Power and transformative agency

Power and transformative agency in three interconnected Change Laboratories on homelessness in Finland.

Over the past decade a significant contribution to discussions of agency and change from a cultural-historical perspective (CHP) consist of findings on transformative agency by double stimulation (TADS, Sannino, 2015, 2020; Engeström, Nuttall & Hopwood, 2020). TADS is a process by which individuals or collectives accomplish change amidst uncertainty by intentionally breaking out of conflicts of motives (also referred to as first stimuli) with the help of systematically implemented mediating means (also called second stimuli). Aspects of the ongoing discussions on agency revolve around the notion of power (Blackler, 2011; Lewis, Enciso, & Moje, 2020). This presentation offers a theoretical argument supported by an empirical example claiming that TADS process is intrinsically a power-sensitive conceptualization of agency.

The presentation engages in dialogue with and expands the proposition on power put forward by Eric Olin Wright’s sociology of real utopias (2016, 2019). Wright’s perspective is particularly relevant in discussions on agency and power involving CHP and in particular the emerging fourth generation of activity theory (Engeström & Sannino, 2020). First, it offers an alternative to the elusive and contested concept of power in social theory. Second, its features allow it to be fruitfully used in discussions of cross-sectoral/inter-organizational change and societal transformations. For Wright, power is the individual or collective capacity to produce effects in the world. Starting from this definition, he argues for the key role of heterogeneous democratic and egalitarian coalitions for multi-layered collective action. He refers to these coalitions as real utopias. They can contribute to more profoundly democratic States within which alternatives to capitalism can more visibly display themselves as in contrast with capitalist modes of production and, consequently, erode capitalist exploitative modes of power.

The chapter argues that, despite the strong dialectical and progressive stance it adopts, Wright’s perspective is still predominantly one based on the formulation of accounts and critiques on how power is played out. The proposition constructed in this presentation complements Wright’s contribution by asking the following research questions: 1) How is hidden, unrecognized and often suppressed power generated and how can it be supported? 2) Given the key role conflicts of motives play in TADS, to which extent do they also play a key role in generating and supporting suppressed power? 3) How do symbolic and material tools that are developed, changed and used in TADS serve as mediators to originate and foster power?

The presentation responds to these questions by delving into a fourth generation activity theory study with three interconnected Change Laboratories focused on eradicating homelessness in Finland. The study involved Change Laboratories conducted at the level of a supported housing unit for former homeless, at the city level (with one of the largest municipalities in Finland) and at the national level (with organisations and actors including the director of the national programme for the prevention of homelessness, four prominent NGOs, six cities, the nationwide network developers, and the largest non-profit provider of socially supported housing in the country).

The proposition of a power-sensitive concept of transformative agency builds on the following three claims 1) power can be put in motion by means of TADS; 2) conflicting motives are a resource for generating and exerting power; 3) power is a process similarly mediated as TADS. This proposition lends itself to create conditions for generating and enabling collective transformative agency needed for responding to acute contemporary challenges of equity and social justice. The power-sensitive perspective on agency put forward here presents affordances that are essential to navigate the turbulences, hierarchiesand complexities which often block the necessary cross-sectoral and inter-organizational change initiatives these challenges require.