La mobilisation des personnes en situation de pauvreté et d'exclusion à travers des organismes communautaires québécois
This thesis studied the phenomenon of the mobilization of people living in poverty and social exclusion within an existing collective actor and throughout the privileged collective spaces that community organizations comprise. It has three chapters. The first discusses the field of study and the research problem, the second describes the research methodology and the third presents the research results, their analysis and their interpretation. A general discussion of the study’s findings is included in the conclusion. The thesis is unique in its global consideration of the phenomenon of mobilization, examined within the specific context of poverty and social exclusion conceived as structural oppressions as well as from an empowerment perspective. Considering that mobilization results from the amalgamation of a collective actor with a collective action, this thesis brings forth a new understanding of the space in which a mobilization process develops. Indeed, it proposes an innovative distinction between a collective actor, a relatively vague and diffuse entity, and a community organization as such, an entity with well defined borders, that provides a privileged collective space for the development of mobilization. This distinction, in turn, allows for a better grasp of the processes involved and of the role that community organizations can play within them. Based on a thorough and considerably detailed examination of the mobilization process that individuals go through from their first contact with a community organisation to their engagement within an existing collective actor, this research then proposes a new theoretical construct for this current but seldom explored reality and suggests the most adequate avenues for the accompaniment of such processes. Focused on the individual aspects of mobilization and without losing sight of its intrinsically collective character, this thesis reinforces even more explicitly the necessary integration of personal and collective phenomena in the investigation of social problems, and sheds light on the various effects that occur on the individual level, especially regarding the restoration of one’s standing as a social actor. On top of clearly illustrating the links between the process of mobilization and that of individual and collective empowerment, this thesis emphasizes the principal community practices that contribute to them and underscores the main challenges and contradictions associated with them. In this way, it seeks to contribute to the renewal of social and community practices.
Mobilization Poverty Empowerment Empowerment Exclusion Exclusion Organisation Organizing Community Oppression Oppression