Peer education, gender and the development of critical consciousness: participatory HIV prevention by South African youth

Mobilizing collective identity to reduce HIV risk among sex workers in Sonagachi, India: The boundaries, consciousness, negotiation framework

“…Illustrating Campbell and MacPhail's (2002) argument that condom use is "structured by social identities rather than individual decisions," we demonstrate that condom use becomes a collective process, informed by each element of the BCN framework of CI (Fig. 3).…”

“…This research responds to such criticism by arguing that CI mobilization, as described by the BCN framework, is an analytically useful way to conceptualize the strengthening of relational social capital leading to an increase in the relational aspect of community empowerment. It ties together aspects of relational social capital such as community-level cohesiveness, engagement and consciousness (Campbell & MacPhail, 2002;Hawe & Shiell, 2000;Putnam, 1993): CI mobilization builds strong ties, establishes critical consciousness, inculcates identity, encourages engagement in action and identifies pathways to change in a community. Just as building material capacity results in a cache of resources for a community, CI leads to the establishment of a symbolic, discursive and relational reservoir that increases community empowerment.…”

“…Scholars have criticized the scholarship on peer and community-led interventions as being atheoretical (Milburn, 1995;Turner & Shepherd, 1999). Campbell and MacPhail (2002) point out that scholars examining these interventions have often conducted quantitative community trials which evaluate their effectiveness without identifying why they work. Taking a similar approach, a previous study involving one of the authors of this paper, proved that SP can be successfully replicated programmatically in a neighboring sex work site without explaining how SP affects decisions to use condoms (Basu et al, 2004).…”

“…Although scholars have emphasized the role of collective identity (CI) in the success of peerled interventions like SP (Campbell & MacPhail, 2002;Latkin & Knowlton, 2005), few studies have sought to describe it, or explicitly link it to behavior change. Understanding the role of CI in empowering Sonagachi sex workers can fill several gaps in our knowledge.…”

“…Portes (1998) identifies two broad domains of community resources that are targeted by community empowerment efforts: (1) the material resources and capital embedded in networks at the community level (see also Carpiano, 2006) and (2) the relational and social psychological resources available in social networks, community participation and social cohesion (see also Hawe & Shiell, 2000;Putnam, 1993). Scholars have identified these two resource domains as the two types of social capital that can potentially enrich a community (Bourdieu, 1986;Campbell & MacPhail, 2002;Carpiano, 2006). This paper focuses on community empowerment processes that target relational social capital.…”