work decisions
Development of a collective professional, social, and political identity
Among community members
In the eyes of the public, decreasing stigma
In relationship with the state
Shared material resources
Shared symbolic resources Usha to the DMSC and the Sex
Work Community
Safe money storage
Affordable financial services
Financial support for DMSC Informal labor protection through individual self-help Collective identity Sex worker leadership Reduced stigma Citizenship rights Employment opportunities Combat exploitation
DMSC to Usha and the Sex Work Community Political advocacy Social network Provides informal labor protection through collective self-help
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Shared material and symbolic resources. In her study of the DMSC, Cornish (2006) draws on Freire to analyze how the DMSC mobilizes material and symbolic resources to resist social stigma experienced by the sex work community. Freire (1973) argues that both material oppression, which denies people of their agency, and symbolic oppression, which denies them self-definition, undermine the energy and will for
collective mobilization. Cornish argues that, in the context of sex worker mobilization, both material and symbolic approaches are necessary to inspire a new, empowered social order for sex workers. She states, “material changes that are not discussed at the symbolic level as a part of a community’s political agenda and grand ideals without material
backing are equally incomplete (p.470, 2006). “
Through this partnership, Usha and DMSC have established a set of shared symbolic and material resources which can be drawn upon to achieve the logistical and political goals of the community. Pooled material resources provide for the needs of the community through direct services. Symbolic resources generated by this system include the organized collective power of sex workers to achieve community goals, a foundation of community trust upon which to build both services and a social movement, and a shared vision of a respected and healthful community of sex workers. The Usha/DMSC system demonstrates the inextricable interconnectedness of material and symbolic resources. The development of symbolic resources through collective mobilization relies on the material resources generated by the bank. Likewise, Usha’s financial resources were actualized through the political mobilization of the sex worker community and continue to thrive largely due to the trust and accountability fostered by collective identity in the sex worker social network.
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Resulting benefits for sex workers. The final piece of this conceptual model outlines the practical and political outcomes achieved by the Usha/DMSC system which were discussed in detail in the results. The Usha/DMSC system conceptual model illustrates the potential of bringing together a community-led banking intervention and worker’s rights collective to achieve a multi-level, multi-dimensional intervention promoting economic and political empowerment in the sex work community. This
specific organizational system is intertwined with its context. However, the concept of an organizational partnership between direct financial service and a worker’s collective is an idea that could be explored in many different contexts and tailored to fit a variety of specific forms of labor, social and political contexts, geographies, etc.
The synergistic model described here enables the sex worker community to redefine empowerment on their own terms and breach the limitations of mainstream microfinance and current economic interventions with sex workers. By bringing the Usha case analysis into conversation with mainstream discourses on economic and gender empowerment, Chapters Ten and Eleven return to the original research questions and discuss the extent to which Usha reclaims the social transformative potential of microfinance and engenders sex workers’ individual and collective agency.
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