Paper to be given at III European Conference on Community Psychology; September 2000; Bergen, Norway.
Mark Burton, Manchester Learning Disability PartnershipThe concept of the 'edge effect' is offered as an organising concept in community psychology. The origins of the concept in environmental ecology will be explored. The application of the concept to problem contexts in community psychology is explored, with a particular focus on resource utilisation.
Introduction
The edge effect
Application to community psychology
Strategies for increasing edge
Creation and maximisation of edge
Stewardship of the edge
Conclusion
References
Community psychologists typically work with complex social contexts.
These might be called communities, groups, cultures, organisations,
or something else. Often it is necessary to engage simultaneously
with more than one of these entities. In these circumstances it
is important that resources are focused effectively, if the community
psychology practice is going to add any value to what might happen
anyway in these settings. To do this organising concepts are crucial.
Community Psychology does have its share of organising concepts,
for example:
· Person-in-context
· Psychological sense of community
· Social Support
· Power and empowerment
· Prevention
· Social system
... but are we alone in finding community psychology conceptually
rather impoverished? What concepts there are seem to be rather
general, catch all ideas, with little to define their appropriate
scope of application in description, explanation, or action. Perhaps
the problem is psychology itself - the rejection of much of the
apparatus of individual psychology leaves community psychology
rather bereft of theoretical content. Elsewhere we have argued
for the use of concepts from non psychological spheres such as
social movement theory, and the analysis of ideological struggle
(Burton, 2000; Burton and Kagan, 1996; Kagan and Burton, 1995,
Lewis, Kagan and Burton, 1995). Here we want to suggest the usefulness
of a concept that relates to the use of resources in community
contexts and in the practice of community psychology.
This is the 'edge effect', a concept from the field of ecology.
As Levine and Perkins note (1997: 111-2)
"Ecology" is a fundamental metaphor or analogy in community psychology, embodying both the structure of a scientific paradigm and a specific set of values.
They go on,
We assume that there are enough similarities between the problems that concern community psychologists and those studied by biological ecologists that we may use the concepts to illuminate problems of interest to us
In the same spirit, we will use this specific ecological concept because it seems to fit reasonably well with both observations that we have made and problems that we have encountered.
Ecologists define distinct biological communities, characterised
by a set of populations living in a particular area or habitat.
Such a community will be organised: it has characteristics in
addition to its component individuals and populations, and these
elements interact in an organised way, for example through metabolic
flows and transformations (e.g. Odum, 1971: 14). Examples of such
communities include forests, grasslands, or ponds.
The transition or edge between two or more communities is known
as the 'ecotone'. Examples are the transition area between forest
and grassland, or the tidal area of a river estuary. The ecotone
may have a considerable size, but will not be larger than the
adjoining communities.
The ecotonal community will contain many of the organisms found
in each of the overlapping communities, and in addition may contain
organisms that are characteristic of, or even restricted to the
ecotone. Often both the number of species, and the population
density of some, are greater than in the 'pure' communities. Furthermore,
the junction between communities often acts as a kind of net or
sieve for resources such as humus and seeds - they accumulate
at the boundary. This enrichment in terms of variety and density
at the join between communities is known as the 'edge effect'.
One of the most important general types is the forest edge, which
is characterised, for example by many of the fruit and nut species
that have been selected for human cultivation.
Human settlements and methods of food production, particularly
traditional methods, create or increase the extent of edge. In
applied ecology - for example in the design of sustainable settlements
and cultivation systems, the edge effect has sometimes employed.
Examples of ecologically designed and traditional patterns that
utilise the edge effect include:-
· alley cropping, where trees are combined with agricultural
crops to provide protection and through pruning a source of mulch;
· chinampas, a system of canals and banks in parallel
allowing fish production, the fertilisation of land crops with
waterweed and silt, the moderation of temperature, and irrigation;
· integrated fish and livestock systems, e.g. the Chinese
carp / duck system;
· town planning initiatives such as garden suburbs
and 'city/country fingers'.
(see Alexander et al., 1977; Altieri et al., 1987; Mollison, 1988,
1991). All of these models increase the edge between communities
through strategies such as placement, overlapping, tessellation
(the use of wavy or convoluted boundaries to increase the extent
of the edge), and the use of narrow strips.
Just as it is possible, through the design of sustainable systems
of ecological development, to increase the relative contribution
of the 'edge' to each adjoining community, so it is possible to
create a larger edge effect in organisational and community development
and thereby maximise its benefit to the system as a whole.
We need to be clear that we are using 'edge' here as a metaphor.
An edge effect in a natural ecological system isn't necessarily
the same thing as an edge effect in a human community system -
the mechanisms, the transactions, and the mediations will be different.
At any rate we remain agnostic about the existence or not of some
superordinate systemic principles that underlie both the ecological
edge effect and the analogous phenomenon in community and organisational
development.
Here, however, is our application of the idea. Quite often community
psychological projects involve working across boundaries. Examples
from our work include initiatives spanning the one or more of
the following boundaries;
· University and marginal housing estates,
· Health and social welfare services,
· Governmental and non-governmental organisations,
· Schools and business,
· Families and social welfare bureaucracies,
· The criminal justice system and alienated young people.
We have used the notion of the 'edge effect' to describe the phenomenon
of enrichment in some of these alliances and confrontations.
When edge is actually created we notice an increase in energy,
excitement and commitment.
What characterises all of these contexts (whether edge is significantly
created or not) is the problem of spanning social entities with
greatly differing modes of operation, power structures, cultures,
physical environments, and ideologies. Not only is it necessary
to know something about how to navigate in at least two contexts,
but the need to do so increases the demand on resources, of both
the participating sectors, and the community psychologists themselves.
We can identify three types of strategies for working across such
boundaries:
| Strategy | Method | Results | Schematic example |
| Working within boundaries | Development and change targeted at each community separately. | Energy inefficient and unlikely to lead to co-ordinated change in the common domain. |
|
| Working at the interface | Attempts to bridge communities. | Energy intensive: some likelihood of co-ordinated change, but effort is on the margins of each community area of concern, so sustain ability is questionable. | |
| Maximising the 'edge: | Using natural resources - getting people from different communities to work together and utilise the expertise of each. | Energy efficient and high likelihood of leading to sustainable and co-ordinated change. | |
These are of course 'ideal types': in reality almost any piece of work will involve some elements of each strategy. However, the comparison among these abstracted strategies is illuminative. It suggests that in working to increase the edge and working with the edge, a project will be most likely to maximise the amount and variety of resources available to it. It is also more likely to preserve the best features of adjoining systems and to enhance the likelihood that developments will be sustainable ones.
How might a productive inter-community edge be increased? We suggest the following strategies, which divide into strategies for creating and maximising edge, and strategies for the careful stewardship of the edge.
The following strategies have in common the maximisation of points
of contact between distinct communities and organisations.
Location and co-location of projects, teams, events (e.g.
a worker funded by a social welfare organisation to recruit volunteers
is located in a community education centre).
Formation of inter-organisations with membership from more
than one sector (e.g. an inter-generational initiative has a steering
group drawing from education, local government, community, and
local business organisations).
Creation of new settings (temporary or long-standing) that
bring elements together - (e.g. community festivals that bring
diverse sections of a community together - members of the public
have fun in each others' company, while those who set up the event
learn to work together).
Conduct of activity in other locations, that is in territory
associated with another sector (e.g. a health promotion programme
operates in a shopping centre rather than from a clinic base).
Creation of multiple points of contact (tessellation) (e.g.
a University department sends students to work on a variety of
community projects in a particular community, and invites community
members to hear students presenting their projects. Meanwhile
staff members establish a mentoring programme to strengthen community
leadership skills with community activists, and join demonstrations
against local government policy).
Whilst the 'edge' is usually enriched by the adjoining communities,
with bad stewardship it can become barren and impoverished, supporting
little of environmental benefit. Working at the 'edge' therefore
has responsibilities to preserve the very best of all adjoining
communities and this may present further challenges for a project
in the future. The following strategies are possible ways of protecting
and supporting the edge community.
Recognise 'edge species' and encourage them. (e.g. a community
activist develops skills and credibility in mediating between
her ethnic minority community and the police. She is careful to
maintain her profile in her base community, continuing to live
and socialise there, and she shares her skills with members of
what started her support group).
Encourage fairness in resource exploitation (e.g. a group
of mental health service survivors are paid as consultants to
a project on service planning).
Pool resources between sectors (e.g. a local government
department provides office accommodation for a community initiated
project on isolated older people).
Respect the uniqueness of each community, or else the edge
can become a site of unproductive conflict.
The concept of the edge effect has been offered as an analogy from biological ecology and ecologically based design. It appears to have a relevance to community psychology for understanding and acting in problem contexts that involve more than one distinct community, organisation, or other social entity. Different ways of focusing resources in cross boundary contexts were reviewed, with strategies of creating and maximising edge advocated. Finally, it was noted that edge settings will not deliver benefits in some automatic way, but will require both safeguarding and developing through effective and responsible stewardship.
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