SDSU The Container Metaphor for Organizations Discussion

Respond to two of the following questions. Respond to two of your peer’s posts.

What is the “container metaphor” for organizations? How do Novak & Harter challenge it in this article?

What is “flipping the script” according to Novak & Harter? What does flipping the script mean for vendors? Consumers? The broader community?

What three primary themes did the authors identify around flipping the script? What other stereotypes or relationships could you “flip the script” on?

One vendor, Dennis, states “we need each other like fish need water.” What do you think he means by this? What consequences does invisibility have for homeless and impoverished populations? How are acknowledgement, responsiveness, and connection related to issues vendors face (p. 408)?

What recommendations, both specific and general, do Novak & Harter make for StreetWise and other organizations with similar missions? Do you think these are sufficient? What would you add?

Amira,

1. Our book defines the container metaphor when individuals in organizations are either included or not included. Those that are within the “in group” have a much higher self esteem than those in the “out-group”, who face negative feelings as well as unfairness. (Cheney et al., 2010, 109). Novak & Harter describe it as; “communication and democracy are things that happen within, and even constitute, organizations”. Which is very true, however they leave out the negative feelings of those individuals who are on the other end of the stick. They put focus on individuals themselves to fully understand why they behave the way they do within organizations. They think outside the common boundaries that organizations usually place.

2. “Flipping the script” has various meanings depending on what you are talking about. According to Novak & Harter; “ it embodies how StreetWise organizes democracy (i.e., associated living) by creating economically viable and social connections among people”(Novak et al., 2008, 400). For vendors, it means they need to “own their labor as real work”, meaning it is a real job and “not a hustle”. It also requires vendors to tune out anyone that is misrepresenting or belittling their labor. To consumers, it looks like changing the way that they go about commercial exchanges with StreetWise. To the broader community, it means to reconnect those that are facing homelessness and poverty back with the community instead of shutting them out.

Lizzy,

1. Container metaphor is communication and democracy that happen within. ” urged scholars to explore the boundary-spanning dimensions of democratic values and organizing, ‘‘We deliberately urge organizational communication scholars to look beyond the boundaries of an organization to understand fully such organizational practices as participation’’ (p. 38). In this article Novak & Harter challenge it in this article by comparing and contrasting with Cheney and cloud arguing by pointing us towards inside and outside organizations to better comprehend practices and to resist democratic values. ” Second, communication scholars have been slow to acknowledge the material contours of discourse. Such ‘‘discursive indulgence”(p.393).

2. According to Novak & Harter flipping the script means democracy in the way streetwise organizes by connecting social connections amongst others. For vendors it means to 100% consider it as a real job and not think of it as a hustle. No outside interruption is required to not distract their labor. As for consumers they see it in a way to differentiate vending and panhandling. For the broader community it simply creates a line balance between sales and harassment. Encouraging for vendors to help and help them sell more papers

Journal of Applied Communication Research
Vol. 36, No. 4, November 2008, pp. 391
414
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’ of Poverty and
Panhandling: Organizing Democracy
by Creating Connections
David R. Novak & Lynn M. Harter
This study relies on participant observation and in-depth interviews to explore how
StreetWise, an organization with a newspaper by the same name, mobilizes symbolic and
material support for people without homes or those at risk. Pragmatism is used to
understand how StreetWise ameliorates the experience of homelessness by building
community. In stark contrast to forces that erase ‘‘the homeless’’ from the public scene,
StreetWise integrates people without homes, as vendors, into community life by providing
employment and raising awareness about poverty-related issues. Through its structure,
mission, and business plan StreetWise encourages an engaged citizenry and enhances
civic discourses. StreetWise provides scholars with a context within which to understand
the reflexive and interactive organization
society relationships that strive to support a
democratic way of life.
Keywords: Democracy; Community; Organizing; Homelessness; Poverty; Pragmatism
I have been with StreetWise for nearly 10 years now, almost from the time it started.
If the doors should ever close, I would get down on my hands and knees thanking
God for the kind of rescue and support I have gotten out of StreetWise over the
years. When I got out of jail, who else was willing to give me a break? Where would
I go for a second chance? I needed to provide an income for myself, however, my
intentions were never again to do anything illegal. What I needed most was a hand
up, not a hand out. This is what StreetWise gave me. This is how StreetWise saved
David R. Novak (PhD, Ohio University, 2006) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication
Studies at Clemson University. Lynn M. Harter (PhD, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) is an Associate Professor
in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University. This study is based upon the first author’s doctoral
dissertation conducted under the direction of the second author. The authors would like to thank the editor, the
reviewers, Dr Scott Titsworth, Dr Caryn Medved, and Dr Vince Waldron for their helpful comments in
developing this essay. Correspondence to: David R. Novak, Assistant Professor, Strode Tower 415, Department of
Communication Studies, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA. Tel.: 864-656-7469, Fax: 864-656-0599,
Email: dnovak@clemson.edu
ISSN 0090-9882 (print)/ISSN 1479-5752 (online) # 2008 National Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/00909880802104890
392 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
me. (Charles Wade, cited in Harter, Edwards, McClanahan, Hopson, & CarsonStern, 2004, p. 413)
I might have easily continued my downward spiral towards infamy and blame had
it not been for StreetWise. After I was paroled from jail in 1997 it took me a minute
to get my head together and clear my mind of a few cobwebs and old habits still
lurking there from my previous behavior or lifestyle. Well, I decided I would give
myself a chance. I stopped taking drugs. It was definitely a struggle physically,
mentally and perhaps most of all, emotionally. I think very few people understand
the role emotions play in getting rid of any addiction, and what is probably less
understood is the role emotions play in both entertaining and maintaining the
addictions, also. This is where StreetWise comes in. Immediately, I came to
understand that I not only relied on selling the paper for an income, but that selling
also allowed me to assess my personality. (Shawn Griffin, cited in Harter et al.,
2004, p. 412)
Visibility is one of the most identifiable attributes of contemporary homelessness in
the US when considered in light of historical conditions (e.g., mental institutions,
incarceration) that removed people without homes from the public sphere (see Snow
& Mulcachy, 2001). Current estimates of homelessness in the US range from 250,000
to 2 million people (Dail, 2001).1 Practitioners agree that homelessness involves a
complex web of issues that defies simple solutions including a lack of low income
housing, deinstitutionalization, unemployment, domestic violence, substance abuse,
and mental illness. Not surprisingly, homelessness has garnered a great deal of
attention across disciplines (see Wright, 2005, for an overview). Yet, we leave most
scholarly publications desiring deeper discussions of how symbolic forces intersect
with the material, physiological, and institutional conditions that shape how people
experience poverty and (dis)empowerment. Through a case study of StreetWise, a
newspaper that provides employment through paper vending for those without
homes, we explored how homelessness occurs in institutional patterns of symbolizing
that are developed and reinforced by conditions of living. For Charles Wade and
Shawn Griffin, and countless other vendors, StreetWise provides entrepreneurial
alternatives to panhandling and other illegal activities as well as opportunities to
(re)story their lives. Charles credited StreetWise with ‘‘saving him’’ by offering a hand
up rather than a hand out, and Shawn acknowledged how vending functioned as a
springboard for addressing issues (e.g., substance abuse) that impacted his ability to
maintain employment.
StreetWise2 is located in Chicago, Illinois, and is recognized as one of the most
fiscally viable street newspapers in the North America. Since its inception, StreetWise
has provided employment for over 3600 vendors who sell papers on street corners as
well as stadiums, museums, and other popular attractions. In its finest moments,
StreetWise ameliorates the experience of homelessness by building community. In
stark contrast to systemic forces that move people without homes from ‘‘frontstage’’
regions (Goffman, 1959; von Mahs, 2005), StreetWise integrates vendors in broader
community life by providing employment and raising awareness about povertyrelated issues. Moreover, through its journalistic medium, StreetWise encourages an
engaged citizenry and enhances civic discourses. By the nature of its structure and
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
393
mission, StreetWise provides scholars with a glimpse of the reflexive relationships
between intersecting and overlapping organizations and communities that strive to
support a democratic way of life.
Communication literature on organizing and democracy has grown significantly in
recent years (see Cheney et al., 1998). Yet, our work speaks to two primary
shortcomings in this literature. First, much literature is implicitly guided by a
‘‘container’’ metaphor of organizations*communication and democracy are things
that happen within, and even constitute, organizations (for exception see Cheney,
2000, 2001; Deetz, 1992). Cheney et al. (1998) urged scholars to explore the
boundary-spanning dimensions of democratic values and organizing, ‘‘We deliberately urge organizational communication scholars to look beyond the boundaries of
an organization to understand fully such organizational practices as participation’’ (p.
38). Cheney and colleagues point us toward looking simultaneously inside and
outside particular organizations to understand practices that reproduce and resist
democratic values. Second, communication scholars have been slow to acknowledge
the material contours of discourse. Such ‘‘discursive indulgence,’’ argued Cheney and
Cloud (2006), p. 505), often fails to explore fully the material conditions that give rise
to, constrain, and are engendered by communication:
The performance of shifts in language, values, identities, and cultures takes center
stage in our organizational literature. An approach that centrally features economic
elements of workplace democracy*wages, benefits, working conditions, and the
standard of living for employees and material class differences*waits in the wings.
(p. 519)
In this study, we sought to understand the lived experiences of individuals
traditionally excluded from viable economic opportunities and from public
discourses, including scholarly dialogues. The context of StreetWise afforded a
unique opportunity to explore how culture, institutions, democracy, and communication are inextricably and reciprocally bound. Specifically, we explored how
StreetWise vendors, staff, and board members democratically mobilize material and
symbolic resources for those living in poverty even as they seek to engage their
audience as citizens, enhance civic discourse, and promote greater public participation in political processes*hallmarks of democratic ways of life (Dewey, 1927).
Discourses of democracy interpenetrate and are informed by autobiographical,
institutional, and societal narratives. We sought to reveal if and how vendors, staff,
and board members embody democratic subjectivities even as they work to foster a
democratic way of life as they interact with various elements of the broader Chicago
community.
To begin, we introduce pragmatism as a conceptual canvas for understanding how
StreetWise organizes democracy and democratically organizes. Given its focus on
fostering associated living in overlapping and interdependent institutions and
communities (see Shepherd, 2001), pragmatism offers a valuable framework for
exploring the often ignored boundary-spanning nature of democratic organizing.
After describing our research practices, we discuss our experiences with StreetWise in
394 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
light of pragmatist theory. We share and theorize actual moments and practices of
community integration*occurring within and through StreetWise*that linger
vividly in our minds and inspire us as human beings and communication scholars.
Drawing on participants’ stories, we explore how StreetWise flips the scripts of poverty
and panhandling by reframing vending as real work and not a hustle, encouraging
customers to take and read the paper, and establishing connections between vendors
and other community members. StreetWise offers vendors both material and social
support even as its efforts are limited by the corporeality of vendors’ lives. In its finest
moments, StreetWise shapes the worlds people inhabit and realizes more fully the
promise of a democratic order.
A Pragmatist Theoretical Standpoint
Democratic beliefs represent enduring, if not contested, ideologies for organizing
human collective action. Organizational communication scholarship has adopted
diverse monikers in exploring the democratic nature of organizing including
workplace democracy (Cheney, 1995; Cheney et al., 1998; Russell, 1997), organizational democracy (Cheney et al., 1998; Hoffman, 2002), participatory practices
(Harter & Krone, 2001; Stohl & Cheney, 2001), and employee dissent (Kassing, 1997).
This research has been fruitful for understanding the communicative nature of
participation in the workplace and its attendant paradoxes and consequences. Yet,
participation (and dissent) at work cannot be understood fully in isolation from the
broader social associations it engenders and that mitigate its experience. We draw on
pragmatist theory, particularly that advanced by Dewey and James, in order to
explore how organizations, like StreetWise, remain the central institutions around
which both subject positions (e.g., citizen) and broader social orders (e.g., democratic
communities) are constructed (see calls by Deetz, 1992). A pragmatist turn directs
our attention to organization
environment interfaces. This move is particularly
important when an organization’s mission includes social change.
Dewey (1916/1966) positioned organizations as discursive formations responsible
for the constant reweaving of a democratic order. For Dewey, a stronger community,
or organization, is one that fosters a full and free interplay of ideas*more
participation among diverse others. Associated living flourishes when multiple ideas,
beliefs, and possibilities have unfettered and wide distribution. As such, democracy is
more than political machinery. Dewey argued:
A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of
associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. The extension in space of
the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer to
his own action to that of others, and to consider the action of others to give point
and direction to his own, is equivalent to the breaking down of barriers of class,
race, and national territory which kept men from perceiving the full import of their
activity. (p. 87)
We grapple afresh with pragmatists’ fundamental beliefs in the potential of
communication to reinvigorate organizational and civic life. In particular, pragmatists
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
395
concerns’ with the emancipatory potential of experience, conjoint or associated living,
and participatory publics framed our fieldwork with StreetWise. More generally, such
pragmatist moves stretch organizational communication scholars’ focus beyond
specific institutional contexts to include broader host publics.
First, pragmatists and communication scholars interested in democratic organizing
share mutual interests in fostering emancipatory experiences (Shuler & Tate, 2001).
Experience, broadly conceived, is central to pragmatist philosophy. Dewey (1958)
noted that experience ‘‘includes what men [sic] do and suffer, what they strive for,
love, believe and endure, and also how men [sic] act and are acted upon, the ways in
which they do and suffer, desire and enjoy, see, believe, imagine*in short, processes
of experiencing’’ (p. 8, emphasis in original). Individual experiences lead those
observing or living them to new comprehensions of their existence. James posited,
‘‘The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an
idea. It becomes true, is made true by events’’ (James, 1977, p. 430, emphasis in
original). Knowledge emanates from experience for pragmatists. Dewey and James
summon us to see, hear, feel, and perceive more in our experiences*to become more
conscious of what organizational routines have obscured, what habit and convention
have suppressed. Dewey (1934/1980) suggested:
Experience in the degree in which it is experience is heightened vitality. Instead of
signifying being shut up within one’s own private feelings and sensations, it
signifies active and alert commerce with the world; at its height it signifies complete
interpenetration of self and the world of objects and events. Instead of signifying
surrender to caprice and disorder, it affords our sole demonstration of a stability
that is not stagnation but is rhythmic and developing. (p. 19, emphasis in original)
When we see and hear more, we are able to stretch, if only for fleeting moments,
beyond familiar and taken-for-granted scripts. Breaking through our trained
incapacities, we are able to recapture an often lost spontaneity. For Dewey, such
imaginings were necessary for diverse individuals to come together through speech
and action to repair and renew community life.
Second, and relatedly, community has long been a central concern of pragmatism.
Dewey (1958) aptly argued that community is shared or associated living, ‘‘It is
communication; the establishment of cooperation in an activity in which there are
partners, and in which the activity of each is modified and regulated by partnership’’
(p. 179). Shepherd and Rothenbuhler (2001) centrally situated the communication
discipline in pragmatist discussions about community. Throughout the volume,
authors spoke to how community is an interpersonal accomplishment of communication (Shepherd, 2001), the symbolic creation of ‘‘alternative’’ communities
characterized by egalitarian and cooperative values (Ashcraft, 2001; Cheney, 2001),
and the use of newspapers to encourage civic participation (Martin, 2001; Stamm,
2001). Across chapters, authors wrestled with tensions between individualism and
solidarity with others, and provided glimpses of what Shepherd (2001) described as a
community of individuals in which ‘‘fellow citizens . . . can connect with others, be
known and understood by others, without sacrificing their individuality’’ (p. 34). By
creating localized discourses of overlapping meaning, people can connect and identify
396 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
with others even as they maintain their individuality. Indeed, simultaneous desires
for individualism and solidarity with others represent a fundamental condition of
community life in liberal-pluralistic societies (deTocqueville, 1835/1956; Locke, 1690/
1975; Rorty, 1989). Community, for pragmatists, is not discovered. Community is
created as members symbolically and materially negotiate independence and
connection with others. Importantly, Dewey posed two criteria for judging the
goodness of a given community: ‘‘How numerous and varied are the interests which
are consciously shared?’’ and ‘‘How full and free is the interplay with other forms of
association’’ (Dewey, 1916/1966, p. 83). These criteria are as relevant today as they
were nearly a century ago when Dewey articulated them, and focused our attention
on how StreetWise fosters associated living.
Third, and finally, publics take shape in response to unmet needs, injustice, or
inequities*and because of the imagination’s capacity to see things as if they could be
otherwise. For Dewey (1927/1954), ‘‘the perception of consequences which are
projected in important ways beyond the persons and associations directly concerned
in them is the source of a public’’ (p. 39). Publics arise due to the extensive and serious
consequences of associated living. For pragmatists, communication can raise
consciousness, and move people to action. Yet, ‘‘many consequences are felt rather
than perceived; they are suffered, but cannot said to be known’’ (Dewey, 1927/1954, p.
131). For this reason, Dewey positioned newspapers as social narrators of community
life. Newspapers hold particular importance and promise for building community by
making social issues and experiences transparent and visible, increasing the opportunity for interaction among diverse individuals, and in creating an informed citizenry.
Although StreetWise does not explicitly invoke pragmatist theory, its practices
reflect key pragmatist themes. First, StreetWise provides space for those who too
often remain on the margins of society to be seen and heard. Drawing on experiences
once subjugated, StreetWise mobilizes social and economic resources for those
without homes or living in poverty. At the same time, through its venue of a street
newspaper, StreetWise possesses the potential to foster community integration and
civic involvement among diverse peoples. As such, it served as a powerful context in
which to explore the boundary-spanning dimensions of democratic ideologies and
practices. Through ethnographic fieldwork, we explored how the settings, practices,
and textual products of StreetWise (re)produced the symbolic and material
conditions that facilitated or impeded the enactment of democratic values (what
Dewey termed associated living). Accordingly, the following research question served
as an organizing framework for this storying of StreetWise:
RQ1: How does StreetWise, both the organization and the newspaper, foster and/
or inhibit associated living in the greater Chicago area?
Research Design
Our research practices privilege the centrality of personal experience in the coconstruction of knowledge. The first author, a native of Chicago, brought a
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
397
perspective based on one year of ethnographic immersion in the settings of
StreetWise. The second author interacted with StreetWise as a consultant to the
board of directors, an avid reader of the newspaper, and a fellow student of interview
texts and field notes created by the first author. Data collection began once we
received IRB approval for the project.
Settings and Participants
StreetWise is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1992. At its peak,
circulation grew to 60,000 papers per weekly issue. At the time of this study, the
organization was comprised of an Executive Director, four full-time employees, and
three part-time employees. Overseen by an 11-member Executive Board, StreetWise
identifies seven major ‘‘departments’’ in their organizational structure. Interestingly,
organizational stakeholders (e.g., vendors) sit atop their organizational chart followed
by the Board of Directors and the Executive Director/Publisher. Three other
departments serve the needs of these three organizational bodies: the editorial staff,
the advertising staff, and vendor management. The entire organization is served by an
administrative services department. The exact demographic breakdown of StreetWise’s vendor population is difficult to enumerate in any finite way because of the
transient nature of people without homes. Serving between 400 and 500 vendors
annually, most vendors are African-American and male. Vendors purchase the weekly
newspaper for 35 cents and vend the newspapers for $1.00. Official StreetWise
vendors are bound by a set of rules that are published in every edition of the
newspaper. In addition to vendors, staff, and board members, we worked with the
Executive Director to identify other key stakeholders of StreetWise including but not
limited to key advertisers, government liaisons, donors, customers, and service
providers. Extending the research plan outside of StreetWise was crucial to exploring
the organization
environment interface.
Discourse Collection
Participant observation. Over a period of one year, the first author was involved in
participant observations at various StreetWise settings and events. During the first
four months of engagement, he spent time building rapport with the director and
board members, understanding the history of the organization, and identifying the
key spaces for extended fieldwork. During the next four months, he was completely
immersed in the day-to-day activities of participants. During the last four months of
fieldwork, the first author returned periodically to StreetWise to engage in informal
member-checking about emergent themes and lingering questions as well as
maintaining contact with the organization via email.
By ‘‘looking and listening, watching and asking,’’ participant observers learn the
setting in which they are immersed (Lofland & Lofland, 1995, p. 19). The first author
spent 367 hours engaged in participant observations in total. Of those 367 hours,
approximately 20% were spent observing vendors while selling StreetWise in various
public settings. The rest of his observations focused on the interactions among
398 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
participants in the StreetWise office including during staff meetings, training for
vendors, and paper pick-ups and drop-offs. During staff meetings, he primarily
observed, taking handwritten field notes and attempting to document key phrases
and conversation verbatim. During observations in the office, he participated by
volunteering and assisting vendors and management. Occasionally, he would write
articles for the paper to ensure its timely production. The volunteer work was
conducted in ways that allowed him to be a part of everyday interactions of
StreetWise. While observing vendor
customer interactions in the field, he took
handwritten field notes and assembled fragments of conversation to construct vivid
descriptions of interpersonal interactions. He reflexively tried to account for how he
affected the scene, including what was observed and how it was interpreted. He kept
detailed field notes including daily tasks completed, conversations, interactions,
meetings, and observations. His observations yielded 134 typed pages of field notes.
In the spirit described by Wolcott (2005), the first author approached field work
artfully, carefully listening to others and offering creative renderings of interactions
systematically observed.
In-depth interviews. The first author conducted 36 total interviews with vendors
(N 18), board members (N 8), staff members (N5), and stakeholders outside
of the organization (N 5). Interviews ranged in length from 24 minutes to 101
minutes. The interview sessions were semistructured to allow participants to name
their worlds by generally reflecting on their experiences and insights. The first author
developed a tentative interview protocol, which included open-ended questions
about the core values of StreetWise, how participants understand democracy, and
critical incidents of organizational successes and failures. The first author approached
the interviews dialogically, believing that meaning rests in between participants rather
than in the minds of solely the interviewer or interviewee (Tripp, 1983). The resulting
transcription was 793 pages of text.
Discourse Analysis
From the beginning of the first author’s fieldwork, both authors met regularly to
discuss emerging and salient issues. Once all discourses and their trace artifacts (e.g.
transcripts, etc.) were collected, we relied on a constant comparative method (Glaser
& Strauss, 1967) to conduct a thematic analysis of the discourses. Constant
comparison is one aspect of grounded theory, and involves an active, ongoing
(re)consideration of data as it is collected. This process began with data ‘‘reduction’’
and ‘‘interpretation.’’ After reading all the transcripts and field notes and gaining a
holistic sense of the discourses, we began the actual analysis. The constant
comparative method allowed us to identify recurring patterns of behavior and
meaning in the participants’ accounts and performances (as understood creatively
through our own senses and discussion). The process began by carefully thematizing
the discourse composing the transcripts and field notes. We made note both of
patterned regularities in the way participants accounted for their experiences as well
as counter-evidence and alternative viewpoints. We used NVivo to manage the
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
399
transcripts and field notes. With NVivo, we were able to create a root directory to
keep track of actual products of coding, including conceptual labels and data
segments. We sought to label and develop themes using participants’ own words. We
did not use NVivo to identify themes throughout the analysis; we only used it as a
tool to help us manage the large volume of textual data.
We do not seek to ‘‘finalize’’ these participants in our rendering of StreetWise. We
offer a representation at this point in time as one move in an ongoing dialogue with
participants who will continue to form their selves and their worlds (Frank, 2005).
We offer our arguments as plausible, viable, and tentative*open to revision by others
operating from different standpoints or with different theoretical underpinnings. We
invite others into our textual (re)production in hopes of generating fruitful and
imaginative dialogue.
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’ through StreetWise
During the meeting, Mark talked about the ‘‘This is My Job’’ campaign. He passed
out buttons to the vendors advertising the campaign slogan, ‘‘This is My Job.’’ ‘‘You
could be begging or robbing or selling drugs. You should be proud that you sell
StreetWise,’’ stressed Mark. He told them if people on the street said to ‘‘get a real
job,’’ they should respond, ‘‘this is my job!’’ As the meeting came to a close, Mark
asked the vendors, ‘‘This is my what?’’ Multiple voices speaking in unison
responded, ‘‘My Job.’’ (Field notes)
In the United States, subjectivity and agency are crafted in large part through work
(i.e., production) and, relatedly, consumption (duGay, 1996). If and how we
financially support ourselves and our families, remain deeply woven in the
construction of our identities. People without homes are among the most
impoverished of populations whose material conditions remain inextricably linked
with work (or lack thereof). StreetWise provides employment opportunities that
complement, and in some cases, take the place of, public assistance programs. Yet,
throughout the duration of our fieldwork, discourses about the ontology of work
were reflected in participants’ searches for both work and respect. StreetWise enacted
the ‘‘This is My Job’’ campaign in part to help vendors, who sell the paper,
differentiate themselves from panhandlers. A StreetWise staff member and former
vendor, Mark, suggested that the power of the campaign rests with its ability to ‘‘flip
the scripts’’ that consumers and vendors alike take for granted when performing their
roles:
I think it’s [the campaign] good. We should be seen as people who are working. Not
charity, not donations, but as a job. You’re out there every day. You’re investing in
that product. This is how you make money to pay for that rent; put food on your
table, clothes on your kid’s back. It’s a job, not a hustle. You have to flip the script on
it because so many people were looking at it as a hustle, and a, ‘‘You owe me
something ’cause I’m homeless.’’ It’s just one more step of trying to get some
respect. That’s all we want is respect. We’re out here just like the Sun Times and
Tribune guy. It’s just another step where I’m trying to flip the script.
400 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
Mark’s turn of phrase ‘‘flipping the script,’’ embodies how StreetWise organizes
democracy (i.e., associated living) by creating economically viable and social
connections among people. To begin, flipping the script is an intertextual endeavor
that asks vendors and customers to resist entrenched understandings of a ‘‘real job,’’
homelessness and panhandling. Flipping the script sometimes requires vendors to
own their labor as real work a legitimate alternative to panhandling, or as articulated
by Mark, ‘‘It’s a job, not a hustle.’’ At other times, it demands that vendors resist
comments from others (i.e., family members, friends, and strangers) that function to
minimize or misrepresent their labor. Meanwhile, flipping the script can mean that
consumers need to change the way they participate in their commercial exchanges
with StreetWise vendors. In each case, flipping the script seeks to negate forces that
otherwise work to diminish the symbolic and material worth of vending. Finally,
StreetWise also works to flips the scripts of poverty that too often disconnect those
without homes from broader community life. We explore the various ways that
StreetWise flips the scripts of poverty and panhandling through three primary
themes: (1) ‘‘It’s a job, not a hustle;’’ (2) ‘‘Take the paper, read the paper;’’ and, (3)
‘‘Like fish need water: human connections.’’ We purposively use participants’ words
and stories to both label and develop themes, although we recognize our power in
selecting, (re)presenting, and interpreting participants’ experiences.
‘‘It’s a Job, Not a Hustle’’
Social orders are created in everyday discourses. The discursive construction of what
constitutes labor is of particular importance to communication scholars*in other
words, what counts as ‘‘real work’’ is symbolically negotiated (Clair, 1996).
StreetWise’s ‘‘This is My Job’’ campaign positioned vending as real work*separate
from panhandling. A board member, Ed, shared:
Well that was part of the marketing program we launched, ‘‘This is my job. I’m not
a panhandler.’’ We had buttons prepared. Also, we feature vendors in the back of
the newspaper to reinforce that this is a job. I think we need to continue to do that
to remind people that this is not panhandling. This really is a job for this
individual.
This campaign arose from complicated historical and political circumstances that
work to ‘‘disappear’’ or marginalize work that does not easily fit the mold of a ‘‘real
job.’’ In her analysis of the colloquialism ‘‘a real job,’’ Clair (1996) considers how
everyday speech forms reify the metonymic reduction of ‘‘real work’’ to ‘‘well paid
work.’’ StreetWise’s campaign positions vending as a legitimate commercial
enterprise. An acknowledgement of one’s work as ‘‘real’’ is an acknowledgement of
one’s being and significance in a community. Regrettably, the very necessity of such a
campaign serves as evidence of the degree to which phrases such ‘‘get a real job’’
impact StreetWise vendors. StreetWise draws on dominant definitions of labor (and
related professional practices) to legitimize vendors’ work. In doing so, they clearly
seek to differentiate vending from panhandling (in the minds of both vendors and
consumers).
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
401
Vendors also are encouraged to perform their roles in an entrepreneurial manner.
On a day-to-day basis, vendors are expected by management to adopt a professional
code of conduct to guide transactions with customers, scripts that seek to resist the
stereotype of vendors as panhandlers and define vending as a ‘‘job.’’ The key elements
of the vendor code of conduct consist of the display of a current vendor badge, selling
only the current issue of the paper or other StreetWise-approved products (e.g.,
poetry book), use of professional language and attitude, displaying courtesy toward
the public, not obstructing public walkways, cooperating with other vendors,
refraining from asking for donations, and selling while sober. Interestingly, vendors’
speech patterns reflect what most individuals would consider a ‘‘real job.’’ Vendors
referenced shifts of work, ‘‘I read the paper on yesterday’s shift,’’ breaks or down time,
‘‘I went and took a bathroom break,’’ paychecks, ‘‘Out of this paycheck, I’m gonna
take some money, and I’m gonna go to the police headquarters and get my rap sheet.’’
Most vendors talked about ‘‘tips.’’ The paper is advertised as costing $1 per copy and
any money that is given to the vendors above and beyond the cover price is
considered a ‘‘tip.’’ Language such as that of ‘‘tips,’’ ‘‘shifts,’’ ‘‘breaks,’’ and ‘‘paychecks’’
likely serves multiple functions for vendors. These linguistic moves reflect and solidify
vendors’ identification with their ‘‘jobs’’ and their employer. Moreover, these
linguistic choices rationalize and legitimize (consciously or unconsciously) the
work that vendors perform.
A key target audience, then, of the ‘‘This is My Job’’ campaign are vendors
themselves. During our fieldwork, material manifestations of the campaign were everpresent in the office of StreetWise. Buttons and posters boasted the slogans even as
staff meetings were dedicated to rehearsing the script. Meanwhile, StreetWise
provides material resources that enable vendors to perform their role in a professional
manner (e.g., clothes, a place to clean up, a place to make food, etc.). Likewise,
StreetWise’s Quality Assessment Team helps to maintain a professional and
entrepreneurial environment by greeting vendors when they enter the building,
running errands for office staff, and consulting vendors about locations and/or selling
strategies.
Even as StreetWise positions vending as legitimate work, vendors often face
criticisms from others who question the worth of their jobs. On a regular basis,
vendors receive negative comments, insults, and the like from detractors when they
are selling StreetWise, as revealed by Zach, ‘‘I don’t understand why this is not a job.
People look at a lot of the StreetWise vendors and think we’re bums, that this is just
organized panhandling . . . It is a job. People really need to get money.’’ Zach’s
comments, along with those of many other vendors, support the idea that StreetWise
vendors believe that their job is real work. For many, it might be a first step back from
earlier trials and tribulations, and for others it might represent a long-term
commitment. Flipping the script, then, involves shifting the expectations and
worldviews of customers, and other vendors or people living without homes, who
reduce vending to panhandling. As suggested by Zach, though, vending is often
reduced to panhandling in the minds of customers.
402 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
Illegitimate vendors and panhandlers make it difficult for StreetWise to successfully
flip deeply entrenched scripts. During his time in the field, the first author witnessed
palpable tension between panhandlers (referred to as ‘‘cupshakers’’ by participants),
illegal vendors (referred to as ‘‘one-paper bandits’’), and legitimate vendors. Almost
universally, participants cited ‘‘cupshakers’’ and ‘‘one-paper bandits’’ as the biggest
threats to their economic livelihood as vendors. When asked about the biggest
problem she faces when vending, Pamela shared,
Panhandlers. People shaking the cup. There’s just so many people in need out there.
It’s become hard . . . You gotta fight for your space. Like just this week, I called the
police on somebody. You know, they get aggressive . . . then customers don’t wanna
give money while somebody’s standing there acting like that, looking crazy.
One-paper bandits are those individuals who are not legitimate vendors but who are
selling a paper or two to make money. Although StreetWise works to ensure that all
vendors are legitimate and have viable economic opportunities, as suggested by
Pamela, there are a lot of desperate people in need. The materiality of the lives of
vendors, one-paper bandits, and cup-shakers is difficult to combat.
‘‘Read the Paper, Take the Paper:’’ Small Acts of Participation
Flipping the script also entails shifting the nature of the commercial exchange
between vendors and some customers. Harvey, a board member, stressed, ‘‘There also
is a problem that some people will give money to the vendor and not take the paper.
That doesn’t help us. Actually that hurts paper sales and also means that people aren’t
reading the newspaper.’’ As indicated earlier, most vendors receive ‘‘tips,’’ or any
financial contribution above and beyond the retail value of the paper. ‘‘On an average
good night, $25
30. But I’ve raked in a hell of a lot of cash some nights,’’ Zach shared
in reference to tips, ‘‘You know, $60, 70, 80 just basically on tips. One night on a
Saturday, no a Sunday, I sold four copies but made $34.’’ Strategic ambiguity
surrounds the notion of ‘‘tips,’’ with the giving and keeping of tips is fraught with
difficulty. Vendors don’t receive traditional ‘‘paychecks’’ as many other workers do;
rather, they purchase the weekly paper and make money as they sell papers at or
above retail value. The money that is in their pockets at the end of the day is theirs to
keep. ‘‘Tips’’ could easily be understood by a customer, especially those who do not
take a copy of the paper, as a ‘‘donation’’ or ‘‘extra money’’ and not as a tip. Many
staff members expressed frustration at customers who ‘‘donate’’ money without
taking the paper in exchange. By donating money instead of purchasing a product,
customers unwittingly reify the script of panhandling that StreetWise is trying to flip.
The issues in this theme, though diverse, have a common denominator in that each
can be considered a small act of democracy, a small act of participation*small acts
that matter in the daily lived organizational experiences of the citizenry, generally,
and StreetWise vendors, specifically.
Dewey wrote, ‘‘A society which makes provision for participation in its good of all
its members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of its institutions
through interaction of the different forms of associated life is in so far democratic’’
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
403
(p. 95). Nearly eighty years later, Deetz (1992) argued that democracy has become
more about expression and has moved away from people working together to solve
localized problems. Getting customers to take a paper in exchange for a dollar, a small
act of participation, is a constant struggle for vendors and management alike though
each deals with that struggle in different ways. Vendors deal with customers on a oneon-one basis and from interaction to interaction encourage people to take the
newspaper. The board and staff encourage vendors to get the paper into the hands of
customers in order to legitimate StreetWise as a business venture. Through vendor
rules and regulations and equipping vendors with strategies they can use to encourage
people to take the paper when they give a dollar, the board and staff recognizes that
moving more units of papers is central to the success of StreetWise. Jamie, a vendor,
captures the issues, tensions, and pitfalls embodied in the commercial exchange.
David:
Jamie:
You just said something that I’m interested in. Why is it important for you
to get the paper into the customer’s hands?
Because I am trying to get the people to read the paper so that they
will understand what StreetWise is because people are so stereo
typed about what StreetWise does or what StreetWise is. They’re
stereotyped about the vendors and I want people to know that
there are a lot of positive things that StreetWise does for us and it’s
all through wanting to do something positive for yourself first. For
example, I was selling at this one place and this lady she said, ‘‘Nah
I don’t want no paper,’’ you know she had a very negative attitude
which was okay. So, I just tell her ‘‘Have a blessed day.’’ She got in
the car with her friend and drove by with a dollar sticking in her
hand out the window and said, ‘‘Yeah you know you got a check
coming in a few days anyways,’’ it’s the end of the month.
Immediately I said, ‘‘No see you don’t know me ma’am,’’ I said, ‘‘I
would like you to read this paper. I’d like you to read my story
because I do have a story in the paper.’’ I explained to her that I
don’t receive a check. I don’t receive food stamps, I don’t receive
anything. This is how I feed, clothe, and shelter myself*through
the sales of this newspaper. I am working. I’m not out here begging.
I am working and I gave her a copy of my story.
Getting the paper into the hands of the customer requires vendors to delicately
balance on a line between sales and harassment. It is in the organization’s and
vendors’ best interests to have customers take the paper upon purchase. Vendors are
encouraged to use strategies that will maximize their success rates at doing this such
as physically extending the paper towards the customer, displaying the paper
conspicuously, and encouraging customers verbally. Paradoxically, by implementing
these strategies, vendors become more susceptible to accusations of harassment or
aggressive panhandling if they go too far in attempting to deliver the newspaper or if
their behaviors are interpreted as such by customers.
The unwillingness on the part of some customers to fully participate in the
exchange process (i.e., unwilling to read or even take the paper) has unintended
consequences for StreetWise*an organization whose mission they likely believe in.
Participation, even in small ways, makes a difference to the democratic fabric of
404 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
communities. Mark, vendor supervisor, reflected on his communication regarding
strategies for getting the paper into customers’ hands.
Take the paper. Read the paper. You know what I’m saying? I push this all the time.
It should be somewhere space on the back of that paper that says, ‘‘Take the paper,
read the paper.’’ I’m not saying don’t give them a tip. But we got a hand up, not a
hand out. As far as the business is concerned, I don’t tell vendors give back no
money. But get a product in their hand, because you want to build up a regular
customer base. You out there trying to keep the dollar and the paper, and the guy
walk past and he gives you a dollar, and he says, ‘‘Keep the paper.’’ And you do it?
Next week, he gonna walk right past you. You know why? ’Cause he donated to
your charity last week. How often do you think he gonna donate to your charity?
As discussed earlier, customers who do not take the paper inadvertently diminish
attempts on staff parts to legitimize vending as ‘‘real work.’’ Mark stressed that he
‘‘doesn’t tell the vendors to give back no money’’ which could work to delegitimate
vendors as businesspersons. Mark recognized that getting papers into customers’
hands helps to build up a customer base and is necessary for vendors to continue to
sell StreetWise for any extended period of time. Vendors must be willing to hold up
their end of the exchange process in order to establish themselves as an honest vendor
and not as a panhandler or ‘‘one-paper bandit.’’ By not taking a paper, customers, as
least as perceived by staff, reinforce the image and script of ‘‘panhandling’’ (i.e., giving
you a handout) rather than the entrepreneurial script of supporting a salesperson
(i.e., a hand-up). Subsequently, a significant amount of staff time and conversation
among board members is dedicated to strategizing how to get the papers in
customers’ hands*flipping the script. Vendors occupy subjectivities that are already
inscribed (i.e., panhandling) as they take their place in socially and historically
structured environments. Panhandling, and by extension real work, must be
understood as both medium and outcome of discourses (Giddens, 1979). Across
time and space, people standing in the street soliciting have come to signify
panhandling. Interactions between vendors and customers can reinforce or undermine these deeply entrenched belief systems. Vendor
customers relations, then, can
be understood as contested discursive spaces where ideologies about ‘‘real work’’ are
lived, reified, and sometimes resisted.
In alternative publications like StreetWise, practices are democratized by ‘‘recognizing the value and acknowledging the authority of the poor and by making these
voices public’’ (Howley, 2003, p. 284). Yet, if people do not take the paper nor read it,
these voices remain subjugated. Additionally, from a managerial perspective, it is in
StreetWise’s best interests to maximize the number of papers taken by
customers*the more papers vendors distribute, the more papers StreetWise has to
print in order to meet demand. Thus, when people donate a dollar but do not take a
paper, less money is channeled to the organization, hurting its overall ability to
operate. It should be noted that when customers do not take a paper, vendors are able
to ‘‘resell’’ it for an additional dollar. So, in the short term, not taking the paper puts
more money into the hands of vendors, but in the long term it is damaging to the
organization.
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
405
Vendors are encouraged to participate in the organization in ways that will help
them sell more papers. For example, they are encouraged to read the newspaper
themselves so that they can be better equipped to entice customers. In addition,
vendor participation at the organizational level of StreetWise proved to be an
interesting issue that emerged over the course of our fieldwork. It is written into the
by-laws of StreetWise that a vendor representative must sit on the Board of Directors.
However, during our time at StreetWise, the vendor representative position remained
unfilled.
Frank, a vendor, comments on the incorporation of vendor perspectives into
decision making at StreetWise.
Frank:
David:
Frank
David:
Frank:
David:
Frank:
We’re supposed to have a vendors’ rep on the Board. We don’t have one.
We don’t even have a copy of our by-laws or anything.
Do you think that position will get filled?
No. Everybody’s too busy out there making their own money.
So the vendors don’t want to participate?
The only reason is because whoever gets appointed gets a thousand
dollars.
Do the vendors care about what happens to the organization?
Oh, a lot of vendors want to run. There’s about two-dozen vendors
that wanted to run. But that’s like making a five-year-old kid mayor
of the city of Chicago. They have no clue about business, so how
can they represent me?
Frank’s comments pose an interesting predicament for vendors as well as the board of
StreetWise. Frank comments that vendors need to participate in StreetWise in order
for the organization to thrive. However, due to many constraints ranging from
needing to focus on basic needs to a lack of interpersonal skills, vendors are largely
unwilling to participate in the ways allotted to them at StreetWise. Some vendors,
staff, and board members commented that vendors are not qualified to make longterm policy decisions for the organization. From one perspective, this is a valid
argument. Vendors, generally speaking, do not have the formal education or
managerial experience necessary for decision making about the short- and longrange plans of the organization. Yet, seen from a different perspective, many vendors
possess a viable form of knowledge, often referred to as ‘‘street smarts’’ or survival
strategies and stocks of knowledge developed in the process of living and coping with
the ontological insecurities of their lives (see Harter, Berquist, Titsworth, Novak, &
Brokaw, 2005). Vendor input can and should be incorporated into what constitutes
knowledge for an informed decision.
Noted at the outset of this theme, Deetz (1992) argued that democracy should be
more about people working in tandem with one another to solve the problems of a
given community. In offering his understanding of the politics of everyday life, he
argued, ‘‘The issue is not a new democracy, a new structure and practice, but a
micropractice, a democracy of the insides and the everyday perception, conception,
and response to events’’ (p. 333). Albert, director of a Chicago-based homeless
406 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
advocacy organization, echoed those sentiments in his response to the question
‘‘What does the word ‘democracy’ mean to you?’’
You know, for me the democracy means the involvement of as many people as
possible and getting involved and trying to improve the conditions in the society. I
don’t equate it with vote. I don’t think it is democracy if that’s [voting] all you do. I
think it means building structures that get involved and try to influence policy and
influence direction. And that’s what we’re all about. Things are not going to change
unless there’s more people involved.
The exchange process of ‘‘getting the paper into customers’ hands,’’ vendor
representation on the Board, vendor participation in meetings, and reading the
paper in order to increase both knowledge and sales are significant small acts of
participation. These are small ways in which vendors, staff members, board members,
and customers participate democratically in everyday life. Democracy is not
something that happens only on the first Tuesday of November each year. Rather,
we embody democracy in our daily practices and interactions. (Re)conceiving
democratic practices as lived, embodied, and continuous can enhance our community lives.
‘‘Like Fish Need Water:’’ Human Connections
We need each other like fish need water. For real. (Dennis, Vendor, Interview
transcript)
Finally, StreetWise works to flip the scripts of poverty that too often disconnect those
without homes from broader community life. Nearly 100 years ago, Dewey (1916/
1966) argued that the experience of democracy loses meaning when the free
interchange of varying modes of life experience is stifled. Historically, people have
been formally and informally excluded from participating in public life, including
people living in poverty and/or without homes. Subordinated classes, of course,
organize access routes to public life despite their exclusion (Fraser, 1989). In essence,
StreetWise, through both its paper and its vending opportunities, moves ‘‘homelessness’’ and ‘‘poverty’’ from the backstage to the frontstage of public life.
Authors such as Putnam (2000) argue that community and democracy occur
within social networks and that connecting people to one another is a key element of
a thriving society. Consider a board members reflection on the potentials that emerge
from vending.
Ed:
The more exposure a vendor has to the traditional work force, people going
to work, families, I mean the better off they are. They recognize that that is a
part a strong part of any social fabric. The more the people who purchase the
paper realize that this person is okay, has something to say, is intelligent, the
better off we’re going to be. So, I think it benefits both the buyer and the
seller. The seller, they’ll recognize the importance of having a daily routine,
cleaning up, dressing up, looking presentable and the buyer it may help them
understand and not just with StreetWise but social responsibilities that they
have to the people living on the streets. And it’s not just through buying the
newspaper.
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
407
Putnam called for the encouragement of the ‘‘positive consequences of social
capital*mutual support, cooperation, trust, and institutional effectiveness’’ (p. 22).
By reconnecting vendors to the broader public, vendors can begin to participate in
the community, hopefully leading to better employment opportunities and living
situations. Customers also benefit by greater vendor participation in community life.
In this sense, StreetWise is helping to connect people, allowing vendors to liberate
themselves, and in turn, showing non-StreetWise populations that vendors are
‘‘okay’’ that they ‘‘have something to say’’ and are ‘‘intelligent.’’
The commercial exchange that constitutes vending offers opportunities for sellers
and buyers to connect, and in doing so flips the scripts of separation and isolation
typically experienced by those without homes. Meanwhile, vendors also have
opportunities to connect with community leaders*people who have the power to
significantly shape vendors’ quality of life. In the following excerpt, Fred talks about
attending a community policing event and the benefits that he draws from it as well
as what he feels he can give back to the community he is participating in.
Well, I think it’s good to go to CAPS (Community Action Policing Strategy)
meetings because I can get to know people who are concerned about the
neighborhood and, plus, I was hoping that it would help generate more customers,
you know? People would tell people, like their neighbors, that this guy comes to the
CAPS meetings. And he cares about the community. Plus, like I’m the eyes and ears
on this street. So I think it’s a place for me to be. You know? If I’m going to be
standing here, like six to eight hours every day or five days a week, I’m like the eyes
and ears of the neighborhood. So if something goes down I’m pretty much aware of
it. I should be there. Plus, I get 25 papers from Greg once a month if I go.
At CAPS meetings, Fred, a vendor whose work could be shaped by the dialogues that
ensue, acts as a citizen, even public advocate, interacting with others and fostering the
full and free interplay of ideas that Dewey viewed as essential to associated living.
Fred, as the ‘‘eyes’’ and ‘‘ears’’ of the street, cooperates with others who have a vested
interest in ‘‘the neighborhood.’’ Of course, there are economic incentives and
consequences for participation in CAPS meetings*Fred receives free papers to vend
and establishes relationships with customers. In reflecting on Fred’s experiences, we
are reminded of Putnam’s (2000) argument that when economic activity is embedded
in dense networks of social capital, citizens are more likely to broaden their
vocational sense of self, developing the ‘‘I’’ into a ‘‘we’’ as participants work for both
individual and collective benefits.
Dennis, a younger vendor, spoke powerfully about the problems that he faces when
he is selling the paper. Unlike many other vendors, who cited panhandlers as one of
their most significant problems, Dennis struggled with a different quandary*his
invisibility. ‘‘The biggest problem I face is being ignored. If I’m talkin’ to you; just
regular, ‘How you doin’ today, man?’ And if you can’t acknowledge somebody to say,
‘How you doin’ today?,’ something is really wrong with you. I’m happy to be here,
aren’t you? That’s all I really want, man.’’ Dennis identified a problem that other
vendors mentioned: being ignored. Vendors are ignored for myriad reasons: nearby
panhandlers, people in isolation with Ipods and cellular phones, businesses passing
408 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
out free coffee, breakfast bars or diet sodas. If, as Dennis suggested, ‘‘we need each
other like fish need water,’’ then what consequences ensue when one’s presence is not
acknowledged by others? Bakhtin (1984) posited that ‘‘absolute death (non-being) is
the state of being unheard, unrecognized, and unremembered’’ (p. 287). A thread
throughout the body of Bakhtin’s work is a fundamental belief that authentic respect
and ethical action are rooted in responsiveness to lived differences and otherness
or, ‘‘the radical singularity of each person at every moment’’ (Morson & Emerson,
1991, p. 16). Dennis struggled with the reality of being ignored, unheard, and
unrecognized. Perhaps this is not surprising given that we define ourselves and others
simultaneously by how we respond to them and how they respond to us in our
uniqueness. Acknowledgement, responsiveness, and connection with others remain
vital to the work lives of StreetWise vendors.
Discussion
Our research question was guided by a fundamental desire to explore democracy and
organizing from a boundary-spanning perspective, as called for by many communication scholars (see Cheney, 2001; Cheney et al., 1998; Harter & Krone, 2001; Stohl
& Cheney, 2001). Pragmatist sensibilities directed our attention to how StreetWise
engenders democratic subject positions (e.g., citizen) and broader social orders. From
a pragmatist standpoint, we explored how StreetWise mobilizes various resources for
vendors as they seek to engage the broader public as citizens, enhance civic discourse,
and foster a full and free interplay of ideas in the public sphere. The importance of
the organization
environment interface for vendors’ participation in public life is
revealed in attempts by the organization to ‘‘flip the scripts’’ that guide commercial
and social relationships between vendors and the broader public. During our time in
the field, StreetWise put forth an alternative narrative of vending, one that resisted
the reduction of vending to panhandling while emphasizing its legitimacy as real
work. The very demand for a counternarrative demonstrates an astute awareness on
the part of staff that providing opportunities for people to vend does not guarantee
that they will be able to fully participate in community life. Participation, thus,
cannot be understood in isolation from broader environmental forces (e.g., dominant
scripts of what counts as a job).
It is within the complex interplay of organizational forces (e.g., vendor rules) and
environmental forces (e.g., perceptions of panhandling) that empowerment and
participation emerges. The very nature of their labor demands that vendors cross the
boundaries of StreetWise, and in doing so they attempt to craft viable employment in
conjunction with others including police officers, store owners, other vendors,
panhandlers, and, most importantly, customers*each of whom shape the extent to
which vendors can economically, socially, and politically participate in community
life. In sum, in order to understand how democracy is enacted (or not) at StreetWise,
we had to look beyond the organization to explore the interrelatedness of internal
and external affairs. In doing so, we were able to witness (and extend) a glimpse of
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
409
the reflexive relationships between intersecting and overlapping communities that
strive to support democratic living and organizing.
StreetWise, as an organization unto itself and by its extension into public life, is
ripe for democratic participation. As we argued earlier, small acts of participation
make a significant difference in daily organizational and democratic life. From
considering the voices of those who might be overlooked to simply saying ‘‘hello’’ to a
vendor to taking the newspaper and reading about the issues therein, the little,
seemingly inconsequential behaviors we mindlessly accomplish on an everyday basis
are, in actuality, very powerful mechanisms by which we participate democratically in
daily life. Crossing the street to avoid a StreetWise vendor reinforces notions that it is
acceptable to ignore undesirable people from the public sphere, that they have
nothing to contribute and that they are not worthy of our concern and care. Small
acts of participation can continue to be important acts in gradually deteriorating the
powerful grip of homelessness. Although difficult to measure in terms of effects and
consequences, we can not deny the power of small acts of resistance within dominant
systems. Indeed, small acts of participation can set in motion and set the stage for
broader systemic changes. Through reconsidering daily interactions and behaviors, a
summation of seemingly diminutive actions can add up to real solutions for the
problem of homelessness. At the very least, minor behavior changes can help us live
better in relation to all people. Even so, we note the oxymoronic character of praising
an organization that exists because some people continue to live in poverty and/or
without homes. Discourse, scholarly or otherwise, risks naturalizing such inequities.
The microstrategies engaged by StreetWise, as powerful as they are, cannot
completely counteract the many forces faced daily by those living in poverty.
Importantly, the present findings from StreetWise expose a critical ontological flaw
in the corpus of research and theory surrounding democracy and organizing. Until
Cheney and Cloud’s (2006) article, a relatively privileged approach to organizational
democracy went unnoticed. Scholarship surrounding democracy and organizing has
been guided largely by the assumption that persons are ready to address higher order
needs such as voice and participation. As shared by Travis, a Board Member, during
one of our initial visits to StreetWise, ‘‘these vendors don’t generally care about
democratically participating in StreetWise. They are worried about where they are
going to sleep and what they are going to eat.’’ This lived reality coupled with the
trajectory of democracy and organizing literature calls us to rethink and reconsider
our disciplinary scholarship. Our findings call into question the tacit assumption that
people are ready, willing, and able to participate in organizational life. Democracy, to
some extent, assumes representation of all voices; yet, we have talked largely about
democracy and organizing with little recognition of who is not heard. Likewise, we
believe this study offers an initial consideration of how socioeconomic conditions,
including poverty and homelessness, (re)shape democratic subjectivities.
StreetWise works to foster democracy through the bridging and bonding of diverse
communities, the creation of social capital, and through the inclusion of vendors in
public space. One of the most important findings of this project illustrated how
StreetWise creates opportunities for vendors to form connections with the ‘‘other.’’
410 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
Vendor after vendor talked about how doing their job brought them into contact
with many different people. Time and again, vendors identified interacting with
others*both customers and noncustomers*as one of the best parts of their job.
StreetWise’s ontology of work disrupts the dominant script of work, and in doing so
bridges communities and populations. Meanwhile, StreetWise affords vendors an
opportunity to participate in community policing meetings, public forums, and with
local businesses. The work of StreetWise creates social capital. By creating networks of
trust and reciprocity, StreetWise fosters democracy in Chicago.
Discourses of what is and is not a ‘‘real job’’ have significant impacts on vendors’
work lives. At the most basic level, working for StreetWise is a step back into the
working world for vendors. For others, it is the last step before falling into a state of
homelessness. Employment at StreetWise is the exchange of a product and service for
money. However, the hegemonic and discursive construction of a ‘‘real job’’ works to
delegitimize and demean the significant effort it takes for vendors to engage in work
that is a first step back or a last step before extreme poverty. Clair (1996) argued how
the colloquialism ‘‘a real job’’ functions to degrade the work of women and those in
educational settings. Based on the findings of this study, the phrase ‘‘a real job’’ also
works to minimize the work of the extremely impoverished.
Practical Applications
In order to fulfill the pragmatist ethos of this project, a discussion of practical
applications is necessary. To begin, we offer three general areas where we believe
StreetWise, and organizations like them, can rethink their communication and
behaviors. Following that, we offer specific recommendations for StreetWise. First,
StreetWise, and organizations with similar missions and values, must acknowledge
the material and symbolic ways in which community is built and reconstituted
among those who are traditionally marginalized. Recognizing material needs (e.g.,
poverty) and creating solutions (e.g., providing jobs) is only one avenue for creating
better communities. Service providers must also recognize the ways in which society
perceives the concepts central and peripheral to that organization’s mission. For
example, certainly StreetWise was aware of public perceptions of homelessness, but
the organization also realized that public perceptions of work impact their vendors in
powerful ways. As a result, StreetWise deemed it necessary to ‘‘flip the scripts’’ of real
work and panhandling for the citizenry of Chicago.
Second, organizations should focus on opportunities for building human
connections. Associated living must be cultivated within and across organizational
boundaries. Internally, organizations that serve marginalized populations need to
actively seek out ways in which the viewpoints and suggestions of the marginalized
can be incorporated into the organizing process. At StreetWise, participation is
constrained by the fact that vendors have fundamental, daily material concerns.
Additionally, they typically are (formally) undereducated and unfamiliar with the
processes of a multimillion dollar organization. However, concerns such as these
should not preclude organizations from considering those they serve as essentially
‘‘Flipping the Scripts’’
411
important in decision making. Organizations should look for opportunities to
harness the lived experiences of those they serve and translate those experiences into
practices beneficial to all. Externally, organizations like StreetWise should encourage
individual and organizational involvement in the community. Attending community
meetings, policing meetings and public forums that concern salient issues should be
paramount. These venues seem invaluable for building connections between the
marginalized and the people who can participate in decreasing that marginalization.
Organizationally, maintaining and fostering relationships with community organizations, other service providers, and similarly oriented organizations will allow for
increasingly free and full participation and idea interplay. Broad social capital
networks should help organizations such as StreetWise flourish.
Third, small acts of participation should be recognized for their ability to cultivate
associated living. On both an individual and organizational level, participating to the
fullest extent possible in daily life has significant impacts on our ability to live better
in the world. Acts ranging from those that are interpersonal: recognition,
conversation, and touching (handshakes, hugs, etc.), to acts of connected
citizenry*participating in capitalist exchange, informed citizenry, speaking and
community involvement*remain the essence of democratic living. Possibly clichéd,
but true, the minutia of daily life, those things we accomplish without necessarily
thinking about them, are the ways in which we relate to one another corporeally,
materially, symbolically, and democratically.
As engaged researchers, we also offered three specific suggestions to the board of
directors for StreetWise. First, we encouraged them to expand the scope of vendor
training. Prior to our project, vendors were given only a few hours of training that
covered the basic rules of vending StreetWise, a brief discussion of where to sell the
paper, and the very moving story of the vendor manager’s history with StreetWise.
During the course of our research, multiple vendors commented that they felt
‘‘thrown to the wolves’’ after the first day of training with little or no ongoing support
or professional development. We urged the board to re-envision vendor training as an
ongoing rather than initial occurrence. We recommended periodic discussions about
how to interact with customers, how to participate in public forums related to
vending, and coping with the stigmas that surround vending, panhandling, and
poverty more generally. StreetWise mobilizes various resources for vendors as they
seek to engage the broader public as citizens, enhance civic discourse, and foster a full
and free interplay of ideas in the public sphere. StreetWise needs to encourage
vendors to attend and participate in community meetings, policing meetings, and
other public forums that concern homelessness, poverty, and/or StreetWise. These
venues seem invaluable for exercising one’s voice and building connections between
vendors and potential customers.
Second, we urged StreetWise to address issues related to customers taking the
newspaper as well as vendors giving the newspapers away willingly when purchased.
As we argued earlier, we see the commodity exchange interaction as an integral part
of StreetWise’s ethos. The paper-for-money exchange is a materialistic one in which
customers can buy and read a quality newspaper. But the exchange is also symbolic in
412 D. R. Novak & L. M. Harter
that problem-free exchanges legitimate StreetWise vendors to the community.
StreetWise should make every effort to encourage vendors to furnish a paper in
each exchange, despite the short-term benefits of retaining the paper for another sale.
Giving over the newspaper in each exchange accomplishes many goals including
generating more revenue for individuals and the organization, legitimizes StreetWise
as a site of commerce, and builds trust between vendors and the public. In addition,
StreetWise should attempt to limit the number of false vendors (one-paper bandits)
as these persons negatively impact the sales of StreetWise as well as the public
perception of the organization.
Finally, we encouraged StreetWise to realize more fully the potential of the paper
itself to reflect and build a more robust and diverse community life. We modeled this
in the articles that we authored for the paper during our time in the field. For
example, in an article about the annual Blues Fest in Chicago, we stressed, ‘‘This
year’s Chicago Blues Festival offers a unique opportunity to enrich community
life*it is free and accessible to the public, brings to life the history of Chicago, and
connects diverse people’’ (Novak & Harter, 2005, p. 2). Such community-based
appeals are inserted easily into the discourses of the newspaper, (re)inscribe and
celebrate local history, and emphasize newspapers as social narrators of community
life.
In closing, we would be remiss to not acknowledge the personal and professional
fulfillment we have derived through this project. Our lives have been enriched by the
vendors, staff, and board members of StreetWise. They have reminded us of the
importance of making academic theory answerable to life*to the consequentiality of
severe poverty and the resiliency of the human spirit.
Notes
[1]
[2]
Identifying the scope of homelessness is fraught with difficulty. Individuals move into and
out of homeless states episodically and sometimes frequently. Whether or not doubled-up
families or individuals in substance abuse centers, shelters, jails, or mental hospitals count as
homeless functions to alter the nature of the problem and its enumeration. Thus, delineating
the scope of the problem has proven difficult. Formal attempts to quantify the number of
people without homes range from 250,000 to roughly 2 million depending on the source of
information (see Blasi, 1990; Dail, 2001).
When referencing the organization, the text ‘‘StreetWise’’ appears (sans italics). When
referencing the newspaper, ‘‘StreetWise’’ appears (italics). If instances reference both the
organization and the newspaper, text appears sans italics.
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