"Your silence will not protect you."

-Audre Lord-

Defining the capacity to change

Source: Baraka, Kecak Dance

Community organizing and direct social work practice have one obvious goal in common: inspiring people to change. The principles of organizing focuses on finding a "common self-interest". Likewise, direct practitioners draw out internal motivations in order to re-direct a person's behavior from destructive to constructive actions.

Psychological and Social Barriers
Apart from the unjust institutions which maintain the status quo, social workers must confront personal fears and cultural opposition to change. Cultural anthropologists suggest that narratives are key to understanding the motivational force driving individuals. In this respect, an agent of change may seem like a threat to one's personal identity, for:

Source: InfoNIAC

"when social workers ask people to change, we are also asking them to give something up -something which may be very important to them, even if it is only a memory or a way of understanding reality."

There may not be a deeper and more powerful motivation than self-preservation, but a social worker also usually only steps in when the negative impact of an individual on their environment (and vice versa) becomes clear. At this point, service providers, family members, and the criminal justice system may intervene in order to protect a person or community. The resulting confrontation means people will act defensively, but also gain insight into social and personal problems which they may need the help of others to change.

Ecological Theory and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory features a model of how an individual interacts with their environment. His model is dependent on the idea of roles, norms, and compatibility. Supposedly, positive development occurs when expectations match across different settings.

Part of the social worker's role is to align internal motivations with the external expectations of "the system" in order to encourage prosocial behavior. However, the Code of Ethics also requires workers to advance the cause of social justice and respect individuality. In order to reconcile internal motivations with external forces, many social workers use resources as a way to incentive action and change. For example, advocates for Housing First programs argue that once disadvantaged individuals are housed, they become motivated to focus on personal development.

Source: The Character Therapist

Underlying this resource driven model of change is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which is illustrated with a pyramid in which self-actualization is the pinnacle of motivational desire. However, an individual's personal development is first driven by the need to fulfill certain biological imperatives.

Understanding Bronfenbrenner's and Maslow's theories means using therapeutic skills to uncover the conflicts and gaps between a person's psychological needs and the often impersonal operations of power structures.

Alinsky's Rules for Radicals
In 1971, Saul Alinsky developed an oppositional model in which the "Have-Nots" band together to create a conflict group and seize resources. These 12 Rules for Radicals  underline the principles of modern community organizing, in which an oppressed group is defined by its opposition to structures that maintain conventional privilege. Alinsky's motivational guidelines require a slow process in which community organizers discover existing community resources, build relationships with individuals, and incite change.

Parables

Source: Clive Uptton, The Parable of the Sower

The ecological model is also driven by conflicts, since an individual's personal needs often differ from the resources and motivational tools the environment provides. Therefore, recognition of the need for change is essential to both Alinsky and Bronfenbrenner's models.

I'm an unforgivably big fan of science fiction, so allow me to attempt to get at the root of some connecting ideas about motivation central to both Bronfenbrenner's and Alinsky's models using Octavia Butler's dystopian novel The Parable of the Sower.

The heroine in Butler's book creates a new religion called Earthseed in response to a futuristic world in which social cohesion has completely broken down. In order to preserve her sense of self and community, she outlines the following ideas:

"All that you touch, you Change.
All that you Change, Changes you.
The only lasting truth is Change."

Similarly, a successful agent understands the interaction between person and environment and builds on people's intuitive sense of the need for change. Where there exists fertile ground, the agent can sow the seeds.