Le potenzialità della ricerca emancipatoria nella pratica del lavoro con gli utenti

Journal title RIV Rassegna Italiana di Valutazione
Author/s Caterina Arciprete, Maria Nannini, Federico Ciani
Publishing Year 2024 Issue 2023/87 Language Italian
Pages 18 P. 51-68 File size 319 KB
DOI 10.3280/RIV2023-087004
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The ability of territorial welfare systems to respond to the needs expressed by different local contexts is under pressure due to the growing complexity of our societies. In this context, the need to innovate territorial welfare mod- els and practices can be realized through experiments and implementation and evaluation strategies that are based on the active participation of users served by the services. Participation and the centrality of beneficiaries are now recognized as important prerequisites for meeting the needs of the com- munity. Similarly, a more in-depth and solid understanding of different con- texts can contribute to strengthening the capacity of local welfare systems to develop solutions to existing and emerging issues. Combining these three development directions (research, evaluation and participation) is a promis- ing and relatively unexplored path in the field of territorial welfare services. In this perspective, emancipatory research allows for recognizing and valu- ing the analytical capabilities of people living in marginalized situations, making them active participants in the research process, capable of gaining awareness and creating knowledge about their living conditions and increas- ing their level of empowerment. Starting in 2018, the Social Services of the Municipality of Prato experimented with the "Social Board," a specific pro- cedure for activating personalized socio-labour inclusion pathways provided by the Guaranteed Minimum Income (REI). Within this context, an emanci- patory research process was promoted with some service users. The goal has been, on one hand, to create new knowledge about the dynamics of marginalization and the interaction between users and social services, and on the other hand, to promote an empowerment process for the involved actors. The article shows that the effective involvement of service beneficiaries in the research allowed both users and social workers to reflect on the imple- mentation of social policies, identifying innovative welfare strategies aimed at the actual empowerment of disadvantaged individuals.

Keywords: Social services; Empowerment; Evaluation; Emancipatory Research.

  1. Andrew, C., Klein, J. (2010). Social Innovation: What is it and why is it important to understand it better. Cahiers du CRISES, ET1003.
  2. Sgritta, B. (2017). Volontariato e innovazione. In Ascoli, U., and Pavolini, E. (eds.). Vo- lontariato e innovazione sociale oggi in Italia. Bologna: il Mulino, pp. 275-304.
  3. ARCO (2019). Social Board: un nuovo strumento di contrasto all’esclusione sociale. Rap- porto di ricerca. Disponibile a: Social Board un modello per contrastare l'esclu-sione sociale (arcolab.org)
  4. Behar-Horenstein, L., Feng, X. (2015). Emancipatory Research: A Synthe-sis of Quanti- tative Evidence. IOSR Journal of Research & Method in Education (IOSR-JRME). 5. 2320- 7388. 10.9790/7388-05334656.
  5. Biggeri, M. (2014). Opportunity Gap Analysis: Procedures and Methods for Applying the Capability Approach in Development Initiatives. Journal of Human Development and Capa- bilities, 60-78.
  6. Biggeri, M., Ciani, F. (2019a). Disability in Palestine: findings and new perspectives from an emancipatory research. Journal of University and Cooperation, (1-2019)
  7. Biggeri, M., Ciani, F. (2019b). Emancipatory research as empowerment: An illustra-tion from a research study of persons with disabilities in Palestine. In The Capabil-ity Approach, Empowerment and Participation (pp. 339-359). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
  8. Biggeri, M., Ciani, F., Ortali, F. (2019). La ricerca emancipatoria come strumento di empowerment Un esempio applicato all’analisi della disabilità nel contesto palestinese. Mi- nority Reports. Cultural Disability Studies, (6), 175-202.
  9. Bobbio, L. a cura di (2007). Amministrare con i cittadini. Viaggio tra le pratiche di par- tecipazione in Italia, Rubbettino, Formez, Roma.
  10. Caritas Diocesiana di Prato (2017). "Se avessi un lavoro" Rapporto sulle Povertà in-con- trate presso i centri coordinati dall'Osservatorio Diocesiano I semestre 2015, 2016, 2017.
  11. Caulier-Grice, J., Davies, A., Patrick, R., Norman, W. (2012). Defining social innova- tion. A deliverable of the project: “The theoretical, empirical and policy founda-tions for building social innovation in Europe” (TEPSIE), European Commission–7th Framework Programme, Brussels: European Commission, DG Research
  12. Clark, D. A., Biggeri, M., Frediani, A. A. (Eds.). (2019). The capability approach, em- powerment and participation: Concepts, methods and applications. Springer.
  13. Comune di Prato-Ufficio di Statistica (2015). Rapporto URBES, disponibile al sito: http://allegatistatistica.comune.prato.it/dl/20150422172049508/urbes_2015.pdf
  14. Deepak, S., Kumar, J., Ramasamy, P., Griffo, G. (2014). An emancipatory research on CBR and the barriers faced by persons with disabilities. Disability and rehabilita-tion, 36(18), 1502-1507.
  15. Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the oppressed (revised). New York: Continuum. Hagestad, G. O., Burton, L. M. (1986). Grandparenthood, life context, and family development. American behavioral scientist, 29(4), 471-484.
  16. Moulaert, F. (2009). Social Innovation: Institutionally Embedded, Territorially (Re)pro- duced, in MacCallum, Diana, F. Moulaert, J. Hillier and S. Vicari (eds), So-cial Innovation and Territorial Development. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
  17. Moulaert, F., MacCallum, D., Van den Broeck, P., Garcia, M. (2019). Bottom-linked go- vernance and socially innovative political transformation.
  18. Notarnicola, E., Berloto, S., Fosti, G., Perobelli, E., Ricciuti, E. (2019). Il cambiamen-to nel welfare locale: lezioni per il riposizionamento dei servizi pubblici. Egea. White paper n. 2/2019 OCAP (Osservatorio sul Cambiamento delle Amministra-zioni Pubbliche)
  19. Oliver, M. (1992). Changing the social relations of research production? Journal of Hu- man Development, 7 (2), 101-114.
  20. Pasquinelli, S. (2019). L’innovazione nei servizi: a che punto siamo? Disponibile a: https://welforum.it/13783-2/
  21. SdS Pratese (2017). Profilo di salute anno 2016.
  22. Sinclair, S., Baglioni, S. (2014). Social innovation and social policy–promises and risks. Social Policy and Society, 13(3), 469-476.
  23. Ufficio Statistica del Comune di Prato. (2015). URBES Il Benessere Equo e Sostenibile a livello urbano: la situazione pratese

Caterina Arciprete, Maria Nannini, Federico Ciani, Le potenzialità della ricerca emancipatoria nella pratica del lavoro con gli utenti in "RIV Rassegna Italiana di Valutazione" 87/2023, pp 51-68, DOI: 10.3280/RIV2023-087004