Countering Malnutrition: Participatory Intervention as an Act of Revelation
This chapter delineates the potential of participatory, collaborative approaches to countering malnutrition. Tracing interpretative studies, activist approaches, media coverage and policy initiatives from the last six decades in malnutrition intervention
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Countering Malnutrition: Participatory Intervention as an Act of Revelation Zeenath Hasan The project of malnutrition alleviation in India has, for the last few decades, had a policy and governance focused frame where, I contend, public discourse, media portrayal and policy reform are at a crossroads with the social reality of the malnourished. While interpretative studies have repeatedly shown that there is a real connection between social relations and nutrition for community health, there remains, however, a paucity of strategies that meet the everyday circumstance of the malnourished. While each actor acknowledges the complexity of the situation, their various perspectives tend to frame malnutrition as a malleable object that not only unconsciously disavow the affective reality of the impact but also rob the generative potential of the process. At one level, substantive interactions are left on the responsible shoulders of the activist whose infrastructure-limited prerogatives tend towards community-based awareness building, at another level, I argue, there is potential for interventions that lead to generative outcomes. As a self-identified member of the Participatory Design (PD) community, I set myself the task of exploring ways in which one can intervene
Z. Hasan () Media and Communication Studies, School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 N. Wildermuth, T. Ngomba (eds.), Methodological Reflections on Researching Communication and Social Change, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40466-0_7
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with the social concerns of malnutrition. In 2012, civil society outrage over media portrayal made starkly visible the dire situation of malnutrition in Bangalore’s slums, resulting in a Supreme Court constituted panel that invited civil society organizations to monitor malnutrition in the city. Along with interested others, I gathered design practitioners and set into motion a series of exercises to give shape to an affective portrayal of the malnourished as a way to inform possible interventions. Through a portrayal of the decision-making that was involved in the collaborative setup, I call to the forefront the constructive role that participatory approaches can play in the ongoing interventions into malnutrition in India today. Along with a gathered group of stakeholders, I embark on reflective acts of intervention wherein one’s actions in turn inform the theoretical framing of the social affliction in an iterative loop of heightened knowledge building leading to a collaborative reframing of malnutrition as an invested matter of concern. Reflecting on a series of interventions conducted with design students, advocates and activists, I propose participatory modes of engagement as a pragmatic course of intervention into the complex social issue of malnutrition. In other words, a participatory, collaborative approach is proposed as an entanglement of knowing and doing when faced with an incommensurable and complex situation. Rather t
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